• Nutrition Research and Practice
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.61-68
• /
• 2018

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to test the association between APOA5 3'-UTR variants (rs662799) and cardiometabolic traits in Koreans. SUBJECTS/METHODS: For this study, epidemiological data, Apolipoprotein A5 (APOA5) genotype information, and lymphoblastoid cell line (LCL) biospecimens from a subset of the Ansung-Ansan cohort within the Korean Genome and Epidemiology study (KoGES-ASAS; n = 7,704) as well as epidemiological data along with genomic DNA biospecimens of participants from a subset of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES 2011-12; n = 2,235) were obtained. APOA5 mRNA expression was also measured. RESULTS: APOA5 rs662799 genotype distributions in both the KoGES-ASAS and KNHANES groups were 50.6% for TT, 41.3% for TC, and 8.1% for CC, which are similar to those in previous reports. In both groups, minor C allele carriers, particularly subjects with CC homozygosity, had lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and higher triglyceride levels than TT homozygotes. Linear regression analysis showed that the minor C allele significantly contributed to reduction of circulating HDL cholesterol levels [${\beta}=-2.048$, P < 0.001; ${\beta}=-2.199$, P < 0.001] as well as elevation of circulating triglyceride levels [${\beta}=0.053$, P < 0.001; ${\beta}=0.066$, P < 0.001] in both the KoGES-ASAS and KNHANES groups. In addition, higher expression levels of APOA5 in LCLs of 64 healthy individuals were negatively associated with body mass index (r = -0.277, P = 0.027) and circulating triglyceride level (r = -0.340, P = 0.006) but not significantly correlated with circulating HDL cholesterol level. On the other hand, we observed no significant difference in the mRNA level of APOA5 according to APOA5 rs662799 polymorphisms. CONCLUSIONS: The C allele of APOA5 rs662799 was found to be significantly associated with cardiometabolic traits in a large Korean population from the KoGES-ASAS and KNHANES. The effect of this genotype may be associated with post-transcriptional regulation, which deserves further experimental confirmation.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.480-488
• /
• 2018

Objective: Average daily gain (ADG) is an important target trait of pig breeding programs. We aimed to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and genomic regions that are associated with ADG in the Duroc pig population. Methods: We performed a genome-wide association study involving 390 Duroc boars and by using the PorcineSNP60K Beadchip and two linear models. Results: After quality control, we detected 3,5971 SNPs, which included seven SNPs that are significantly associated with the ADG of pigs. We identified six quantitative trait loci (QTL) regions for ADG. These QTLs included four previously reported QTLs on Sus scrofa chromosome (SSC) 1, SSC5, SSC9, and SSC13, as well as two novel QTLs on SSC6 and SSC16. In addition, we selected six candidate genes (general transcription factor 3C polypeptide 5, high mobility group AT-hook 2, nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase, oligodendrocyte transcription factor 1, pleckstrin homology and RhoGEF domain containing G4B, and ENSSSCG00000031548) associated with ADG on the basis of their physiological roles and positional information. These candidate genes are involved in skeletal muscle cell differentiation, diet-induced obesity, and nervous system development. Conclusion: This study contributes to the identification of the casual mutation that underlies QTLs associated with ADG and to future pig breeding programs based on marker-assisted selection. Further studies are needed to elucidate the role of the identified candidate genes in the physiological processes involved in ADG regulation.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
• /
• v.46 no.4
• /
• pp.517-524
• /
• 2004

The objective of this study was to investigate the environmental effects on duration time of milk flow, peak milk flow, and average milk flow in teats, and to estimate their relationships with milk yields in morning and evening milking, and to provide fimdamental information for the further study on their relationships with clinical mastitis and somatic cell in milk. A total of 6,768 milking records were studied in 72 Holstein cows. The influences of season, parity, lactation month, and milking interval on characteristics of milk flow considering in linear model were significant(p<.05). Duration of milk flow was longest at milking in fall, past first parity and second month of lactation, and with milking interval over than 13.5hrs. Average milk flow rate and peak milk flow rate were highest at milking in summer, past first parity and 8${\sim}$10 months of lactation, and with milking interval over than 13.5hrs. Milk flow rate was positively correlated to milk yield, and negatively correlated to the duration of milk flow. However duration milk flow was positively correlated to the milk yield with high level of correlation coefficient(+.60). For the establishment of optimum selection criteria on these traits, other aspects such as the udder health, disease and respective economic weights of milk flow characteristics in this study must be considered to develop the indices.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.156-162
• /
• 2007

The parallel beam SPECT system acquires projection data by using collimators in conjunction with photon detectors. The projection data of the parallel beam SPECT system is, however, blurred by the point response function of the collimator that is used to define the range of directions where photons can be detected. By increasing the number of parallel holes per unit area in collimator, one can reduce such blurring effect. This approach also, however, has the blurring problem if the distance between the object and the collimator becomes large. In this paper we consider correction methods for artifacts caused by non-circular orbit of parallel beam SPECT with many parallel holes per detector cell. To do so, we model the relationship between the object and its projection data as a linear system, and propose an iterative reconstruction method including artifacts correction. We compute the projector and the backprojector, which are required in iterative method, as a sum of convolutions with distance-dependent point response functions instead of matrix form, where those functions are analytically computed from a single function. By doing so, we dramatically reduce the computation time and memory required for the generation of the projector and the backprojector. We conducted several simulation studies to compare the performance of the proposed method with that of conventional Fourier method. The result shows that the proposed method outperforms Fourier methods objectively and subjectively.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.229-235
• /
• 2010

The MTT assay is one of superior evaluation methods widely used to analyze the viability of metabolically active cell. It can be used to determine the percentage of viable sperm through measurement of the reduction of MTT granules at mitochondria in sperm tail. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal condition of a simple and easy MTT assay to validate boar sperm viability and compare the accuracy of this test with microscopic examination. The MTT reduction rate for sperm viability were analyzed in microtiter plates (96 well) from 1 hr to 5 hr incubation periods at $37^{\circ}C$ using spectrophotometer (microplate reader) at 550 nm wavelength. The remainder of semen sample was simultaneously examined to compare the correlation of accuracy between MTT assay and other sperm parameters. Those sperm parameters were included the motility, survival rates, membrane integrity, mitochondria activity and acrosome integrity. The OD values of MTT assay (MTT reduction rates) did not greatly change at 1 hr to 5 hr incubation periods in different proportion of live and freeze-killed sperms (dead sperm). The MTT reduction rates or survival rates were decreased according to the different concentration of live and dead sperm. The linear regression at 1 hr and 4 hr incubation periods in sperm MTT assay was y=291.55x-72.176 and y= 180.64x-44.569, respectively. There are high correlation between 1 hr and 4 hr incubation periods (p<0.001). The results of MTT assay and other sperm parameters has a positive correlation (p<0.01 or 0.05). The correlation coefficients for MTT assay was 0.88115 for motility, 0.89868 for survival rates, 0.91722 for membrane integrity and 0.77372 for acrosome integrity, respectively. In conclusion, the MTT assay can be used as a reliable and efficient evaluation method for boar sperm viability. It can be use practical means to evaluate the quality of boar sperm by a fast, inexpensive and easy method.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2008.10a
• /
• pp.51-56
• /
• 2008

The waveform inversion for isotropic media has ever been studied since the 1980s, but there has been few studies for anisotropic media. We present a seismic waveform inversion algorithm for 2-D heterogeneous transversely isotropic structures. A cell-based finite difference algorithm for anisotropic media in time domain is adopted. The steepest descent during the non-linear iterative inversion approach is obtained by backpropagating residual errors using a reverse time migration technique. For scaling the gradient of a misfit function, we use the pseudo Hessian matrix which is assumed to neglect the zero-lag auto-correlation terms of impulse responses in the approximate Hessian matrix of the Gauss-Newton method. We demonstrate the use of these waveform inversion algorithm by applying them to a two layer model and the anisotropic Marmousi model data. With numerical examples, we show that it's difficult to converge to the true model when we assumed that anisotropic media are isotropic. Therefore, it is expected that our waveform inversion algorithm for anisotropic media is adequate to interpret real seismic exploration data.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
• /
• v.47 no.1
• /
• pp.49-59
• /
• 2020

The present study determined the effect of dietary cultivated microalgae (Parachlorella sp.) on the growth and immune responses of pre-starter broilers. A total of 320 one-day-old birds (Ross 308) were allocated to 4 treatments with 8 blocks in a randomized complete block design. The four experimental diets consisted of a corn-soybean meal-based control diet, and three diets contained 0.5%, 1.0%, and 1.5% microalgae powder at the expense of cornstarch in the control diet. After feeding the experimental diets for 7 days, the body weight and feed intake of all birds were measured, and 8 birds were randomly selected from each treatment. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and serum were harvested for immune profile assessment, including cytokines and cell migration receptors. No differences in growth performance were observed among the treatments. The birds that were fed diets containing graded levels of microalga showed a linear increase in the mRNA expression of cytokine genes in PBMCs, including that of IL2, IL1β, and IL18 (P<0.05). With respect to the chemokine receptor genes in PBMCs, mRNA expression of CCR2, CCR9, and ITGA4 changed quadratically (P<0.05), but that of CCR7 increased linearly (P<0.01). Cytokine protein secretion in blood, including that of IL-1β and IL-6, increased linearly (P<0.01) with an increase in the microalgal content. Overall, the present results show that the indigenous microalgae powder used in this study could stimulate immunity with no detrimental effects on the growth performance of pre-starter broiler chickens.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.26-35
• /
• 2014

Saccharothrix algeriensis NRRL B-24137 produces naturally different dithiolopyrrolone derivatives. The enzymatic activity of pyrrothine N-acyltransferase was determined to be responsible for the transfer of an acyl group from acyl-CoA to pyrrothine core. This activity was also reported to be responsible for the diversity of the dithiolopyrrolone derivatives. Based on this fact, nine dithiolopyrrolone derivatives were produced in vitro via the crude extract of Sa. algeriensis. Three of them have never been obtained before by natural fermentation: acetoacetyl-pyrrothine, hydroxybutyryl-pyrrothine, and dimethyl thiolutin (holomycin). Two acyltransferase activities, acetyltransferase and benzoyltransferase catalyzing the incorporation of linear and cyclic acyl groups to the pyrrothine core, respectively, were biochemically characterized in this crude extract. The first one is responsible for formation of acetyl-pyrrothine and the second for benzoyl-pyrrothine. Both enzymes were sensitive to temperature changes: For example, the loss of acetyltransferase and benzoyltransferase activity was 53% and 80% respectively after pre-incubation of crude extract for 60 min at $20^{\circ}C$. The two enzymes were more active in neutral and basal media (pH 7-10) than in the acidic one (pH 3-6). The optimum temperature and pH of acetyltransferase were $40^{\circ}C$ and 7, with a $K_m$ value of $7.9{\mu}M$ and a $V_{max}$ of $0.63{\mu}M/min$ when acetyl-CoA was used as limited substrate. Benzoyltransferase had a temperature and a pH optimum at $55^{\circ}C$and 9, a $K_m$ value of $14.7{\mu}M$, and a $V_{max}$ of $0.67{\mu}M/min$ when benzoyl-CoA was used as limited substrate.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.90-96
• /
• 2014

The electrical resistivity of concrete can be related to two processes involved in corrosion of reinforcement: initiation (chloride penetration) and propagation (corrosion rate). The resisistivity of concrete structure exposed to chloride indicates the risk of early corrosion damage, because a low resistivity is related to rapid chloride penetration and to high corrosion rate. Concrete resistivity is a geometry-independent material property that describes the electrical resistance, which is the ratio between applied voltage and resulting current in a unit cell. In previous study, it was realized that the resistivity of concrete depended on the moisture content in the concrete, microstructural properties, and environmental attack such as carbonation. The current is carried by ions dissolved in the pore liquid. While some data exist on the relationship between moisture content on electrical resistivity of concrete, very little research has been conducted to evaluate the effect of chloride on the conduction of electricity through concrete. The purpose of this study is to examine and quantify the effect of chloride content on surface electrical resistivity measurement of concrete. It was obvious that chloride content had influenced the resistivity of concrete and the relationship showed a linear function. That is, concrete with chloride ions had a comparatively lower resistivity. Decreasing rate of resistivity of concrete was clear at early time, however, after 50 days resistivity was constant irrespective of chloride concentration. Conclusively, this paper suggested the quantitive solution to depict the electrical resistivity of concrete with chloride content.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.389-396
• /
• 1991

The pre-concentration and determination of ultratrace arsenic in water samples was studied by the precipitate flotation technique. The arsenic in 1.0l of water sample, in which all suspended materials were filtered out, was coprecipitated together with La(OH)$_3$ precipitates at pH 8.5${\pm}$0.1. After the precipitate was made to be hydrophobic by adding mixed surfactant of 1 : 8 mole ratio of sodium oleate and sodium dodecyl sulfate, it was floated with the aid of tiny bubbles of nitrogen gas in a flotation cell. The floated precipitate was quantitatively collected on a micropore glass filter by the suction, dissolved with small volume of 1.0M sulfuric acid, and accurately diluted to 25.00ml with a de-ionized water. Total arsenic was spectrophotometrically determinated by forming silver diethyldithiocarbamate complex of arsine generated from arsenic in the concentrated solution. The calibration curve was linear up to 20ng/ml in the original solution. Analytical results showed that contents of arsenic in a campus wastewater and a river water were 8.2ng/ml and l.0ng/ml, respectively, and their recoveries were 93${\%}$ and 90${\%}$ in water samples which a given amount of arsenic was added into. From above result, it could be concluded that this method was applicable to the determination of arsenic in various kinds of water at low ng/ml levels.