• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
• /
• v.22 no.7
• /
• pp.15.1-15.8
• /
• 2019

Corexit 9500 is a dispersant commercially available in Nigeria that is used to change the inherent chemical and physical properties of oil, thereby changing the oil's transport and fate with potential effects on the environment. The aim of this study was to assess the biochemical (enzymes and electrolyte) toxicity of Corexit 9500 dispersant on the gills, liver and kidney of juveniles of Clarias gariepinus after exposure for 21 days. One hundred sixty fish were used without gender consideration. Range-finding tests were conducted over a 96-h period after acclimatisation of the test organisms in the laboratory. The test organisms (10/treatment) were exposed to Corexit 9500 in the following concentrations-0.00, 0.0125, 0.025 and 0.05 ml/l in triplicate. Twenty-one days later, fish was dissected. 0.5 g from each of the following organs-gills, liver and kidney tissues-was removed, homogenised and tested for enzymes [superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP)], urea, creatinine and electrolytes (sodium ($Na^+$), potassium ($K^+$), chloride ($Cl^-$), bicarbonate ($HCO_3{^-}$)) following standard methods. In the gills, SOD and ALT to AST ratio were significantly lower than in control while the creatinine was significantly higher in the toxicant. In the kidney, creatinine was significantly higher in fish exposed to the toxicant. In the liver, ALP increased in the toxicant while urea was decreased. The mean electrolyte concentrations ($Na^+$, $K^+$, $Cl^-$ and $HCO_3{^-}$) increased significantly in the concentration of the toxicant (P < 0.05). The alterations observed in the activities of these electrolytes and enzymes indicated that Corexit 9500 interfered with transamination and metabolic functions of the fish.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.130-139
• /
• 2019

This study investigates the future world of The Perfect Society (1967), science fiction written by Yunsung Moon that was a very rare science fiction publication in the 1960s. In The Perfect society, the main character Woo Sungoo, who was chosen to survive in a sleeping capsule as a representative of $20^{th}-century$ human beings, wakes in the $22^{nd}$ century where only women remain. He experiences this female utopia and finds that this world still contains as much abnormal antipathy to the others and absolute autocracy as the 20th-century world he remembers even though the future people succeed in overcoming the past problems like famine and pollution. The author warns that science alone without humanistic insight in a unity-oriented society cannot settle the human's fate; rather, it only changes the aspects of human conflict.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.34 no.6
• /
• pp.678-687
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study was to understand the unique and complicated feature of urban stream receiving various inflows. The Yangjae stream, the second tier of the Han River, runs through the southern parts of Seoul, Korea and its middle part flows on the boundary of Seoul where land use is actively changing. Stream flow was greatly influenced by rainfall. Other than rainfall events, effluent discharge from wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) comprised 51 % of stream flux. As a result, majority ions water chemistry was changed at the receiving zone of the discharged effluent (Zone A). Its contribution increased to 69.9 % at the second sampling period with low stream flow. In the middle zone, inflows from the northern area, recently developed to a residential district showed low $NO_3-N$ and high $HCO_3$, Ca, $SO_4$, and $SiO_2$ indicating the effects of groundwater and concrete. One inflow (T-8), with extremely high Na and Cl, median $SiO_2$, was assessed to have anthropogenic influence, however its contribution to main stream was under 1 %. Road construction near Y-13 also affected water chemistry leading to the highest Na and Cl concentration. These hydro chemical changes can be critically used to evaluate the changes in water budget and fate of chemicals in a peri-urban watershed occasioned by human activities on the Yangjae.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.257-273
• /
• 2019

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the most widely grown and economically important vegetable crops in the world. Tomato chlorosis virus (ToCV) is one of the recently emerged viruses of tomato distributed worldwide. ToCV-tomato interaction was investigated at the molecular level for determining changes in the expression of tomato genes in response to ToCV infection in this study. A cDNA library enriched with genes induced in response to ToCV infection were constructed and 240 cDNAs were sequenced from this library. The macroarray analysis of 108 cDNAs revealed that the expression of 92 non-redundant tomato genes was induced by 1.5-fold or greater in response to ToCV infection. The majority of ToCV-induced genes identified in this study were associated with a variety of cellular functions including transcription, defense and defense signaling, metabolism, energy, transport facilitation, protein synthesis and fate and cellular biogenesis. Twenty ToCV-induced genes from different functional groups were selected and induction of 19 of these genes in response to ToCV infection was validated by RT-qPCR assay. Finally, the expression of 6 selected genes was analyzed in different stages of ToCV infection from 0 to 45 dpi. While the expression of three of these genes was only induced by ToCV infection, others were induced both by ToCV infection and wounding. The result showed that ToCV induced the basic defense response and activated the defense signaling in tomato plants at different stages of the infection. Functions of these defense related genes and their potential roles in disease development and resistance to ToCV are also discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
• /
• 2015.05a
• /
• pp.53-53
• /
• 2015

Basin-scale motions in a stratified lake rely on interactions of spatially and temporally varying wind force, bathymetry, density variation, and earth's rotation. These motions provide a major driving force for vertical and horizontal mixing of inorganic and organic materials, dissolved oxygen, storm water and floating debris in stratified lakes. In Lake Tahoe, located between California and Nevada, USA, basin-scale circulations are obviously important because they are directly associated with the fate of the suspended particulate materials that degrade the clarity of the lake. A three-dimensional hydrodynamic model, ELCOM, was applied to Lake Tahoe to investigate the underlying mechanisms that determine the characteristics of basin-scale circulations. Numerical experiments were designed to examine the relative effects of various mechanisms responsible for the horizontal circulations for two different seasons, summer and winter. The unique double gyre, a cyclonic northern gyre and an anti-cyclonic southern gyre, occurred during the winter cooling season when wind stress curl, stratification, and Coriolis effect were all incorporated. The horizontal structure of the upwelling and downwelling formed due to basin-scale internal waves found to be closely related to the rotating direction of each gyre. In the summer, the spatially varying wind field and the Coriolis effect caused a dominant anti-cyclonic gyre to develop in the center of the lake. In the winter, a significant wind event excited internal waves, and a persistent (2 week long) cyclonic gyre formed near the upwelling zone. Mechanism of the persistent cyclonic gyre is explained as a geostrophic circulation ensued by balancing of the baroclinc pressure gradient (or baroclinic instability) and Coriolis effect. Topographic effect, examined by simulating a flat bathymetry with constant depth of 300m, was found to be significant during the winter cooling season but not as significant as the wind curl and baroclinic effects.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.44 no.1
• /
• pp.1-12
• /
• 2021

The nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) is the master transcriptional regulator in adipogenesis. PPARγ forms a heterodimer with another nuclear receptor, retinoid X receptor (RXR), to form an active transcriptional complex, and their transcriptional activity is tightly regulated by the association with either coactivators or corepressors. In this study, we identified T-cell death-associated gene 51 (TDAG51) as a novel corepressor of PPARγ-mediated transcriptional regulation. We showed that TDAG51 expression is abundantly maintained in the early stage of adipogenic differentiation. Forced expression of TDAG51 inhibited adipocyte differentiation in 3T3-L1 cells. We found that TDAG51 physically interacts with PPARγ in a ligand-independent manner. In deletion mutant analyses, large portions of the TDAG51 domains, including the pleckstrin homology-like, glutamine repeat and proline-glutamine repeat domains but not the proline-histidine repeat domain, are involved in the interaction with the region between residues 140 and 506, including the DNA binding domain, hinge, ligand binding domain and activation function-2 domain, in PPARγ. The heterodimer formation of PPARγ-RXRα was competitively inhibited in a ligand-independent manner by TDAG51 binding to PPARγ. Thus, our data suggest that TDAG51, which could determine adipogenic cell fate, acts as a novel negative regulator of PPARγ by blocking RXRα recruitment to the PPARγ-RXRα heterodimer complex in adipogenesis.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.43 no.12
• /
• pp.1011-1022
• /
• 2020

Cell type specification is a delicate biological event in which every step is under tight regulation. From a molecular point of view, cell fate commitment begins with chromatin alteration, which kickstarts lineage-determining factors to initiate a series of genes required for cell specification. Several important neuronal differentiation factors have been identified from ectopic over-expression studies. However, there is scarce information on which DNA regions are modified during induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) to neuronal progenitor cell (NPC) differentiation, the cis regulatory factors that attach to these accessible regions, or the genes that are initially expressed. In this study, we identified the DNA accessible regions of iPSCs and NPCs via the Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin sequencing (ATAC-seq). We identified which chromatin regions were modified after neuronal differentiation and found that the enhancer regions had more active histone modification changes than the promoters. Through motif enrichment analysis, we found that NEUROD1 controls iPSC differentiation to NPC by binding to the accessible regions of enhancers in cooperation with other factors such as the Hox proteins. Finally, by using Hi-C data, we categorized the genes that directly interacted with the enhancers under the control of NEUROD1 during iPSC to NPC differentiation.

• Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine
• /
• v.15 no.6
• /
• pp.673-697
• /
• 2018

BACKGROUND: Cartilage tissue engineering (CTE) aims to obtain a structure mimicking native cartilage tissue through the combination of relevant cells, three-dimensional scaffolds, and extraneous signals. Implantation of 'matured' constructs is thus expected to provide solution for treating large injury of articular cartilage. Type I collagen is widely used as scaffolds for CTE products undergoing clinical trial, owing to its ubiquitous biocompatibility and vast clinical approval. However, the long-term performance of pure type I collagen scaffolds would suffer from its limited chondrogenic capacity and inferior mechanical properties. This paper aims to provide insights necessary for advancing type I collagen scaffolds in the CTE applications. METHODS: Initially, the interactions of type I/II collagen with CTE-relevant cells [i.e., articular chondrocytes (ACs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)] are discussed. Next, the physical features and chemical composition of the scaffolds crucial to support chondrogenic activities of AC and MSC are highlighted. Attempts to optimize the collagen scaffolds by blending with natural/synthetic polymers are described. Hybrid strategy in which collagen and structural polymers are combined in non-blending manner is detailed. RESULTS: Type I collagen is sufficient to support cellular activities of ACs and MSCs; however it shows limited chondrogenic performance than type II collagen. Nonetheless, type I collagen is the clinically feasible option since type II collagen shows arthritogenic potency. Physical features of scaffolds such as internal structure, pore size, stiffness, etc. are shown to be crucial in influencing the differentiation fate and secreting extracellular matrixes from ACs and MSCs. Collagen can be blended with native or synthetic polymer to improve the mechanical and bioactivities of final composites. However, the versatility of blending strategy is limited due to denaturation of type I collagen at harsh processing condition. Hybrid strategy is successful in maximizing bioactivity of collagen scaffolds and mechanical robustness of structural polymer. CONCLUSION: Considering the previous improvements of physical and compositional properties of collagen scaffolds and recent manufacturing developments of structural polymer, it is concluded that hybrid strategy is a promising approach to advance further collagen-based scaffolds in CTE.

• The Southeast Asian review
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.133-170
• /
• 2012

This thesis aims to analyze the political, social, and cultural activities of the Acehnese ethnic group living in Jakarta, Indonesia. Based on analysis, this thesis examines how their ethnicity and national identity have been formed and expressed. For this purpose, this study deals with Taman Iskandar Muda (hereinafter referred to as TIM), a group of Acehnese transmigrants living in Jakarta. The immigration of the Acehnese to Jakarta started in the 1950s and the number of Acehnese people living in Jakarta persently amounts to 100,000. TIM, which was organized by the first generational of immigrants, functions to group Acehnese immigrants of various generations and class. Forum Keprihatinan Untuk Aceh(hereinafter referred to as Forka), an organization designed to solve the political problems of TIM, undertook various activities to maintain the peace of Aceh as the representative of TIM. Through those activities, TIM and Forka were able to confirm the feeling of homogeneity among the Acehnese who were living in their hometown and also strengthen their identity within the organizations. However, the fact that TIM and Forka put their focus on humanitarian activities paradoxically shows the political limitations that they sustain. TIM and Forka take care not to make their humanitarian activities seem as if they intend to openly strengthen their Acehnese identity and deny their Indonesian one. These political characteristics of Forka's identity are commonly found in groups that practice long-distance nationalism, as transmigrants in diaspora circumstances do. In the organization of TIM, there exists the menasah, which is a space where discussions of the ethnicity and the nation are practiced. As it is the space for local exchange, menasah reveals the identity of TIM through educational/social activities and public services. Menasah functions as the public arena where people practice ethnic identity on the basis of national integration. As a minority ethnic group living in Jakarta and its neighborhood, they are accustomed to double and selective political activities, social activities, and cultural practices. In order to adapt themselves to the double circumstance that they are faced with, they should live extemporaneously, and this life may be the fate that minority ethnic and transmigrants should endure.

• Biomaterials Research
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.337-345
• /
• 2018

Background: Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are, due to their pluripotency, useful sources of cells for stem cell therapy and tissue regeneration. The phenotypes of hMSCs are strongly influenced by their microenvironment, in particular the extracellular matrix (ECM), the composition and structure of which are important in regulating stem cell fate. In reciprocal manner, the properties of ECM are remodeled by the hMSCs, but the mechanism involved in ECM remodeling by hMSCs under topographical stimulus is unclear. In this study, we therefore examined the effect of nanotopography on the expression of ECM proteins by hMSCs by analyzing the quantity and structure of the ECM on a nanogrooved surface. Methods: To develop the nanoengineered, hMSC-derived ECM, we fabricated the nanogrooves on a coverglass using a UV-curable polyurethane acrylate (PUA). Then, hMSCs were cultivated on the nanogrooves, and the cells at the full confluency were decellularized. To analyze the effect of nanotopography on the hMSCs, the hMSCs were re-seeded on the nanoengineered, hMSC-derived ECM. Results: hMSCs cultured within the nano-engineered hMSC-derived ECM sheet showed a different pattern of expression of ECM proteins from those cultured on ECM-free, nanogrooved surface. Moreover, hMSCs on the nano-engineered ECM sheet had a shorter vinculin length and were less well-aligned than those on the other surface. In addition, the expression pattern of ECM-related genes by hMSCs on the nanoengineered ECM sheet was altered. Interestingly, the expression of genes for osteogenesis-related ECM proteins was downregulated, while that of genes for chondrogenesis-related ECM proteins was upregulated, on the nanoengineered ECM sheet. Conclusions: The nanoengineered ECM influenced the phenotypic features of hMSCs, and that hMSCs can remodel their ECM microenvironment in the presence of a nanostructured ECM to guide differentiation into a specific lineage.