• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.787-794
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• 2005

The aim of this study was 1) to confirm the practical efficiency of a routine milk P4 monitoring system for postpartum reproductive management of a dairy herd, and 2) to evaluate the relationship between the blood metabolic profiles, milk quality and body weight of individual cows in the farm records, which may reflect the postpartum nutritional condition, and the time of postpartum resumption of ovarian activity of dairy cows. A total of 116 Holstein cows was used in the present study. First, during the period of Experiment 1, postpartum reproductive management based on weekly measured milk P4 concentration from individual cows was conducted. Compared with the reproductive records of the past two years without P4 monitoring, although the day from calving to first AI did not change, both the number of AI until pregnant (with P4; 1.9 times vs. without P4; 2.9 times) and the days open (with P4; 95.1 days vs. without P4; 135.8 days and 133.8 days) were significantly decreased. In Experiment 2, the measurement of blood constituents such as albumin, blood urea nitrogen, packed cell volume, ammonia, glucose, total cholesterol, non-esterified, AST and $\gamma$-GTP was performed on the blood samples taken once approximately 14 days postpartum, to monitor both health and nutritional conditions. The milk constituent parameters, such as milk protein (MP), milk fat (MF), SNF and lactose, collected from the monthly progeny test of individual cows, were used to monitor the postpartum nutritional status. Furthermore, the data obtained from the routine measurements of body weight were used to calculate the rate of peripartum body weight loss. The resumption day of the postpartum estrous cycle was assumed from the milk P4 profiles of individual cows. There was no clear relationship between each parameter from blood examination and those from resumption time. However, the cows had low values of MP, and SNF, which significantly affected the resumption of the postpartum estrous cycle. Similarly, a higher rate of body weight loss indicated a significant delay (more than 1 month) in the resumption of the postpartum estrous cycle, compared with the groups that had a medium or lower rate of body weight loss. The results of the present study demonstrated that the implementation of routine milk P4 monitoring-based postpartum reproductive management, together with milk quality parameters and routine BW data available in field conditions may be utilized as a practical approach for increasing the postpartum reproductive efficiency of a high yielding dairy herd.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.199-205
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• 2013

We investigated the anti-obesity effects of Ishige okamurae extract (IOE) on body weight, epididymal adipose tissue weight, plasma lipid levels, and leptin levels in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obese mice. After inducing obesity by feeding 45% HFD for 4 weeks, C57BL/6J mice were randomly assigned to HFD or HFD containing 5% IOE, and then fed for 6 weeks. The body weight and epididymal adipose tissue weight were increased by HFD, but they were significantly less in animals fed HFD containing 5% IOE than in those fed HFD. Levels of plasma triglyceride, total cholesterol, and LDL-cholesterol were significantly lower, but the HDL-cholesterol level was significantly higher in animals fed HFD containing 5% IOE compared with the HFD group. The plasma leptin level was significantly lower in animals fed HFD containing 5% IOE. The diet containing 5% IOE did not show any adverse effects on liver and kidney functions. These results suggest that IOE has a potential as anti-obesity agent by reducing body weight and lowering the levels of obesity-related factors in plasma.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.762-768
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• 2002

This study was conducted to evaluate the health status of elderly women who attended in a Health Promotion Program of the Seo-gu Health Center in Daegu. The study subjects were 158 elderly women (over 65 years) in an urban community. The subjects were investigated by means of individual interviews using a questionnaire, Blood tests for analyzing their biochemical status were carried out. The average age of the study subjects was 70.9 $\pm$ 2.3 years. Of the subject group 79.1% ranged in age from 65 to 74 year and 20.9% were over 75 years. With respect to health related factors, 23.4% of subjects drank alcoholic beverages and 15.2% of subjects currently smoke.The prevalence with chronic diseases was 51.9%, and 26.6% of the subjects were healthy. The diseases most frequently reported as having been or being treated were arthritis (38.1%), hypertension (21.4%), and diabetes (17.9%). The average height of subjects was below the standard established in the Korean Recommended Dietary Allowances, while the average weight was close to the standard. The means of systolic and diastolic blood pressure were 130.2 mmHg and 71.9 mmHg, respectively. The mean serum albumin level was 4.5 mg/d$\ell$ and the value of hemoglobin and hematocrit was 12.5 mg/d$\ell$ and 0.7%, respectively. The mean serum cholesterol level was 207.1 mg/d$\ell$ and the mean triglyceride level was 187.7 mg/d$\ell$. The serum lipid levels were higher then in those reported in research. The serum cholesterol levels of 71.5% of subjects were within the normal range. The GOT and GTP levels were within the moderate range. In conclusion, the health status of the elderly who attended the Health Promotion Program in the Seo-gu Health Center were very average. However, it was necessary to prepare a health management program to deal with the serum lipids so as to establish and maintain good health. When we carry out the health promotion program in a community, individual program Of adequate to health status should be developed more.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.685-690
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• 2002

The effects of mycelium of Cordyceps militaris on the growth, the lipid metabolism, the serum protein levels and the enzyme activities in male rats were studied. Sprague-Dawley rats were given four different types of diets for a succeeding period of five weeks: either a control diet, a control diet supplemented with 2%, 3% or 4% mycelium of Cordyceps militaris (CM) powder. The body weight gain, hepatic weight, feed efficiency ratio and the feed intake of the rats given diets with 2%, 3% or 4% CM were similar to those in rats given the control diet. The concentrations of hepatic total lipid and triglyceride of rats fed the 3% or 4% CM diets were significantly lower than those of rats fed the control diet. But the concentrations of hepatic total cholesterol and phospholipid of rats fed the all CM diets were similar to those of rats fed the control diet. The concentrations of total lipid, total cholesterol, triglyceride phospholipid, and the atherogenic index, and the activities of glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase and lactic dehydrogenase in serum of rats fed the all CM diets were significantly lower than those of rats fed the control diet. No differences were noted in the concentrations of HDL-cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, total protein, albumin and creatinine, and the activities of glutamic pyruvic transaminase, ${\gamma}$ -glutamyltranspeptidase and alkaline phosphatase in the serum among the rats with on all the experimental diets. These results showed that the all CM diets feeding decreased the total cholesterol, the triglyceride, the phopholipid, and the atherogenic index in serum of rats.

• Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.99-119
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• 2006

Endothelin (ET) is a 21 amino acid peptide with multifunctional effects on the vasculature as well as a variety of other cell types such as respiratory, gastrointestinal, urogenital, endocrine, central nervous systems, and others. Endothelin has emerged as a modulator by autocrine and paracrine actions for many cellular activities, including vasoconstriction, cell proliferation, hormone production, neurotransmitter and/or neuromodulator. The endothelin family consists of three closely related peptides, ET-1, ET-2, and ET-3 derived from separate genes, such as chromosome 6, 1, and 20, respectively. ET-1 is the predominant isoform produced in the cardiovascular system and about which most is known. Endothelin receptors are seven-transmembrane GTP-binding protein-coupled receptors, which are classified into endothelin-A (ETA) and endothelin-B (ETB) receptors. Interestingly, recent evidence is accumulating to suggest that ET -1 may contribute to a variety of pain states such as allodynia and hyperalgesia in animals and humans. Therefore, in this review the biological characteristics and contraction-related mechanism of endothelin-1 in mammalian cells will be summarized. Especially, we focus on multifunctional roles for ET-1 in noxious stimulation-induced pain for the study of pain specialized physical therapy.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.818-825
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• 2013

We isolated and functionally characterized the ${\alpha}$- and ${\beta}$-subunits (ApCpnA and ApCpnB) of a chaperonin from Aeropyrum pernix K1. The constructed vectors pET3d-ApCpnA and pET21a-ApCpnB were transformed into E. coli Rosetta (DE3), BL21 (DE3), or CodonPlus (DE3) cells. The expression of ApCpnA (60.7 kDa) and ApCpnB (61.2 kDa) was confirmed by SDS-PAGE analysis. Recombinant ApCpnA and ApCpnB were purified by heat-shock treatment and anion-exchange chromatography. ApCpnA and ApCpnB were able to hydrolyze not only ATP, but also CTP, GTP, and UTP, albeit with different efficacies. Purified ApCpnA and ApCpnB showed the highest ATPase, CTPase, UTPase, and GTPase activities at $80^{\circ}C$. Furthermore, the addition of ApCpnA and ApCpnB effectively protected citrate synthase (CS) and alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) from thermal aggregation and inactivation at $43^{\circ}C$ and $50^{\circ}C$, respectively. In particular, the addition of ATP or CTP to ApCpnA and ApCpnB resulted in the most effective prevention of thermal aggregation and inactivation of CS and ADH. The ATPase activity of the two chaperonin subunits was dependent on the salt concentration. Among the ions we examined, potassium ions were the most effective at enhancing the ATP hydrolysis activity of ApCpnA and ApCpnB.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.83-89
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• 2001

Recent advances in the structural and molecular biology uncovered that a set of translation factors resembles a tRNA shape and, in one case, even mimics a tRNA function for deciphering the genetic ：ode. Nature must have evolved this 'art' of molecular mimicry between protein and ribonucleic acid using different protein architectures to fulfill the requirement of a ribosome 'machine'. Termination of protein synthesis takes place on the ribosomes as a response to a stop, rather than a sense, codon in the 'decoding' site (A site). Translation termination requires two classes of polypeptide release factors (RFs)： a class-I factor, codon-specific RFs (RFI and RF2 in prokaryotes; eRFI in eukaryotes), and a class-IT factor, non-specific RFs (RF3 in prokaryotes; eRF3 in eukaryotes) that bind guanine nucleotides and stimulate class-I RF activity. The underlying mechanism for translation termination represents a long-standing coding problem of considerable interest since it entails protein-RNA recognition instead of the well-understood codon-anticodon pairing during the mRNA-tRNA interaction. Molecular mimicry between protein and nucleic acid is a novel concept in biology, proposed in 1995 from three crystallographic discoveries, one, on protein-RNA mimicry, and the other two, on protein-DNA mimicry. Nyborg, Clark and colleagues have first described this concept when they solved the crystal structure of elongation factor EF- Tu：GTP：aminoacyl-tRNA ternary complex and found its overall structural similarity with another elongation factor EF-G including the resemblance of part of EF-G to the anticodon stem of tRNA (Nissen et al. 1995). Protein mimicry of DNA has been shown in the crystal structure of the uracil-DNA glycosylase-uracil glycosylase inhibitor protein complex (Mol et al. 1995; Savva and Pear 1995) as well as in the NMR structure of transcription factor TBP-TA $F_{II}$ 230 complex (Liu et al. 1998). Consistent with this discovery, functional mimicry of a major autoantigenic epitope of the human insulin receptor by RNA has been suggested (Doudna et al. 1995) but its nature of mimic is. still largely unknown. The milestone of functional mimicry between protein and nucleic acid has been achieved by the discovery of 'peptide anticodon' that deciphers stop codons in mRNA (Ito et al. 2000). It is surprising that it took 4 decades since the discovery of the genetic code to figure out the basic mechanisms behind the deciphering of its 64 codons.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.551-563
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• 1996

This study investigated the properties of primary cultured proximal tubule cells in hormonally defined(insulin, transferrin, and hydrocortisone), serum-free medium or 10% serum-supplemented medium. The growth rate of the primary cultured proximal tubule cells was lower in the hormonally defined, serum-free medium than in the 10% serum- supplemented medium(p < 0.05), while the activities of brush border marker enzymes, alkaline phosphatase(AP), leucine aminopeptidase(LAP), and y-glutamyl transpeptidase(${\gamma}$-GTP) were increased(p < 0.05). The activities of these enzymes, however, decreased with the lapse of incubation time to 50-70% after 6 days culture compared to those of the freshly-prepared proximal tubules. The enzymatic activities of the primary cultured proximal tubul cells on 6, 9, 12, and 15 days of culture were significantly increased in the hormonally defined, serum-free medium compared to the 10% serum-supplemented medium(p < 0.05). The functional differentiation of the primary culture was examined by observing multicellular domes of the confluent monolayer, which is indicative of transepithelial solute transport. The dome formation by the proximal tubule cultures occurred at a higher frequency in the hormonally defined, serum-free medium than in the 10% serum-supplemented medium(p < 0.05). Upon electron microscopic examination, an increased density of the brush border was observed in the hormonally defined, serum-free medium compared to the cells grown in 10% serum-supplemented medium. The activities of $Na^+$glucose cotransporter($^{14}C$-a-MG uptake), $Na^+$phosphate cotransportere($^{32}P$ uptake) and $Na^+$ transporter($^{22}Na^+$ uptake) in the brush border membrane, and of $Na^+/K^+$-ATPase($^{86}Rb$ uptake) in the basolateral membrane were significantly stimulated in the hormonally defined, serum-free medium than in 10% serum-supplemented medium(p < 0.05). In conclusion, the primary cultured proximal tubule cells grown in the hormonally defined, serum-free medium demonstrated a slower growth rate, but the functions of cell were enhanced.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.4 s.84
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• pp.529-534
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• 2007

The effects of dietary eggs on liver and serum lipids, serum protein and mineral concentrations, and enzyme activities in male rats were studied. Sprague-Dawley rats were fed four types of diets for 4 weeks, respectively: a control diet, a control diet supplemented with 5, 10 or 15% eggs powder. In rats fed 5, 10 or 15% egg diets the body weight gain, the food intake, the weights of kidney and epididymal fat pad were similar to those in rats fed the control diet. The hepatic weight, hepatic cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations of rats fed the all egg diets were significantly higher than those of rats fed the control diet. The concentrations of total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, LDL+VLDL-cholesterol, triglyceride and phospholipid in the serum of rats fed the all egg diets were similar to those of rats fed the control diet. In the rats fed 5% egg diet the HDL-cholesterol/total-cholesterol ratios was significantly increased, and the atherogenic index was significantly decreased compared with those in the rats fed 10 or 15% egg diets. The serum total protein and albumin concentrations of rats fed 10 or 15% egg diets were significantly increased compared with those of rats fed the control diet. The serum calcium levels of rats fed the all egg diets were significantly increased compared with those of rats fed the control diet. No differences were noted in the concentrations of urea nitrogen, creatinine, glucose and hemoglobin, and activities of GOT, GPT, ${\gamma}-GTP$ and alkaline phosphatase in the serum among the rats with on all the experimental diets. These results showed that the all egg diets feeding increased cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations in liver, but no differences lipids and lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations in serum of rats.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.671-675
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• 1992

This experiment was carried out to establish a proper method of indocyanine green(ICG) excretion test for a applicable liver function test in dogs. The half life(T1/2), fractional clearance rate(KICG) and retention rate after injection of ICG with or without administred carbon tetrachloride($CCl_4$) were also invested. The results obtained were as follows ; 1. The maximum absorbance of ICG in plasma was at 810nm. 2. Half life and fractional clearance rate when administered 0.25 and 0.50mg of ICG per Kilogram body weight were $6.33{\pm}0.58$ minutes and $0.11{\pm}0.99$/minute in the former, $10.01{\pm}1.0$ minutes and $0.07{\pm}0.007$/minute in the latter, respectively. The ICG removal rate was exponentially linear for the first 15 minutes after injection both, of 0.25 and 0.50mg of ICG. 3. One day following the administration of $0.0042m{\ell}\;CCl_4$ kilogram body weight which injected 0.50mg of ICG, half life was more longer and fractional clearance rate was significantly reduced than that of ICG single injection. 4. Plasma retention rate when 15, 30, 45 minutes after injection dose of 0.25 and 0.50mg ICG per Kilogram body weight, $14.7{\pm}4.8$, $5.1{\pm}3.1$, $2.6{\pm}1.6%$ in the former, $26.9{\pm}1.8$, $11.1{\pm}2.4$, $4.8{\pm}1.3%$ in the latter, respectively. However, after administration of $CCl_4$, plasma retention rate of ICG at a dose of 0.50mg, it was $39.3{\pm}0.9$, $16{\pm}2.9$, $10.7{\pm}0.1%$, respectively. 5. Plasma enzyme(AST, ALT, r-GTP) activities administered with $CCl_4$ were increased, but there was no change which injected any dose of single ICG injection. From these results, ICG excretion test to dog is applicable to evaluation of liver function in both clinical and research.