• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.56-62
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• 2020

Mulberry (Morus spp. family: Moraceae) has prime importance in the sericulture industry, and its foliage is the only natural feed of the silkworm Bombyx mori L. Traditional classification methods using morphological traits were largely unsuccessful in assessing the diversity and relationships among different mulberry species because of environmental influences on the traits of interest. For these reasons, it is difficult to differentiate between the varieties and cultivars of Morus spp. In the present study, inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers were used to investigate the genetic diversity of 48 mulberry samples genotyped using nine ISSR primers. The ISSR markers exhibited polymorphisms (53.2%) among mulberry genotypes. Furthermore, similarity coefficient estimated for these ISSR markers was found to vary between 0.67 and 0.99 for the combined pooled data. The phenogram drawn using the UPGMA cluster method based on combined pooled data of the ISSR markers divided the 48 mulberry genotypes into seven major groups. No genetic association was found in the collection area, and there was a mixed pattern between the mulberry lines. The hybridization between different mulberry species is highly likely to be homogenized due to natural hybridization.

• BMB Reports
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.353-358
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• 1995

Epitope tagging is the process of fusing a set of amino acid residues that are recognized as an antigenic determinant to a protein of interest. Tagging a protein with an epitope facilitates various immunochemical analyses of the tagged protein with a specific monoclonal antibody. The monoclonal antibody H8 has subtype specificity for an epitope derived from the preS2 region of hepatitis B virus surface antigen. Previous studies on serial deletions of the preS2 region indicated that the preS2 epitope was located in amino acid residues 130~142. To test whether the amino acid sequence in this interval is sufficient to confer on proteins the antigenicity recognizable by the antibody H8, the set of amino acid residues in the interval was tagged to the amino terminal of ${\beta}$-galactosidase and to the carboxyl terminal of the truncated $p56^{lck}$ fragment. The tagged ${\beta}$-galactosidase, expressed in Escherichia coli, maintained the enzymatic activity and was immunoprecipitated efficiently with H8. The tagged $p56^{lck}$ fragment, synthesized in an in vitro translation system, was also immunoprecipitated specifically with H8. These results demonstrate that the amino acid sequence of the preS2 region can be used efficiently for the epitope tagging approach.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.359-363
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• 1999

Urochordates, the most primitive group in phylum Chordata, are mostly sessile as adults although some are free living. Presently, the ancestral stock of urochordates as weir as chordates has been the focus of interest and two conflicting hypotheses have been presented. A free swimming ancestor is one and a sessile, filter feeding ancestor is the other. To clarify the phylogenetic relationships within the urochordates, 22 urochordates and five others as outgroups were used. And we applied neighbor joining, maximum likelihood, and maximum parsimony methods to partial 18S rDNA sequences. The inferred phylogeny in all analyses indicates that order Aplousobranchia of class Ascidiacea appears to be the most ancestral group among urochordates. But it is not clear for the low bootstrap value. The remaining two orders of ascidians, Phlebobranchia and Stolidobranchia, form monophyletic groups respectively, which are well supported by high bootstrap values. These two orders are closer to classes of Thaliacea and Appendicularia than to the Aplousobranchia. While class Appendicularia is strongly supported by the monophyletic group, the phylogenetic position of class Thaliacea is unclear in this study.

• BMB Reports
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• v.54 no.8
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• pp.431-436
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• 2021

In recent years, restoring anti-tumor immunity has garnered a growing interest in cancer treatment. As potential therapeutics, immune checkpoint inhibitors have demonstrated benefits in many clinical studies. Although various methods have been applied to suppress immune checkpoints to boost anti-tumor immunity, including the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors, there are still unmet clinical needs to improve the response rate of cancer treatment. Here, we show that acetate can suppress the expression of poliovirus receptor (PVR/CD155), a ligand for immune checkpoint, in colon cancer cells. We demonstrated that acetate treatment could enhance effector responses of CD8⁺ T cells by decreasing the expression of PVR/CD155 in cancer cells. We also found that acetate could reduce the expression of PVR/CD155 by deactivating the PI3K/AKT pathway. These results demonstrate that acetate-mediated expression of PVR/CD155 in cancer cells might potentiate the anti-tumor immunity in the microenvironment of cancer. Our findings indicate that maintaining particular acetate concentrations could be a complementary strategy in current cancer treatment.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.675-682
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• 2021

In an environment in which a limited type and number of sensors are used, a demand for acquiring various context information may appear. In this study, a new method for acquiring various context information than before was proposed in an environment in which a limited number of sensors are required. To this end, a clue was obtained from the Exon-Intron theory, which is gaining great interest in the field of biology, and a method for acquiring various context information was proposed based on this. By applying Exon-Intron's selective cutting and combining method, events of each sensor were efficiently cut and each event data was combined and utilized, thereby realizing the diversification of the acquired context information.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.84-92
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• 2022

To understand the microcircuitry of the brain, the anatomical and functional connectivity among neurons must be resolved. One of the technical hurdles to achieving this goal is that the anatomical connections, or synapses, are often smaller than the diffraction limit of light and thus are difficult to resolve by conventional microscopy, while the microcircuitry of the brain is on the scale of 1 mm or larger. To date, the gold standard method for microcircuit reconstruction has been electron microscopy (EM). However, despite its rapid development, EM has clear shortcomings as a method for microcircuit reconstruction. The greatest weakness of this method is arguably its incompatibility with functional and molecular analysis. Fluorescence microscopy, on the other hand, is readily compatible with numerous physiological and molecular analyses. We believe that recent advances in various fluorescence microscopy techniques offer a new possibility for reliable synapse detection in large volumes of neural circuits. In this minireview, we summarize recent advances in fluorescence-based microcircuit reconstruction. In the same vein as these studies, we introduce our recent efforts to analyze the long-range connectivity among brain areas and the subcellular distribution of synapses of interest in relatively large volumes of cortical tissue with array tomography and superresolution microscopy.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.463-468
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• 2003

Polychlorinated biphenyl are toxic pollutants and their degradation is quite slow in the environment. Recently, interest if bioremediation using PCB-degrading bacteria has increaset,. In a previous report, plant terpenes (p-cymene, (S)-(-)-limonene, ${\alpha}-pynene$, and ${\alpha}-terpinene$) have been found to be utilized by a PCB degrader and to induce the biphenyl dioxygenase gene in pure culture. In this study, Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes KF707, a PCB-degrading Gram-negative soil bacterium, was used to determine whether the terpene stimulation of PCB degrader occurred in the natural environment. First, P. pseudoalcaligenes KF707 was genetically tagged using a transposon with gfp (green fluorescent protein) as a reporter gone. The population dynamics of P. pseudoalcaligenes KF707 harboring gfp gene in a PCB-contaminated environment was examined with or without terpenoids added to the microcosm. About 10-100-fold increase was found in the population of PCB degraders when terpene was added, compared with control (non-terpenes samples and biphenyl added samples). It was proposed that the gfp-monitoring system is very useful and terpenes enhance the survivability of PCB degraders in PCB-contaminated environments.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.358-366
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• 2016

The digestive system is gaining interest as a major regulator of various functions including immune defense, nutrient accumulation, and regulation of feeding behavior, aside from its conventional function as a digestive organ. The Drosophila midgut epithelium is completely renewed every 1-2 weeks due to differentiation of pluripotent intestinal stem cells in the midgut. Intestinal stem cells constantly divide and differentiate into enterocytes that secrete digestive enzymes and absorb nutrients, or enteroendocrine cells that secrete regulatory peptides. Regulatory peptides have important roles in development and metabolism, but study has mainly focused on expression and functions in the nervous system, and not much is known about the roles in endocrine functions of enteroendocrine cells. We systemically examined the expression of 45 regulatory peptide genes in the Drosophila midgut, and verified that at least 10 genes are expressed in the midgut enteroendocrine cells through RT-PCR, in situ hybridization, antisera, and 25 regulatory peptide-GAL transgenes. The Drosophila midgut is highly compartmentalized, and individual peptides in enteroendocrine cells were observed to express in specific regions of the midgut. We also confirmed that some peptides expressed in the same region of the midgut are expressed in mutually exclusive enteroendocrine cells. These results indicate that the midgut enteroendocrine cells are functionally differentiated into different subgroups. Through this study, we have established a basis to study regulatory peptide functions in enteroendocrine cells as well as the complex organization of enteroendocrine cells in the Drosophila midgut.

• Oral Biology Research
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.235-240
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• 2018

Standard oral and maxillofacial three-dimensional model was developed with patients' medical data while virtual reality (VR) simulator was developed in conjunction with head mount display (HMD) and Haptic device. The objective of this study was to evaluate the preclinical use of a VR training simulator in tooth preparation practice. Eighty-nine dental students were trained how to operate the simulator. The participants were then given sufficient time on the simulator to practice dental preparation. The students experience and opinion was then taken in through filling of questionnaires. On average content received 1.8 points, anatomy had 2.5 points, 2.6 points for the applicability, and 2.0 for the usability. As for the detailed items scores, queries about the possible development of the simulator and the interest of the learning process through the simulator were the highest at 3.1 and 3.0 points, respectively. Question about the benefit of the HMD and the haptic device during the practice had 1.5 and 1.6 points, respectively. The average total score was 2.2 points. VR tooth preparation simulator in the field of clinical dental education has powerful potential in regard to realistic models, environments, vision, posture, and economical efficiency.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.10
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• pp.722-727
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• 2016

Cardiomyopathy is a major cause of death worldwide. Based on pathohistological abnormalities and clinical manifestation, cardiomyopathies are categorized into several groups: hypertrophic, dilated, restricted, arrhythmogenic right ventricular, and unclassified. Dilated cardiomyopathy, which is characterized by dilation of the left ventricle and systolic dysfunction, is the most severe and prevalent form of cardiomyopathy and usually requires heart transplantation. Its etiology remains unclear. Recent genetic studies of single gene mutations have provided significant insights into the complex processes of cardiac dysfunction. To date, over 40 genes have been demonstrated to contribute to dilated cardiomyopathy. With advances in genetic screening techniques, novel genes associated with this disease are continuously being identified. The respective gene products can be classified into several functional groups such as sarcomere proteins, structural proteins, ion channels, and nuclear envelope proteins. Nuclear envelope proteins are emerging as potential molecular targets in dilated cardiomyopathy. Because they are not directly associated with contractile force generation and transmission, the molecular pathways through which these proteins cause cardiac muscle disorder remain unclear. However, nuclear envelope proteins are involved in many essential cellular processes. Therefore, integrating apparently distinct cellular processes is of great interest in elucidating the etiology of dilated cardiomyopathy. In this mini review, we summarize the genetic factors associated with dilated cardiomyopathy and discuss their cellular functions.