• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.1156-1167
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• 2018

The aim of this study was to isolate and characterize lead (Pb)-solubilizing bacteria from heavy metal-contaminated mine soils and to evaluate their inoculation effects on the growth and Pb absorption of Brassica juncea. The isolates were also evaluated for their plant growth-promoting characteristics as well as heavy metal and salt tolerance. A total of 171 Pb-tolerant isolates were identified, of which only 15 bacterial strains were able to produce clear haloes in solid medium containing PbO or $PbCO_3$, indicating Pb solubilization. All of these 15 strains were also able to dissolve the Pb minerals in a liquid medium, which was accompanied by significant decreases in pH values of the medium. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, the Pb-solubilizing strains belonged to genera Bacillus, Paenibacillus, Brevibacterium, and Staphylococcus. A majority of the Pb-solubilizing strains were able to produce indole acetic acid and siderophores to different extents. Two of the Pb-solubilizing isolates were able to solubilize inorganic phosphate as well. Some of the strains displayed tolerance to different heavy metals and to salt stress and were able to grow in a wide pH range. Inoculation with two selected Pb-solubilizing and plant growth-promoting strains, (i.e., Brevibacterium frigoritolerans YSP40 and Bacillus paralicheniformis YSP151) and their consortium enhanced the growth and Pb uptake of B. juncea plants grown in a metal-contaminated soil. The bacterial strains isolated in this study are promising candidates to develop novel microbe-assisted phytoremediation strategies for metal-contaminated soils.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.146-157
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• 2009

The influence of Pb-citrate complex formation on Pb uptake and the effect of Pb on organic acid exudation were investigated using four plant species, viz., sunflower (Helianthus annuus L), Indian mustard (Brassica juncea), canola (Brassica napus) and vetiver grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) under hydroponic conditions. Seedlings were exposed to different levels of Pb and Pb-citrate for 24 hrs and subsequently Pb distributions in plant shoot, root and hydroponic solution were measured. The dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration generally decreased as the concentration of Pb in the hydroponic solution increased. In contrast to DOC, the total organic acid concentrations exuded from Indian mustard roots significantly increased (424 to 6656 mg $kg^{-1}$) with increased Pb treatment, implying that exuding organic acids were involved in Pb accumulation in Indian mustard. The complexation of Pb with citrate enhanced Pb accumulation in the above ground portions. Lead concentration in Indian mustard increased from 2.05 mg $kg^{-1}$ to 6.42 mg $kg^{-1}$ when the concentration of citrate in solution increased from 0 to 50 mg $L^{-1}$. This result showed enhanced translocation of Pb from root to shoot with observation of transfer coefficient ($K_t$) increase from 2.03E-3 to 5.72E-3.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.267-276
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• 2014

Exposures to lead (Pb) are associated with neurological problems including psychiatric disorders and impaired learning and memory. Pb can be absorbed by iron transporters, which are up-regulated in hereditary hemochromatosis, an iron overload disorder in which increased iron deposition in various parenchymal organs promote metal-induced oxidative damage. While dysfunction in HFE (High Fe) gene is the major cause of hemochromatosis, the transport and toxicity of Pb in Hfe-related hemochromatosis are largely unknown. To elucidate the relationship between HFE gene dysfunction and Pb absorption, H67D knock-in Hfe-mutant and wild-type mice were given drinking water containing Pb 1.6 mg/ml ad libitum for 6 weeks and examined for behavioral phenotypes using the nestlet-shredding and marble-burying tests. Latency to nestlet-shredding in Pb-treated wild-type mice was prolonged compared with non-exposed wild-types (p < 0.001), whereas Pb exposure did not alter shredding latency in Hfe-mutant mice. In the marble-burying test, Hfe-mutant mice showed an increased number of marbles buried compared with wild-type mice (p = 0.002), indicating more repetitive behavior upon Hfe mutation. Importantly, Pb-exposed wild-type mice buried more marbles than non-exposed wild-types, whereas the number of marbles buried by Hfe-mutant mice did not change whether or not exposed to Pb. These results suggest that Hfe mutation could normalize Pb-induced behavioral alteration. To explore the mechanism of repetitive behavior caused by Pb, western blot analysis was conducted for proteins involved in brain dopamine metabolism. The levels of tyrosine hydroxylase and dopamine transporter increased upon Pb exposure in both genotypes, whereas Hfe-mutant mice displayed down-regulation of the dopamine transporter and dopamine D1 receptor with D2 receptor elevated. Taken together, our data support the idea that both Pb exposure and Hfe mutation increase repetitive behavior in mice and further suggest that these behavioral changes could be associated with altered dopaminergic neurotransmission, providing a therapeutic basis for psychiatric disorders caused by Pb toxicity.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.15-19
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• 1998

The purpose of this study, when one prepared lead zirconate thin films by sol-gel method, was to find the preferred direction of crystal growth and dielectric characteristics for ratio of Pb and Zr. We used the Pt/Ti/$SiO_2$/Si substrate, and annealing condition was $800^{\circ}C$ for lminute. When Pb was deficient, preferred direction was <221>. And when it was stoichiometric ratio, they were grown <200> and <221> direction. But they have antiferroelectric properties, they don't appear distinct domain switching.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.833-838
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• 2004

The analysis of Pb in both PM$_{2.5}$ and PM$_{10}$ fraction of aerosols was made consecutively for every spring season during four year period of 2001 through 2004. To diagnose the impact of the Asian Dust (AD) on metal concentration levels, we compared our Pb measurement data after dividing the whole data sets into AD and NAD period. The results of our analysis indicated that the concentrations of coarse particles increased significantly during the AD period, whereas an increase in the fine counterpart was of moderate degree. However, when Pb concentrations between AD and NAD were compared, the patterns were quite different. From all particle fractions, the Pb concentrations of NAD were slightly or moderately higher than those of AD. The overall results of our study suggest that an increase in particle concentrations during the AD period can cause a rather slight reduction in Pb concentration levels; this can be explained by the dilution effect associated with the increase of Pb-depleted coarse particles.s.s.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.85-95
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• 1989

An experimental study on the selenium effects on toxicity of lead (4ppm intraperitoneal injection) in adult male rats of Spragne-Dawley strain was performed. This study was carried out to reveal the selenium effects concerning treatment and prevention of lead intoxication and differences of the selenium effects according to the administration method between oral and subcutanous. The changes of body weight, liver and kidney weight per body weight, hemoglobin values, hematocrit values, TBA values in serum, and $\delta$-ALAD activity in blood were determined. The results were as follows 1. There were no significant differences among groups about the change of body weight. 2. In the liver weight per body weight, the group of Pb administration after the oral administration of selenium was significantly high, different from the group of Pb administration alone (p < 0.05). 3. There .were no significant differences among groups about the kidney weight per body weight. 4. On the hemoglobin values, the group of Pb administration with selenium was significantly high,different from the group of Pb administration alone (p < 0.05). 5. There were no significant differences among groups about the hematocrit values. 6. On TBA values in serum, all the selenium treated groups were significantly low different from the group of Pb administration alone (p < 0.01). 7. On $\delta$-ALAD activity, all selenium treated groups were significantly high different from the group of Pb adminsitration alone (p < 0.01). Considering from the results of this experiment, selenium seems to reduce Pb toxicity and preventive administration of selenium seems to be also effective. And the difference of selenium effect according to the administration method between oral and subcutaneous could not be found.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.377-381
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• 2009

Excessive presence of heavy metals in environment may contaminate plants and fruits grown in that area. Rapid on-site monitoring of heavy metals can provide useful information to efficiently characterize heavy metal-contaminated sites and minimize the exposure of the contaminated food crops to humans. This study reports on the evaluation of a bismuth-coated glassy carbon electrode for simultaneous determination of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) in a NIST-SRM 1568a rice flour by anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV). The use of a supporting electrolyte 0.1 M $HNO_3$ at a dilution ratio (sample pretreated with acid digestion in a microwave oven: supporting electrolyte) of 1:1 provided well-defined, sharp and separate peaks for Cd and Pb ions, thereby resulting in strongly linear relationships between Cd and Pb concentrations and peak currents measured with the electrode ($R^2\;=\;0.97$, 0.99 for Cd and Pb, respectively). The validation test results for spiked standard solutions with different concentrations of Cd and Pb gave acceptable predictability for both spiked Cd and Pb ions with mean prediction errors of 6 to 30%. However, the applicability of the electrode to the real rice flour sample was limited by the fact that Cd concentrations spiked in the rice flour sample were overly estimated with relatively high variations even though Pb ion could be quantitatively measured with the electrode.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.640-646
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• 1998

Nucleation and crystallzation of a quaternary glass system for lead titanate glass-ceramics were in-vestigated using DTA(differential thermal analysis ) with variation of nucleation temperature and crystal growth time. Glass samples containing 60mol% of PbO-{{{{ { TiO}_{2 } }} were prepared from melts by the conventional normal cooling method in a cylindrical brass mould. The glass sample was nucleated between 40$0^{\circ}C$ and 50$0^{\circ}C$ for a given time and showed the maximum nucleation rate at 46$0^{\circ}C$ The DTA crystallization peak temperature decreased with increasing nucleating time and decreasing heating rate during DTA runs which indicated an increase of the number of nuclei produced in the system.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.185-193
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• 1989

This study was performed to investigate lead(Pb) detoxification with different dietary protein levels and detoxifying periods in Pb poisoned rats. Forty nine male rats of Sprague-Dawley strain weighing 114$\pm$4g were used and they were fed 1% Pb-15% casein diet ad libitum for 2 weeks. After sacrifying 7 animals as control group, remaining forty two rats were blocked into 6 groups according to body weight. Three groups were fed each detoxifying diet(5%, 15% or 40% casein diet without Pb) for 1 week and the other 3 groups were fed same diets for 3 weeks. The results obtained were summerized as follows ; 1) Liver and kidney weight, bone weight, and bone length were increased with increasing dietary protein level and detoxifying period. 2) Hematocrit values were recovered to normal level during detoxifiying periods but hemoglobin contents in detoxifying diet groups showed no significant difference from those in control group. 3)Pb contents in blood were decreased with increasing dietary protein level, and Pb contents in liver were significantly decreased in high protein diet groups. Pb contents in kidney were significantly decreased during detoxifying period compared to control group, but no significant difference was shown within the detoxifying diet groups. Pb contents in femur were significantly decreased after 3 weeks of detoxifying period but no difference was shown with different dietary protein level. 4) Urinary Pb excretions were significantly increased with increasing dietary protein level. Fecal Pb excretions were remarkably decreased after 3 weeks of detoxifying period, but no difference was showen in fecal Pb excretions with different dietary protein level. Above results suggest that high protein diet improves Pb detoxification by increasing urinary Pb excretion.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1775-1779
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• 2005

Seventy-two crossbred gilts of approximately 33 kg initial weight were used in this study. The gilts were randomly assigned into three groups. The three dietary treatments were basal diet only (control group), basal diet+10 mg/kg lead, and basal diet+10 mg/kg lead+0.5% particulate montmorillonite (PM). The results showed that the addition of lead to the diet decreased significantly the body weight and feed efficiency, but PM could restore body weight and feed efficiency of gilts compared to the Pb exposure group. There were no significant differences in weights of ovaries and uteri with addition of either lead or PM to the diet. Supplementing the lead in the diet of gilts also significantly increased the concentration of lead in blood, decreased circulating lutenizing hormone (LH) and estradiol (E$_2$) levels in serum, the addition of PM to the diet effectively adsorbed and lowered lead concentration in the blood. These data suggested that lead disrupts the signals between the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in gilts, and possibly suppressed the secretion of relative growth hormone and sex hormone. On the other hand, PM may ameliorate Pb toxicity in pigs.