• Annals of Surgical Treatment and Research
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• v.95 no.5
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• pp.249-257
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• 2018

Purpose: Multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP) 2 is a glutathione conjugate in the canalicular membrane of hepatocytes. Early graft damage after liver transplantation (LT) can result in alteration of MRP2 expression. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the pattern of MRP2 alteration and graft outcome. Methods: Forty-one paraffin-embedded liver graft tissues obtained by protocol biopsy within 2 months after LT; these were stained using monoclonal antibodies of MRP2. We selected 15 live donor biopsy samples as a control, that showed homogenous canalicular staining for MRP2. The pattern of canalicular MRP2 staining of graft was classified into 3 types: homogenous (type C0), focal (type C1), and no (type C2,) staining of the canaliculi. Results: In total, 17.1% graft tissues were type C0, 36.6% were type C1, and 46.3% were type C2. The median operation time was longer in patients with type C2 (562.6 minutes) than in patients with type C0 (393.8 minutes) (P = 0.038). The rates of posttransplant complications were higher in patients with type C2 (100%) than in patients with type C0 (42.9%) and C1 (73.3%) (P < 0.001). Conclusion: MRP2 expression pattern was altered in 82.9% after LT. The pattern of MRP2 alteration was associated with longer operation time and higher rates of post-LT complications.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.340-348
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• 2019

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the nutritional status of liver transplantation (LT) recipients and explore certain factors that influence nutritional status, including dietary patterns and physical activities. Methods: This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study. The subjects included 211 LT recipients at a medical center outpatient clinic located in Seoul, Korea. The nutritional status, dietary patterns, and physical activities of each subject were measured using the body mass index (BMI), Mini Dietary Assessment (MDA), and Global Physical Activity Questionnaire. Independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: The percentages of living and deceased donor LTs were 81.0% and 19.0%, respectively. The mean BMIs pre- and post-LT were 23.88 and $23.16kg/m^2$, respectively, and the average MDA score was 36.55. More than 60.0% of the subjects had a moderate or high level of physical activity. In multivariate analysis, a higher BMI before LT (${\beta}=.72$, p<.001), a lower Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD) score (${\beta}=-.18$, p<.001), and being male (${\beta}=-.10$, p=.024) contributed to better nutritional status post-LT. Patients within six months of LT were less engaged in muscle exercises than those post six months of LT (p=.020). Conclusion: LT recipients in Korea have good nutritional status and a good level of physical activity. To improve recipients' post-LT nutritional status, the pre-LT nutritional status should be considered, particularly in those with a higher MELD score. In addition, physical activity including muscle-strengthening exercises should be encouraged from an earlier stage.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.166-172
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• 2007

Purpose: It has recently been reported that de novo HBV infection following liver transplantation is caused by grafts from HBcAb positive donors, and this phenomenon has been observed in one third of the liver transplant patients in our center. Therefore, we investigated the presence of HBV virus DNA in liver tissues obtained from HBcAb positive donors to determine the mechanism by which de novo HBV infection occurs. Methods: This study was conducted on 6 patients that were HBsAg negative, HBsAb positive, and HBcAb positive who were donors for liver transplantation between November 1997 and November 1998 at Asan Medical Center. We isolated DNA from a portion of liver biopsy tissues that were obtained during the operation, and then identified the surface and core region of HBV DNA using nested PCR. In addition, four children who received liver grafts from these donors were monitored to determine if they became afflicted with non-HBV related diseases while receiving prophylaxis consisting of short-term HBIG treatment and long-term treatment with an antiviral agent. Results: The surface antigen region was identified in all 6 donors and the core antigen region was observed in 4 of the 6 donors. However, no episodes of de novo HBV infection with prophylaxis were observed. Conclusion: The results of this study support the results of previous studies, which indicated that HBV infection may be the main cause of de novo HBV infection in patients that receive HBsAb positive and HBcAb positive donor grafts.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.178-185
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• 2017

Purpose: To evaluate the outcomes of a hybrid prophylactic strategy to prevent cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in pediatric liver transplantation (LT) patients. Methods: CMV DNAemia was regularly monitored by quantitative nucleic acid amplification test (QNAT) and was quantified in all children. CMV infection and disease were defined according to the International Consensus Guidelines. The hybrid strategy against CMV infection consisted of universal 3-week prophylaxis and preemptive treatment of intravenous ganciclovir regardless of the recipient's serostatus. Results: A total of 143 children who underwent living donor LT were managed using the hybrid strategy. The overall incidence of CMV infection by QNAT was 48.3% (n=69/143). The highest CMV DNAemia positivity was observed in 49.2% (n=60/122) of children in the D+/R+ group, followed by 46.7% (n=7/15) in the D+/R- group. CMV disease was noted in 26.1% (n=18/69) patients. Forty-three (62.3%) children had undergone preemptive therapy consisting of intravenous ganciclovir. No symptomatic patients developed tissue-invasive disease, resulting in no CMV-associated mortality. Conclusion: The incidence of CMV infection was high in pediatric LT patients despite the hybrid strategy. However, tissue-invasive disease in pediatric LT did not occur.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.1260-1268
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• 2022

Objective: To propose standardized MRI-proton density fat fraction (PDFF) cutoff values for diagnosing hepatic steatosis, evaluated using contemporary PDFF measuring methods in a large population of healthy adults, using histologic fat fraction (HFF) as the reference standard. Materials and Methods: A retrospective search of electronic medical records between 2015 and 2018 identified 1063 adult donor candidates for liver transplantation who had undergone liver MRI and liver biopsy within a 7-day interval. Patients with a history of liver disease or significant alcohol consumption were excluded. Chemical shift imaging-based MRI (CS-MRI) PDFF and high-speed T2-corrected multi-echo MR spectroscopy (HISTO-MRS) PDFF data were obtained. By temporal splitting, the total population was divided into development and validation sets. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the MRI-PDFF method. Two cutoff values with sensitivity > 90% and specificity > 90% were selected to rule-out and rule-in, respectively, hepatic steatosis with reference to HFF ≥ 5% in the development set. The diagnostic performance was assessed using the validation set. Results: Of 921 final participants (624 male; mean age ± standard deviation, 31.5 ± 9.0 years), the development and validation sets comprised 497 and 424 patients, respectively. In the development set, the areas under the ROC curve for diagnosing hepatic steatosis were 0.920 for CS-MRI-PDFF and 0.915 for HISTO-MRS-PDFF. For ruling-out hepatic steatosis, the CS-MRI-PDFF cutoff was 2.3% (sensitivity, 92.4%; specificity, 63.0%) and the HISTO-MRI-PDFF cutoff was 2.6% (sensitivity, 88.8%; specificity, 70.1%). For ruling-in hepatic steatosis, the CS-MRI-PDFF cutoff was 3.5% (sensitivity, 73.5%; specificity, 88.6%) and the HISTO-MRI-PDFF cutoff was 4.0% (sensitivity, 74.7%; specificity, 90.6%). Conclusion: In a large population of healthy adults, our study suggests diagnostic thresholds for ruling-out and ruling-in hepatic steatosis defined as HFF ≥ 5% by contemporary PDFF measurement methods.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.184-187
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• 2008

S-Adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) is an important metabolic intermediate in living organisms and participates in many reactions as a methyl group donor. SAM has been used as a dietary supplement and is proposed to have beneficial effects on the liver and brain. The aim of this study was to find lactic acid bacteria with high SAM-producing ability to be used as SAM enhancing probiotics. We used high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to quantify the amount of SAM produced, and found that Bifidobacterium bifidum BGN4 produced a significantly higher amount of SAM than other Bifidobacterium or Lactobacillus strains. The effect of various carbon and nitrogen sources on SAM production was examined. This study confirmed that Bifidobacterium may be utilized as a source of SAM in the functional food industry.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.133-136
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• 2004

Phalloides syndrome has usually occurred after incidental mushroom ingestion. It is sometimes difficult to differentiate toxic mushrooms from edible ones, especially in lay person because of their morphological similarities. In Korea, Amanita virosa and Amanita subjunquillea have been reported as a cause of fulminant hepatic failure in mushroom poisoning (phalloides syndrome). We report a case of phalloides syndrome who came to death with fulminant hepatic failure even though we planned liver transplantation and used T-PLS(R) (Twin Pulse Life Support) for hemodynamic support while waiting for the donor.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.202-208
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• 2017

Xanthine Oxidase is an enzyme, which oxidizes hypoxanthine to xanthine, and xanthine to uric acid. It is widely distributed throughout various organs including the liver, gut, lungs, kidney, heart, brain and plasma. It is involved in gout pathogenesis. Hence, in the present study, Hologram based Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship Study was performed on a series of Xanthine Oxidase antagonist named 2-(indol-5-yl) thiazole derivatives. The best HQSAR model was obtained using Atoms, Bonds, Connection, Hydrogen, Chirality and Donor Acceptor as fragment distinction parameter using hologram length 71 and 4 components with fragment size of minimum 2 and maximum 5. Significant cross-validated correlation coefficient ($q^2$= 0.563) and non cross-validated correlation coefficients ($r^2$= 0.967) were obtained. The model was then used to evaluate the six external test compounds and its $r^2{_{pred}}$ was found to be 0.798. Contribution map show that presence of propyl ring in indole thiazole makes big contributions for improving the biological activities of the compounds. We hope that our HQSAR model and analysis will be helpful for future design of xanthine oxidase antagonists.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.638-639
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• 2000

Quinone reductase was purified to electrophoretic homogeneity from bovine liver by using ammonium sulfate fractionation, ion-exchange chromatography, and gel filtration chromatography. The enzyme utilized either NADH or NADPH as the electron donor. The optimum pH of the enzyme was pH 8.5, and the activity of the enzyme was greatly inhibited by $Cu^{2+}$ and $Hg^{2+}$ ions, dicumarol and cibacron blue 3GA. The enzyme catalyzed the reduction of several quinones and other artificial electron acceptors. Furthermore, the enzyme catalyzed NAD(P)H-dependent reduction of azobenzene or 4-nitroso-N,N-dimethylaniline. The apparent $K_m$ for 1,4-benzoquinone, azobenzene, and 4-nitroso-N,N-dimethylaniline was 1.64mM, 0.524mM and 0.225mM, respectively. The reduction of azobenzene or 4-nitroso-N,N-dimethylaniline by quinone reductase was strongly inhibited by dicumarol or cibacron blue 3GA, potent inhibitors of quinone reductase.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.180-188
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• 2022

Objective: To validate the performance of 3T spin-echo echo-planar imaging (SE-EPI) magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) for staging hepatic fibrosis in a large population, using surgical specimens as the reference standard. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study initially included 310 adults (155 undergoing hepatic resection and 155 undergoing donor hepatectomy) with histopathologic results from surgical liver specimens. They underwent 3T SE-EPI MRE ≤ 3 months prior to surgery. Demographic findings, underlying liver disease, and hepatic fibrosis pathologic stage according to METAVIR were recorded. Liver stiffness (LS) was measured by two radiologists, and inter-reader reproducibility was evaluated using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The mean LS of each fibrosis stage (F0-F4) was calculated in total and for each etiologic subgroup. Comparisons among subgroups were performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test and Conover post-hoc test. The cutoff values for fibrosis staging were estimated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results: Inter-reader reproducibility was excellent (ICC, 0.98; 95% confidence interval, 0.97-0.99). The mean LS values were 1.91, 2.41, 3.24, and 5.41 kPa in F0-F1 (n = 171), F2 (n = 26), F3 (n = 38), and F4 (n = 72), respectively. The discriminating cutoff values for diagnosing ≥ F2, ≥ F3, and F4 were 2.18, 2.71, and 3.15 kPa, respectively, with the ROC curve areas of 0.97-0.98 (sensitivity 91.2%-95.9%, specificity 90.7%-99.0%). The mean LS was significantly higher in patients with cirrhosis (F4) of nonviral causes, such as primary biliary cirrhosis (9.56 kPa) and alcoholic liver disease (7.17 kPa) than in those with hepatitis B or C cirrhosis (4.28 and 4.92 kPa, respectively). There were no statistically significant differences in LS among the different etiologic subgroups in the F0-F3 stages. Conclusion: The 3T SE-EPI MRE demonstrated high interobserver reproducibility, and our criteria for staging hepatic fibrosis showed high diagnostic performance. LS was significantly higher in patients with non-viral cirrhosis than in those with viral cirrhosis.