• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.607-616
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• 2013

Light with two faces, beneficial and harmful effects is an important signal for every living cell. Optimal adaptation to light environment enhances the fitness of an organism and survival in nature. Understandings of light quality and plant growth provide with the economical guides for artificial light sources like LEDs. Compared with those under white light, the 1 week seedlings of Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa) under monochromic red and blue light showed normal development and growth. In contrast to extremely long and etiolated hypocotyls of the seedlings under dark, those under far-red etiolated were extremely short. Based on the microarray analysis, blue light induced the vigorous development and growth and two fold changes of transcripts than red light condition. To have insight of gene products under different light qualities conditions, GO term enrichments were calculated and each gene according to their GO terms were categorized. The blue and red lights affected the expressions of genes related to biological process. Especially, the genes related to metabolic process and developmental process and plastid and chloroplast in the cellular component category were induced under blue light. This study provided the molecular biological evidence for various light qualities on the growing process of B. rapa.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.421-431
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• 2021

It has been suggested that some toothpastes have the potential to promote hair growth. However, there was no scientific verification on the hair growth effect of toothpaste and no scientific report on major active ingredients in toothpaste. In this work, toothpaste and its constituents were applied topically over the shaved skin of C57BL/6 mice and evaluated. Results indicated that toothpaste showed hair growth effect. Also, the effect of toothpaste constituents on the proliferation rate of keratinocyte cells was investigated. The mixture solution of 𝛼-tocopherol acetate, l-menthol, and stevioside, each of that was known to promote hair growth and other toothpaste constituents were applied topically on mouse skin. When the mixture solution was included, hair growth effect was observed in mice. Transcriptome analysis was performed using the dorsal epidermis of mice from the group treated with toothpaste, the mixture which are presumed to be active ingredients for hair growth, and from mice used for the control group. As a result of analyzing the genes whose expression was significantly changed in each treatment group, the gene patterns of the two groups were very similar. Also, when functional genomic analysis was performed, genes with functions related to hair growth regulation showed a high extent of the change in both groups. Hair growth-related genes whose expression was changed in both groups included keratin, keratin-related proteins, forkhead box, and sonic hedgehog. Therefore, the hair growth effect of toothpaste is thought to be due to the effect of a mixture of 𝛼-tocopherol acetate, l-menthol, and stevioside.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.520-525
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• 2009

Early onset of Batten disease (EBD), one of the most lethal neurodegenerative storage disorders of childhood, is caused by inactivating mutations in the Ceroid Lipofuscinosis, Neuronal (CLN1) gene. Neurogranin, a calmodulin-binding protein, is expressed in the brain and participates in the protein kinase C (PKC) signaling pathway. While oxidative stress is the suggested cause of neurodegeneration in EBD, its molecular mechanism(s) remains obscure. In this research, we examined the levels of neurogranin in the brain mRNA of wild-type (WT) mice and EBD knockout (KO) mice, as well as the proteins. We also performed neuronal cultures to measure the expression levels of neurgranin and phosphorylated-neurogranin with or without oxidative stress inducers and anti-oxidants. Results showed that neurogranin in both EBD KO mice brain mRNA and protein extracts decreased in an age dependent manner. However, high amounts of phosphorylated-neurogranin were detected in the 6-month brain. This pattern was also confirmed by cultured neurospheres samples. Moreover, neurospheres treated with $H_2O_2$, an oxidative stress inducer, showed increased phosphorylated-neurogranin patterns. Interestingly, this pattern returned to normal status when treated with N-acetyl-L-cystein, an anti-oxidant, after $H_2O_2$ treatment was performed. Our results suggest that the phosphorylation of neurogranin is affected by oxidative stress status in EBD, and appropriate anti-oxidant treatment will relieve hyper-phosphorylation of neurogranin.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.34 no.12
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• pp.1056-1064
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• 2007

Biomolecular computing is a new computing paradigm that uses biomolecules such as DNA for information representation and processing. The huge number of molecules in a small volume and the innate massive parallelism inspired a novel computation method, and various computation models and molecular algorithms were developed for problem solving. In the meantime, the use of biomolecules for information processing supports the possibility of DNA computing as an application for biological problems. It has the potential as an analysis tool for biochemical information such as gene expression patterns. In this context, a DNA computing-based model of a biomolecular perceptron has been proposed and the result of its experimental implementation was presented previously. The weight encoding and weighted sum operation, which are the main components of a biomolecular perceptron, are based on the competitive hybridization reactions between the input molecules and weight-encoding probe molecules. However, thermodynamic symmetry in the competitive hybridizations is assumed, so there can be some error in the weight representation depending on the probe species in use. Here we suggest a generalized model of hybridization reactions considering the asymmetric thermodynamics in competitive hybridizations and present a weight encoding method for the reliable implementation of a biomolecular perceptron based on this model. We compare the accuracy of our weight encoding method with that of the previous one via computer simulations and present the condition of probe composition to satisfy the error limit.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.41 no.9
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• pp.1310-1314
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• 2012

Gastrointestinal digestibility of new proteins inserted in the food supply is a significant parameter for assessing the safety of GM foods based on the assumption that digestive stability is undesirable. In this study, we performed in vitro digestion of CP4EPSPS, a new protein, expressed in genetically modified (GM) soybean in order to evaluate its digestibility in three different ratios of simulated gastric fluid with preheating. Ratios of GM soybean to simulated gastric fluid were 2:2, 2.5:1.5, and 1.5:2 and preheating was conducted at $100^{\circ}C$ for 5 min. Electrophoresis and Western blotting were used to confirm changes in soybean protein patterns and CP4EPSPS gene expression after in vitro digestion. At ratios in which the amount of gastric fluid was equal to (2:2) or relatively higher than that of soybean (1.5:2), no CP4EPSPS (47.4 kDa) protein was detected after 15 seconds of simulated gastric fluid incubation, the earliest time interval evaluated. However, when the ratio of GM soybean to gastric fluid was 2.5:1.5, CP4EPSPS was detected in 5 min and gradually decreased according to time. After preheating, no CP4EPSPS protein was detected after 15 seconds under all conditions. From these results, we concluded that the digestibility of CP4EPSPS in simulated gastric fluid increased upon preheating. Accordingly, we suggest that it is important to account for the ratio of gastric fluid to GM food in in vitro digestibility assessment models of GM food.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.396-401
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• 2009

Microorganisms or their toxins can be transferred to eggs and cause food poisoning in humans. Therefore, this study was conducted to detect microbial contamination of eggs and to identify microorganisms in any contaminated eggs. Four different brands of eggs were collected from hypermarkets in the northern Gyeonggi area. The total bacterial counts on the shells of the eggs varied greatly between brands. In addition, various bacterial species including Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas mendocina, Alcaligenes xylosoxidans, Alcaligenes faecalis, and Enterobacter cloacae were identified on eggshells. Furthermore, mean of total bacterial counts of four brands was $3.4{\times}10^4 cfu/m{\ell}$ and E. coli was detected on the eggshell of one brand egg. However, Salmonella was not identified on all brands of collected eggs. We also demonstrated that the E. coli isolated from the eggshell was not pathogenic based on the absence of pathogen-specific gene expression patterns. Taken together, the result of this study indicate that strict quality control and improved distribution controls are required to decrease microbial contamination and improve human health.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.1425-1434
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• 2017

Objective: The main objective of this study was to determine the effect of different diets for early-weaned (EW) calves on rumen development, and how this affects fat deposition in the longissimus dorsi of adult Korean Hanwoo beef cattle. Methods: Three EW groups were established (each n = 12) in which two- week-old Hanwoo calves were fed for ten weeks with milk replacer+concentrate (T1), milk replacer+concentrate+roughage (T2), or milk replacer+concentrate+30% starch (T3); a control group (n = 12) was weaned as normal. At six months, 5 calves of each group were slaughtered and their organs were assessed and rumen papillae growth rates were measured. The remaining calves (n = 7 in each group) were raised to 20 months for further analysis. Results: Twenty-month-old EW calves had a higher body weight (BW), backfat thickness (BF), longissimus dorsi muscle area (LMA) and intramuscular fat (IMF) than the control (p<0.05). Organ growth, rumen histology, and gene expression patterns in the 6-month-old calves were positively related to the development of marbling in the loin, as assessed by ultrasound analysis (p<0.05). In the group fed the starch-enriched diet (T3), higher BW, BF, LMA, and IMF were present. The IMF beef quality score of 20-month-old cattle was 1+ for the T2 and T3 diets and 1 for the T1 diet (p<0.05). Conclusion: Papillae development was significantly greater in calves fed on high-concentrate diets and this may have resulted in the improved beef quality in the EW dietary groups compared to the control.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.37 no.11
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• pp.833-840
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• 2014

Cullin4-RING ubiquitin ligase (CRL4) is a family of multi-subunit E3 ligases. To investigate the possible involvement of CRL4 in heat stress response, we screened T-DNA insertion mutants of putative CRL4 substrate receptors that exhibited altered patterns in response to heat stress. One of the mutants exhibited heat stress tolerance and was named heat stress tolerant DWD1 (htd1). Introduction of HTD1 gene into htd1-1 led to recovery of heat sensitivity to the wild type level, confirming that the decrease of HTD1 transcripts resulted in heat tolerance. Therefore, HTD1 plays a negative role in thermotolerance in Arabidopsis. Additionally, HTD1 directly interacted with DDB1a in yeast two-hybrid assays and associated with DDB1b in vivo, supporting that it could be a part of a CRL4 complex. Various heat-inducible genes such as HSP14.7, HSP21, At2g03020 and WRKY28 were hyper-induced in htd1-1, indicating that HTD1 could function as a negative regulator for the expression of such genes and that these genes might contribute to thermotolerance of htd1-1, at least in part. HTD1 was associated with HSP90-1, a crucial regulator of thermotolerance, in vivo, even though the decrease of HTD1 did not affect the accumulation pattern of HSP90-1 in Arabidopsis. These findings indicate that a negative role of HTD1 in thermotolerance might be achieved through its association with HSP90-1, possibly by disturbing the action of HSP90-1, not by the degradation of HSP90-1. This study will serve as an important step toward understanding of the functional connection between CRL4-mediated processes and plant heat stress signaling.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Developmental Biology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.84-84
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• 2003

DNA methylation is involved in epigenetic processes such as X-chromosome inactivation, imprinting and silencing of transposons. DNA methylation is a highly plastic and critical component of mammalian development The DNA methyltransferases (Dnmts) are responsible for the generation of genomic methylation patterns, which lead to transcriptional silencing. The maintenance DNA methyltransferase enzyme, Dnmt 1, and the de novo methyltransferase, Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b, are indispensable for development because mice homozygous for the targeted disruption of any of these genes are not viable. The occurrence of DNA methylation is not random, and it can result in gene silencing The mechanisms underlying these processes are poorly understood. It is well established that DNA methylation and histone deacetylation operate along a common mechanistic pathway to repress transcription through the action of methyl-binding domain proteins (MBDs), which are components of, or recruit, histone deacetylase (HDAC) complexes to methylated DNA. As a basis for future studies on the role of the DNA-methyl-transferase in porcine development, we have isolated and characterized a partial cDNA coding for the porcine Dnmt1. Total RNA of testis, lung and ovary was isolated with TRlzol according to the manufacture's specifications. 5 ug of total RNA was reverse transcribed with Super Script II in the presence of porcine Dnmt 1 specific primers. Standard PCRs were performed in a total volume of 50 ul with cDNA as template. Two DNA fragmenets in different position were produced about 700bp, 1500bp and were cloned into pCR II-TOPO according to the manufacture's specification. Assembly of all sequences resulted in a cDNA from 158bp of 5'to 4861bp of 3'compare with the known human maintenance methyltransferase. Now, we are cloning the unknown Dnmt 1 region by 5'-RACE method and expression of Dnmt 1 in tissues from adult porcine animals.

• BMB Reports
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• v.56 no.10
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• pp.563-568
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• 2023

DNA methylation regulates gene expression and contributes to tumorigenesis in the early stages of cancer. In colorectal cancer (CRC), CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) is recognized as a distinct subset that is associated with specific molecular and clinical features. In this study, we investigated the genome-wide DNA methylation patterns among patients with CRC. The methylation data of 1 unmatched normal, 142 adjacent normal, and 294 tumor samples were analyzed. We identified 40,003 differentially methylated positions with 6,933 (79.8%) hypermethylated and 16,145 (51.6%) hypomethylated probes in the genic region. Hypermethylated probes were predominantly found in promoter-like regions, CpG islands, and N shore sites; hypomethylated probes were enriched in open-sea regions. CRC tumors were categorized into three CIMP subgroups, with 90 (30.6%) in the CIMP-high (CIMP-H), 115 (39.1%) in the CIMP-low (CIMP-L), and 89 (30.3%) in the non-CIMP group. The CIMP-H group was associated with microsatellite instability-high tumors, hypermethylation of MLH1, older age, and right-sided tumors. Our results showed that genome-wide methylation analyses classified patients with CRC into three subgroups according to CIMP levels, with clinical and molecular features consistent with previous data.