• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.147-152
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• 2004

A wide variety of cancer chemotherapeutic agents have been shown to induce programmed cell death (PCD, APOPTOSIS) in various tumor cell lines in vitro. cis-Malonato [(4R,5R)-4,5-bis(aminomethyl)-2-isoprpopyl-1,3-dioxolane] platinum(II) (heptaplatin), which is a new drug approved by KFDA in 1999, in a novel platinum-based antitumor agent with clinical potential against stomach cancer and the 3rd generation of the cisplatin. This study was performed to know how heptaplatin and cisplatin and sunpla (mixture of heptaplatin and mannitol) affect on SK-MEL-28 cell line, and how they induce the apoptosis. At EM analysis, the morphology of the cell was changed by treatment of the cisplatin, heptaplatin and sunpla. Apoptotic body formed around plasma membrane, and chromatin condensation represented in nucleus. This phenomenon is one of the characteristic of the apoptosis. The DNA of SK-MEL-28 cell line truncated by cisplatin and sunpla treatment was identified on 2% agarose gel electrophoresis. TUNEL assay was performed to know whether SK-MEL-28 cell die as apoptosis or necrosis by cisplatin, heptaplatin and sunpla. At this result, fluorescence intensity increased according to increase of time and concentration. Therefore, it was identified that cislatin, heptaplatin and sunpla induced apoptosis. Fas expressed on SK-MEL-28 cell membrane by cisplatin, heptaplatin and sunpla was identified by using flow cytometer and the expression of bcl-2(anti-apoptotic gene) decreased according to increase of concentration of the cisplatin, heptaplatin and sunpla. Cisplatin, heptaplatin and sunpla induced apoptosis against SK-MEL-28 cell line, and the apoptotic mechanism was identified as Fas-mediated apoptosis and decreased bcl-2 expression.

• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.173-180
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• 1995

We investigated levels and distribution of genetic variation in Korean populations of Calystegia soldanella and C. japonica, clonally reproducing herbaceous perennials. Calystegia soldanella is one ofecologically important beach plants growing only on sand and beach dunes in Europe, East Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the west coast of North America. In contrast, C. japonica usually grows on small mounds of paddy fields, roadsides, and waste places with patchy distribution. Starch gel electrophoresis was conducted on leaves collected from 13 populations of C. soldanella and eight populations of C. japonica. The levels of genetic variation of the two species are very comparable; means of expected heterozygosity (Hep) were 0.100 and 0.099 for C. soldanella and C. japonica, respectively. These values were also very similar to those for species with similar life-history and ecological traits. However, the proportion of total genetic diversity partitioned among populations (GST) of C. soldanella (0.146) was considerably lower than that of C. japonica (0.383). In addition, means of Nei's genetic identity (Ⅰ) for C. soldanella and C. japonica were 0.985 and 0.900, respectively, which supports a restricted gene flow resulting from obligate clonal reproduction of C. japonica. Significant differences in allele frequency were detected among populations at eight and nine of nine polymorphic loci for C. soldanella and C. japonica (P<0.01), respecitvely. Considering the ecological importance of C. soldanella, the isolated beach populations coupled with present destruction of natural habitats of the species may result in erosion of genetic diversity in the near future. In this respect, conservation efforts should be focused on those populations that currently maintain the most genetic diversity such as those populations in the eastern and southeastern Korean Peninsula and Hamduck Beach, Cheju Island.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.71-77
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• 2011

Gastric ulcer has multifactorial etiology, and the development of ulcer is known to be caused by gastric acidity, pepsin secretion, gastric motility and gastric mucosal blood flow. The ulcer results from the tissue necrosis and apoptotic cell death triggered by mucosal ischemia, free radical formation and cessation of nutrient delivery. The gastric mucosa is usually exposed to a wide range of aggressive insults, and has developed efficient mechanisms to repair tissue injury. The apoptotic process of gastric mucosa is triggered by the induction of such proapoptotic gene expression, such as BAX. The Bcl-2 family of proteins plays a pivotal role in the regulation of apoptosis. The maintenance of gastric mucosa integrity depends upon the ratio between cell proliferation and cell death. Stress-inducing factors may affect Bcl-2/BAX ratio and thus the rate of apoptosis through modulation of the expression of both proteins depends upon the experimental model. In addition to the regulation of apoptosis, new vessels have to be generated in order to ensure an adequate supply of oxygen and nutrients to the healing gastric mucosa. This events are regulated by several factors. Among them, such polypeptide growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) regulates essential cell functions involved in tissue healing including cell proliferation and differentiation. The purpose of this study was carried to investigate whether Rhei Rhizoma administration might protect apoptotic cell death and promote angiogenesis in gastric mucosa. Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into 4 groups; normal, saline, cimetidine and Rhei Rhizoma-treated group. The saline, cimetidine and Rhei Rhizoma extracts were orally administrated to each group and gastric ulcer was induced by HCl-EtOH solution. After 1 hour, the stomachs were collected for histological observation and immunohistochemistry. In results, Rhei Rhizoma proves to promote to heal wound in gastric ulcer in conclusion and the significant changes of BAX, Bcl-2 and VEGF quantity in gastric mucosa were observed. These results suggest that Rhei Rhizoma extract may promote incision wound healing and has protective effects on gastric ulcer in rats.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.2345-2351
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• 2014

Lysyl oxidase-like 2 (LOXL2), a member of the lysyl oxidase (LOX) family, is a copper-dependent enzyme that catalyzes oxidative deamination of lysine residues on protein substrates. LOXL2 was found to be overexpressed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in our previous research. We later identified a LOXL2 splicing variant LOXL2-delta72 and we overexpressed LOXL2-delta72 and its wild type counterpart in ESCC cells following microarray analyses. First, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of LOXL2 and LOXL2-delta72 compared to empty plasmid were applied to generate protein-protein interaction (PPI) sub-networks. Comparison of these two sub-networks showed hundreds of different proteins. To reveal the potential specific roles of LOXL2- delta72 compared to its wild type, the DEGs of LOXL2-delta72 vs LOXL2 were also applied to construct a PPI sub-network which was annotated by Gene Ontology. The functional annotation map indicated the third PPI sub-network involved hundreds of GO terms, such as "cell cycle arrest", "G1/S transition of mitotic cell cycle", "interphase", "cell-matrix adhesion" and "cell-substrate adhesion", as well as significant "immunity" related terms, such as "innate immune response", "regulation of defense response" and "Toll signaling pathway". These results provide important clues for experimental identification of the specific biological roles and molecular mechanisms of LOXL2-delta72. This study also provided a work flow to test the different roles of a splicing variant with high-throughput data.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.4853-4858
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• 2013

Objectives: To investigate whether hypoxia has an effect on regulation of multidrug resistance (MDR) to chemotherapeutic drugs in laryngeal carcinoma cells and explore the role of hypoxia-inducible factor-$1{\alpha}$ (HIF-$1{\alpha}$). Methods: Laryngeal cancer cells were cultured under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. The sensitivity of the cells to multiple drugs and levels of apoptosis induced by paclitaxel were determined by MTT assay and annexin-V/propidium iodide staining analysis, respectively. HIF-$1{\alpha}$ expression was blocked by RNA interference. The expression of HIF-$1{\alpha}$ gene was detected by real-time quantitative RT-PCR and Western blotting. The value of fluorescence intensity of intracellular adriamycin accumulation and retention in cells was evaluated by flow cytometry. Results: The sensitivity to multiple chemotherapy agents and induction of apoptosis by paclitaxel could be reduced by hypoxia (P<0.05). A the same time, the adriamycin releasing index of cells was increased (P<0.05). However, resistance acquisition subject to hypoxia in vitro was suppressed by down-regulating HIF-$1{\alpha}$ expression. Conclusion: HIF-$1{\alpha}$ could be considered as a key regulator for mediating hypoxia-induced MDR in laryngeal cancer cells via inhibition of drug-induced apoptosis and decrease in intracellular drug accumulation.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.40-49
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• 2015

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the ability to self-renew and differentiate into multi-lineage cells, thus highlighting the feasibility of using umbilical cord blood-derived MSCs (UCB-MSCs) for cell-therapy and tissueengineering. However, the low numbers of UCB-MSC derived from clinical samples requires that an ex vivo expansion step be implemented. As most stem cells reside in low oxygen tension environments (i.e., hypoxia), we cultured the UCBMSCs under 3% $O_2$ or 21% $O_2$ and the following parameters were examined: proliferation, senescence, differentiation and stem cell specific gene expression. UCB-MSCs cultured under hypoxic conditions expanded to significantly higher levels and showed less senescence compared to UCB-MSCs cultured under normoxic conditions. In regards to differentiation potential, UCB-MSCs cultured under hypoxic and normoxic conditions both underwent similar levels of osteogenesis as determined by ALP and von Kossa assay. Furthermore, UCB-MSCs cultured under hypoxic conditions exhibited higher expression of OCT4, NANOG and SOX2 genes. Moreover, cells expanded under hypoxia maintained a stem cell immnunophenotype as determined by flow cytometry. These results demonstrate that the expansion of human UCB-MSCs under a low oxygen tension microenvironment significantly improved cell proliferation and differentiation. These results demonstrate that hypoxic culture can be rapidly and easily implemented into the clinical-scale expansion process in order to maximize UCB-MSCs yield for application in clinical settings and at the same time reduce culture time while maintaining cell product quality.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.3293-3299
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• 2015

Background: Arm protein lost in epithelial cancers, on chromosome X (ALEX) is a novel subgroup within the armadillo (ARM) family, which has one or two ARM repeat domains as opposed to more than six-thirteen repeats in the classical Armadillo family members. Materials and Methods: In the study, we explore the biological functions of ALEX1 in breast cancer cells. Overexpression of ALEX1 and silencing of ALEX1 were performed with SK-BR3 and MCF-7 cell lines. Cell proliferation and colony formation assays, along with flow cytometry, were carried out to evaluate the roles of ALEX1. Results: ALEX1 overexpression in SK-BR3 breast cancer cells inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis. Furthermore, depletion of ALEX1 in MCF-7 breast cancer cells increased proliferation and inhibited apoptosis. Additional analyses demonstrated that the overexpression of ALEX1 activated the intrinsic apoptosis cascades through up-regulating the expression of Bax, cytosol cytochrome c, active caspase-9 and active caspase-3 and down-regulating the levels of Bcl-2 and mitochondria cytochrome c. Simultaneouly, silencing of ALEX1 inhibited intrinsic apoptosis cascades through down-regulating the expression of Bax, cytosol cytochrome c, active caspase-9, and active caspase-3 and up-regulating the level of Bcl-2 and mitochondria cytochrome c. Conclusions: Our data suggest that ALEX1 as a crucial tumor suppressor gene has been involved in cell proliferation and apoptosis in breast cancer, which may serve as a novel candidate therapeutic target.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1343-1348
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• 2015

Human UHRF1 (ubiquitin-like PHD and RING finger domain-containing 1) has been reported to be over-expressed in many cancers, but its role in ovarian cancer remains elusive. Here, we determined whether knockdown of UHRF1 by lentivirus-mediated shRNA could inhibit ovarian cancer cell growth. Lentivirus-mediated short hairpin RNAs (lv-shRNAs-UHRF1) were designed to trigger the gene silencing RNA interference (RNAi) pathway. The efficiency of lentivirus-mediated shRNA infection into HO-8910 and HO-8910 PM cells was determined using fluorescence microscopy to observe lentivirus-mediated GFP expression and was confirmed to be over 80 percent. UHRF1 expression in infected HO-8910 and HO-8910 PM was evaluated by real-time PCR and Western blot analysis. The Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay was used to measure cell viability; flow cytometry and Hoechst 33342 assay was applied to measure cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Cell invasion was assessed using transwell chambers. Our results demonstrated that the loss of UHRF1 promoted HO-8910 and HO-8910 PM cell apoptosis, while inhibiting cell proliferation. In addition, UHRF1 knockdown significantly inhibited the invasion of human ovarian cancer cells. In the present study, we also showed that depleting HO-8910 cells of UHRF1 caused activation of the DNA damage response pathway, with the cell cycle arrested in G2/M-phase. The DNA damage response in cells depleted of UHRF1 was illustrated by phosphorylation of CHK (checkpoint kinase) 2 on Thr68, phosphorylation of CDC25 (cell division control 25) on Ser 216 and phosphorylation of CDK1 (cyclin-dependent kinase 1) on Tyr 15.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.743-747
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• 2014

Objective: To investigate the effects of abnormal Savda Munziq (ASMq) total phenolics combined with cisplatin and docetaxel on the Hela cell growth. Methods: In vivo cultured Hela cells were treated with cisplatin, docetaxel, total phenolics, cisplatin+total phenolics or docetaxel+total phenolics. MTT was performed to assess inhibition of cell proliferation, flow cytometry to detect apoptosis, and semi-quantitative RT-PCR to test for survivin and Bcl-2 expression. Results: The total phenolics, cisplatin and docetaxel had significant inhibitory and apoptosis-promoting effects on Hela cells (P<0.05), with the early apoptotic rates of $12.8{\pm}0.70%$, $18.9{\pm}3.79%$ and $15.8{\pm}3.8%$; the total phenolics, cisplatin and docetaxel significantly decreased the expression of Bcl-2 and survivin (all P<0.01), especially when used in combination. Conclusion: ASMq total phenolics, combined with cisplatin and docetaxel, could promote the apoptosis of Hela cells possibly through reducing the expression of Bcl-2 and survivin.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.2839-2843
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• 2013

Objective: To investigate the effects of miR-106b on malignant characteristics of gastric cancer cells, and explore possible mechanisms. Methods: Expression of miR-106b, p21 and E2F was determined by real-time PCR. Transfection with miR-106b mimics was conducted, and gastric cancer cells with miR-106b overexpression were obtained. Cells transfected with mimic mutants and those without transfection served as negative and blank controls, respectively. Flow cytometry and transwell assays were adopted to detect the effects of miR-106b overexpression on cell cycle, migration and invasion of gastric cancer cells. Results:. The expression of miR- 106b in gastric cancer cells was significantly higher than that in normal gastric mucosa cells. Furthermore, the expression level of miR-106b rose according to the degree of malignacy among the three GC cell strains (MKN- 45 > SGC-7901 > MKN-28). Overexpression of miR-106b shortened the G0/G1 phase and accelerated cell cycle progression, while reducing p21 and E2F5, without any significant effects on the capacity for migration and invasion of gastric cancer cells. Conclusions: miR-106b may promote cell cycling of gastric cancer cells through regulation of p21 and E2F5 target gene expression.