• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.163-170
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• 2016

Antioxidant activity and inhibitory effect on oxidative DNA damage of ethyl acetate fractions extracted from Cone of Red Pine (Pinus densiflora) were investigated to find utilization of Cone, by-product of Red Pine, thrown out after berry shatter, as a new natural plant resource. Cone from P. densiflora was extracted with methanol (MeOH) and separated to petroleum ether, ethyl acetate and water fraction. Among them, ethyl acetate fraction was used. The antioxidant activity was conducted by the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) radical, 2, 2'-Azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6 sulfonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS) radical scavenging assay, Fe²⁺ chelating assay and reducing power assay. The inhibitory effect on oxidative DNA damage was determined by DNA cleavage assay using φX-174 RF I plasmid. The results of DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activity at 200 ㎍/㎖ of extracts were 86.50% and 95.80% respectively, which were similar figures compared with L-ascorbic acid as control. Fe²⁺ chelating activity was 77.96% and reducing power was 0.77 at 200 ㎍/㎖. Total phenolic component was 27.29±0.3 ㎎/g and Vitamin C content was 1.84±0.1 ㎎/g. Also ethyl acetate fraction from Cone has inhibitory effect, using φX-174 RF I plasmid on DNA cleavage assay. In conclusion, Cone, by-product of P. densiflora, showed high antioxidant activity and inhibitory effect on oxidative DNA damage. Therefore this study suggests Cone, useless by-product, can be developed as a new natural plant resource with lots of utilization such as an effective antioxidant, natural medicine, food, cosmetics and so on.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.1023-1032
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• 2009

Despite the fact that many cancer cells are sensitive to TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL)-induced apoptosis, some cancer cells show either partial or complete resistance to TRAIL. Human leukemic K562 and CEM cells also show resistance to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. Novel molecular target and treatment strategies are required to overcome TRAIL resistance of human leukemia cells. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to target key anti-apoptotic molecules deciding TRAIL resistance for sensitization of TRAIL-resistant K562 and CEM cells, and to evaluate the effect of quercetin as a TRAIL sensitizer on these TRAIL-resistant cells. We found that quercetin acted in synergy with TRAIL to enhance TRAIL-induced apoptosis in K562 cells by inhibition of the DNA-PK/Akt signaling pathway, which leads to enhancement of TRAIL-mediated activation of caspases and concurrent cleavage of PARP and up-regulation of Bax. The findings suggest that the DNA-PK/Akt signaling pathway plays an essential role in regulating cells to escape from TRAIL-induced apoptosis, and quercetin could act in synergy with TRAIL to increase apoptosis by inhibition of the DNA-PK/Akt signaling pathway, which overcomes TRAIL-resistance of K562 and CEM cells. This study suggests that DNA-PK might interfere with TRAIL-induced apoptosis in human leukemic cells through activation of the Akt signaling pathway.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 1988

The esolation and characterization of a new type II restriction endounclease, BamI, from Bacellus macerans ATCC 8244 were described. BmaI endonuclease was partially purified by procedures of ammonium sulfate fractionation, DEAE-cellulose and phosphocellulose chromatographies. This enzume recognized one site on pBR322 DNA, two sites on Bluescribe DNA, three sites on $\lambda$DNA and no site on SV 40 DNA. The same cleavage patterns for vareius DNAs as PvuI indicated that BamI is an isoschisomer of PvuI whose recognition sequence is 5'-CGATCG-3'. The optimal pH for the BmaI endonuclease activity was about 7.0 and optimal NaCl concentration was about 100mM. Manganese ion could partially replace magnesium as a cofactor, but calcium could not at all.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.621-629
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• 2000

Camptothecin (CPT) is an antitumor alkaloid that has been isolated from the Chinese tree, Camptotheca acuminata. The cytotoxicity of CPT has been correlated to its inhibition of DNA topoisomerase (Topo) I by stabilizing drug-enzyme-DNA “cleavable complex" resulting in DNA single-strand breaks and DNA-protein crosslinks. This studies were designed to elucidate whether CPT regulates Topo I mediated by CPT in DNAs containing c-myc protooncogene. We have conducted experiments on Topo I purification, pUC-MYC I cloning and Topo I assay using electrophoresis, quantitative RT-PCR and Northern blotting techniques. CPT ingibited the relaxation activity of Topo I in pUC19 DNA at various concentrations (1-1000 $\mu$M), while it enhanced the cleavage of Topo I in the pUC-MYC I by forming a cleavable complex at relatively high concentrations (100-1000 $\mu$M). In HL-60 cells treated with CPT, the expression of c-myc gene was decreased over that in the control group with no changes in the expression of Topo I mRNA. Our results suggest that Topo I is the target of CPT cytotoxicity but it does not affect Topo I extression, and the suppression of c-myc mRNA expression by CPT is due to c-myc damage resulted from formation of a cleavable complex with CPT. CPT.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.422-427
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• 2003

Streptomyces setonii (ATCC 39116) is a Gram-positive thermophilic soil actinomycetes capable of degrading single aromatic compounds including phenol and benzoate via ortho-cleavage pathway. we isolated approximately 6.3-kb S. setonii DNA fragment containing a thermophilic catechol 1,2-dioxygenase(C12O) gene. Here we further revealed that the 6.3-kb S. setonii DNA fragment was organized into two putative divergently-transcribed clusters with 6 complete and one incomplete open reading frames (ORFs). The first cluster with 3 ORFs showed significant homologies to previously known benA, benB, and benC, implying a part of benzoate catabolic operon. The second cluster revealed an ortho-cleavage catechol catabolic operon with three translationally-coupled ORFs (catR, catB, catA). Each of these individually-cloned ORFs was expressed in E. coli and identified as a distinct protein band with a theoretical molecular weight in SDS-PAGE. The expression of the cloned S. setonii catechol operon was induced in a heterologous S. lividans by specific single aromatic compounds including catechol, phenol, and 4-chlorophenol. The simitar induction pattern was also observed using a luciferase gene-fused reporter system, implying that S. setonii employs an inducer-specific regulatory mechanism for aromatic compound metabolism.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.409-414
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• 2007

Antimicrobial and antioxidative effects of 14 different herbal flower extracts on skin microorganisms and oxidation were tested in this research. Herbal flower extracts were prepared with 70% ethanol. Among the herbal flower extracts, roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) flower extract showed the highest antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus epidermidis as determined by a paper disc method. The seventy % ethanol extract of roselle flower was fractionated by sequential hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol, and water fractionation. The growth of S. epidermidis, Streptomyces collinus, Streptomyces coeruleoprunus, Salmonella enteritidis, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Malassezia pachydermatis was most efficiently inhibited by ethyl acetate fraction of roselle flower extract as determined by a paper disc method and growth inhibition curves. In addition, the ethyl acetate fraction, water fraction and butanol fraction showed free radical scavenging and DNA cleavage inhibition activities. These results demonstrate that roselle flowers hold antimicrobial and antioxidative activities against skin microorganisms and oxidants.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.113-118
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• 2009

Cell death induced by menadione (vitamin K-3,2-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone) has been investigated in human promyelocytic leukemia HL-60 cells. Menadione was found to induce both apoptosis and necrosis in HL-60 cells. Low concentration ($1{\sim}$50 ${\mu}$M) of menadione induced apoptotic cell death, which was demonstrated by typical DNA ladder patterns on agarose gel electrophoresis and flow cytometry analysis. In contrast, a high concentration of menadione (100 ${\mu}$M) induced necrotic cell death, which was demonstrated by DNA smear pattern in agarose gel electrophoresis. Necrotic cell death was accompanied with a great reduction of cell viability. Menadione activated caspase-3, as evidenced by both increased protease activity and proteolytic cleavage of 116 kDa poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) into 85 kDa cleavage product. Caspase-3 activity was maximum at 50 ${\mu}$M of menadione, and very low at 100 ${\mu}$M of menadione. Taken together, our results showed that menadione induced mixed types of cell death, apoptosis at low concentrations and necrosis at high concentrations in HL-60 cells.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.33-40
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• 2004

Objective : This study investigated the apoptotic effect and its mechanism of Radix Aconiti (RA) extract and aconitine, which is a major constituent of RA, in HepG2 human hepatoma cells. Methods : We used MTT and DNA fragmentation assay to investigate cell viability and apoptotic effect on RA extract-treated HepG2 cells. In addition, to clarify the mechanism of RA extract-induced apoptosis, we applied caspase-3 enzyme activity assay and Western blotting method on poly-(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) protein expression. Results : Treatment with RA extract resulted in the decrease of cell viability, and this effect was caused from apoptosis as confirmed by discontinuous fragmentation of DNA in HepG2 cells, but aconitine did not. Also, RA extract-treated HepG2 cells induced the activation of caspase-3 enzyme activity in time- and dose-dependent manners, which was accompanied by the cleavage of 116 kD PARP to 85 kD product. Conclusions : These results suggest that the apoptotic effects of RA extract on HepG2 cells could not be explained by aconitine. Additionally, RA extract induced apoptosis in hepatoma cells through caspase-3 activation and subsequent PARP cleavage.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.111-116
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• 2005

Resveratrol (3,4',5-trihydroxy-trans-stilbene), a naturally occuring polyphenol compound which present in the skin of grapes and red wine has been considered to posses chemopreventive and antioxidant properties. However, little is known about the cellular actions by which resveratrol mediates its therapeutic effects. In this study, the effect of resveratrol on cell proliferation and induction of apoptosis in human osteogenic sarcoma (HOS) cells was investigated. $IC_{50}$ value was determined to be approximately $6.0{\mu}g/ml$. Chromosomal DNA framgmentation analysis showed the appearance degraded DNA in time-and dose-dependent manner upon treatment of resveratrol. In order to observe the molecular mechanism involved in resveratrol-induced apoptosis, Western blot analysis was performed. We observed the decrease in the level of procaspase-3, the zymogen form of active caspase-3 in resveratrol-treated cells. This result implies that caspase-3 is activated upon treatment of resveratrol. The activation of caspase-3 was confirmed by the cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. Taken together, our data demonstrate that resveratrol has anti-proliferative effect on HOS cells and induced apoptosis through activation of caspase-3 and PARP cleavage.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.786-792
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• 2009

A kernel in support vector machines can be described as a similarity measure between data, and this measure is used to find an optimal hyperplane that classifies patterns. It is therefore important to effectively incorporate the characteristics of data into the similarity measure. To find an optimal similarity between amino acid sequences, we propose a real exponent exponential form of the two metrices, which are derived from the evolutionary relationships of amino acids and the hydrophobicity of amino acids. We prove that the proposed metric satisfies the conditions to be a metric, and we find a relation between the proposed metric and the metrics in the string kernels which are widely used for the processing of amino acid sequences and DNA sequences. In the prediction experiments on the cleavage site of the signal peptide, the optimal metric can be found in the proposed metrics.