• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.296-301
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanism of Hexane extract of Fructus Ligustri Lucidi (HFLL)-induced regulation of melanogenesis. An apparent down-regulatory effect of tyrosinase activity was observed when B16F10 cells were incubated with HFLL. Interestingly, HFLL did not inhibit the catalytic activity of cell-free tyrosinase from B16F10 cells, whereas kojic acid directly inhibited tyrosinase activity. Regarding protein levels of melanogenic enzymes, the amounts of tyrosinase and tyrosinase-related protein 1 (TRP-1) were decreased by HFLL, while the amount of tyrosinase-related protein 2 (TRP-2) slightly was reduced after incubation with HFLL. Treatment with HFLL was found to down-regulate microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF). These results suggest that HFLL is an effective inhibitor of pigmentation caused by down regulation via MITF, tyrosinase, and TRP-1 expressions.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.57-66
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• 2010

Programmed cell death systems are important for an active type of cell deaths. Among them, a type of programmed cell death, autophagy is activated in cancer cells in response to multiple stresses and has been demonstrated to promote tumor cell survival and drug resistance. Thus, in the area of cancer, over the time frame form around the 1940s to date, of the 155 small molecules, 73% are other than "synthetic", with 47% actually being either "natural products" or "directly derived therefrom". Autophagy has multiple physiological functions in multicellular organisms, including protein degradation and organelle turnover. Genes and proteins that constitute the basic machinery of the autophagic process were first identified in the yeast system and some of their mammalian orthologues have been characterized as well. Numerous oncogenes, including Akt1, Bcl-2, NF1, PDPK1, class I PI3K, PTEN, and Ras and oncosuppressors, inculuding Bec-1, Bif-1, DAPK-1, p53 and UVRAG suppress or promote the autophagy pathway. Regulation of autophagy in tumors is governed by similar principles of the normal cells, only in a much more complicated manner, given the frequently observed abnormal PI3K activation in cancer and the multitude of interactions between the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway and other cell signaling cascades, often also deregulated in tumor cells. Autophagy induction by some anticancer agents underlines the potential utility of its induction as a new cancer treatment modality of development for natural medicines.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.519-525
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• 2009

A bacterial strain (Strain N-08) capable of extracellularly producing high level of non-reducing oligosaccharide (NR-OS) isolated from soil. The strain was identified phylogenetically by 16S rDNA sequence analysis and found to be very close to Arthrobacter crystallopoietes. The high production of NR-OS was observed in the basal culture medium containing maltose as a sole carbon source. The NR-OS in culture supernatant was purified by glucoamylase treatment and Dowex-1 (OH.) ion exchange chromatography and its structure was characterized. This oligosaccharide consisted of only glucose. Methylation analysis indicated that this fraction was composed mainly of non-reducing terminal glucopyranoside. Matrixassisted laser-induced/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS)/MS analyses suggested that this oligosaccharide comprised non-reducing disaccharide unit with 1,1-glucosidic linkage. When this disaccharide was analyzed by $^1H$-NMR and $^{13}C$-NMR, it gave the same signals with $\alpha$-D-glucopyranosyl-(1,1)-$\alpha$-Dglucopyranoside. These results indicated that the NR-OS produced by A. crystallopoietes N-08 was ${\alpha}1$,${\alpha}1$-trehalose. This is the first report of the trehalose which can be produced directly from maltose by A. crystallopoietes N-08.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2012

Drug-induced parkinsonism has been associated with an increased risk for Parkinson's disease. Antipsychotic drugs have long been known to cause parkinsonian symptoms. However, it remains unclear whether antipsychotics can directly damage the nigrostriatal pathway. In the present study, we investigated the toxicity mechanism of two typical antipsychotics, perphenazine and trifluoperazine, in a human dopaminergic cell line, SH-SY5Y. Perphenazine and trifluoperazine induced mitochondrial damage as evidenced by fragmentation of mitochondria, activation of Bax, cytochrome c release and a decrease in cellular ATP level. In addition, activation of caspase-3 and apoptotic nuclei were observed following the drug treatment. However, pan-caspase inhibitor did not suppress the cell death induced by the antipsychotics, suggesting that the initiated apoptosis was possibly shifted to necrosis upon caspase inhibition. Damaged mitochondria may have induced oxidative stress since the drug-induced cell death was partially suppressed by an antioxidant. Taken together, our results suggest that perphenazine and trifluoperazine can induce apoptotic cell death in a dopaminergic cell line via mitochondrial damage accompanied by oxidative stress.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.2431-2441
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• 2020

Currently, the pin-by-pin homogenized solvers are a very active research field as they can, unlike the nodal codes, directly predict the local power, while requiring significantly less computational resources than the heterogeneous transport codes. This paper presents a recently developed pin-by-pin diffusion/SP3 solver Tortin, its spatial discretization method and the reflector treatment. Regarding the spatial discretization, it was observed that the finite difference method applied on pin-cell size mesh does not properly capture the big flux change between MOX and uranium fuel, while the nodal expansion method is more accurate but too slow. If the finite difference method is used with a finer mesh in the outer two pin rows of the fuel assembly, it increases the required computation time by only 50%, but decreases the pin power errors below 1% with respect to lattice code reference solutions. The paper further describes the coupling of Tortin with a microscopic depletion solver. Several verification tests show that the SP3 pin-by-pin solver can reproduce the heterogeneous transport solvers results with very good accuracy, even for fuel cycle depletion of very heterogeneous core employing MOX fuel or inserted control rods, while being two orders of magnitude faster.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.16-22
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• 2017

This paper investigates fretting wear damage in aerospace, biomedical, and nuclear components. Experimental parameters are identified that affect fretting wear damage. The parameters observed in industries are directly compared. The magnitudes of frequency, relative displacement, and normal force are found to differ depending on the contacting components where fretting wear occurs. In addition, recent solutions to minimize fretting wear damage are reviewed. The solutions include depositing of a low-friction coating, surface treatment, selection of substrate material, and optimal design of contact geometries. This comparative study suggests useful methods and solutions for analyzing fretting wear damage and for designing tribo-components.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.675-681
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• 2015

β amyloid protein (Aβ) plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and possibly in Aβ-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress. Aβ can directly cause reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Overproduction of ROS is considered to be involved in the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration of AD. Here, we investigated 9 kinds of ramie (Boehmeria nivea, (L.) Gaud., BN; hereafter denoted as BN) for their protective action against oxidative stress in a cellular system using C6 glial cells. We observed loss of cell viability and high levels of ROS generation after treatment with hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and Aβ_25-35. However, treatments with BN extracts led to an increase in cell viability and decrease in ROS production induced by H2O2 and Aβ25-35. In particular, the extracts of BN-01 (seobang variety from Seocheon) and BN-09 (local variety from Yeonggwang) showed excellent anti-oxidative properties. This indicates that BN extracts could prevent neurodegeneration by reducing oxidative stress in cells.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.8 no.9
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• pp.1391-1397
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• 2013

As Korea is expected to enter an aging society in near future, the number of patients who need a long-term prescription is expected to increase as well. In particular, Korea shows the highest in both the incident rate and the death rate among OECD member nations. The current situation requires more strict monitoring and management for patients' taking medicine, there are a few practical problems such as personnel expenses. In order to realize the efficient management of medicine administration, this paper proposes a smart pillbox that is developed based on IT technologies. Through the experiments in which actual patients participate, it is proved that the smart pillbox is beneficial to the patients taking medicine.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.249-254
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• 2021

The study of the impact of weather on viral respiratory infections enables the assignment of causality to disease outbreaks caused by climatic factors. A better understanding of the seasonal distribution of viruses may facilitate the development of potential treatment approaches and effective preventive strategies for respiratory viral infections. We analyzed the incidence of human mastadenovirus infection using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction in 9,010 test samples obtained from Cheonan, South Korea, and simultaneously collected the weather data from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2018. We used the data collected on the infection frequency to detect seasonal patterns of human mastadenovirus prevalence, which were directly compared with local weather data obtained over the same period. Descriptive statistical analysis, frequency analysis, t-test, and binomial logistic regression analysis were performed to examine the relationship between weather, particulate matter, and human mastadenovirus infections. Patients under 10 years of age showed the highest mastadenovirus infection rates (89.78%) at an average monthly temperature of 18.2℃. Moreover, we observed a negative correlation between human mastadenovirus infection and temperature, wind chill, and air pressure. The obtained results indicate that climatic factors affect the rate of human mastadenovirus infection. Therefore, it may be possible to predict the instance when preventive strategies would yield the most effective results.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.135-140
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• 1992

The partitioning of recombinant human interleukin-2(rhII-2) in PEG 8000-dextran 38800 aqueous two-phase system has been investigated using three different sources of rhIL-2. In the case of pure rhIL-2, the solubility in a PEG-dextran two-phase system was low and most of rhIL-2 was partitioned into the bottom phase. For the recovery of rhIL-2 from insoluble protein aggregates, the inclusion bodies of recombinant E. coli were solubilized by the treatment with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The addition of SDS significantly enhanced not only the solubility of rhIL-2 but also the partitioning of rhIL-2 to the top phase. When the ratio of SDS to rhIL-2 was 2.0, the partition coefficient(K) and the recovery yield(Y) at the top phase were 4.5 and 88%, respectively, at pH 6.8. In order to reduce the recovery steps further, SDS was directly added to the intact recombinant E. coli cells and then partitioned into the PEG/dextran aqueous two-phase system. The observed partition coefficient ($K{\cong{3.0$) and recovery yield ($Y{\geq}80%$ )of this method were comparable to the rhIL-2 recovery from insoluble protein aggregates. The results obtained in this work indicate that PEG-dextran two-phase partitioning might provide a simple way for the recovery and partial purification of recombinant proteins which are produced as inclusion bodies.