• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.113-118
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• 2016

Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9), is a protein mainly secreted by a liver. The PCSK9 plays an important role in low density lipoprotein (LDL) metabolism acting as a repressor of LDL receptor through transportation of the LDLR to the lysosome for degradation. Thus, the PCSK9 inhibitor suppresses PCSK9-regulated degradation of the LDL receptor as a LDL-lowering medicine. However, little is known about the role of PCSK9 in the reproductive system. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated Pcsk9 expression in male reproductive tracts including penises, prostates and testes using rats in response to their diets between a normal diet and a high-fat diet with cholesterol. Based on our previous study, the high-fat diet elevates concentration of total cholesterol and LDL in serum whereas it reduces the concentration of plasma high density lipoprotein (HDL). In addition, it dramatically affects to morphological changes of the male reproductive organs. Consistent with these results, the expression of Pcsk9 was substantially decreased in the penile tissues (P < 0.001) from rats fed a high fat diet as compared to a normal diet. Moreover, it slightly reduced in the prostate and testes (P < 0.05) of rats in response to a high fat diet. Localization of Pcsk9 was predominantly detected in urethral epithelium of penises, cylinder-shaped cells of prostate glands, and spermatogonia, spermatocytes and spermatid of testes of rats. Collectively, results of current study provide invaluable insights into the Pcsk9 gene with respect to its tissue- and cell-specific expression by a high fat diet with cholesterol.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.169-175
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• 2012

Five kinds of selective media, such as mannitol salt agar (MSA), Baird-Parker agar (BPA), Baird-Parker supplemented with rabbit plasma fibrinogen (BPA+RPF), CHROMagar Staphylococcus aureus (CSA), and Petrifilm Staph Express count system (Petrifilm), were compared to recommend the optimum selective media for isolation of Staphylococcus aureus from agricultural products. Seventy four target and non target bacteria were inoculated on five selective media to analyze sensitivity and specificity. In the recovery test of injured S. aureus cells, S. aureus was exposed to acid (1% lactic acid for 10 min), heat ($60^{\circ}C$ for 90s), and cold ($-20^{\circ}C$ for 1h) conditions. And artificially contaminated agricultural products (iceberg lettuce, green pepper, and cherry tomato) was enumerated on five selective media. The sensitivity of BPA+RPF, CSA, Petrifilm, MSA, and BPA were 100%, 100%, 100%, 90.5%, 90.5%, respectively. In addition, the specificity of BPA+RPF, CSA, MSA, BPA and Petrifilm were 100%, 100%, 84.6%, 75.0%, 67.3%, respectively. However, no difference among five selective media was observed in recovery on injured S. aureus cell and enumeration from agricultural products. This results suggest that BPA+RPF and CSA are the optimum media for detection of S. aureus from agricultural products.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.205-212
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• 2008

Background and purpose: So far it was reported that acupuncture increased cerebral blood supply and stimulated the functional activity of brain nerve cells. A previous study demonstrated a correlation between LI4-11 electro-acupuncture (EA) and rCBF increase in frontal lobe. However, there remained a need to study further using various controls in acupuncture research. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) has been used as a non-invasive control in acupuncture study. This study was to evaluate the effect of LI4-LI11 TENS on regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in normal volunteers using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and statistical parametric mapping (SPM). Methods: In the resting state, $^{99m}Tc-ECD$ brain SPECT scans were performed on 10 normal volunteers (9 males, 1 female, mean age 26.6$\pm$0.5 years; age range from 26 to 27 years). On the other day, 7 days after the resting examination, 15 minute TENS were applied at LI 4 and LI 11 on the right side of the subjects. Immediately after LI4-LI11 TENS, the second SPECT images were obtained in the same manner as the resting state. Significant increases and decreases of regional cerebral blood flow after LI4-LI11 TENS were estimated by comparing their SPECT images with those of the resting state using paired t statistics at every voxel, which were analyzed by statistical parametric mapping with a threshold of p = 0.001, uncorrected (extent threshold: k=100 voxels). Results: TENS applied at right LI4-LI11 increased rCBF in the left somatosensory association cortex (Brodmann area 5, 7). However there was no area where LI4-11 TENS decreased rCBF. Conclusion and suggestions: These results demonstrate that right LI4-LI11 TENS increased rCBF only in corresponding somatosensory association cortex, which was different from the previous results using LI4-11 EA. It is suggested that there be a different mechanism between TENS and EA.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.12-19
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• 2012

The present study was performed to investigate antioxidant, anticancer, and antimicrobial activities of four Korean sweet potato variaties and to identify the changes in these biological activities under different cooking conditions. Total polyphenol content was 3.8-73.6 mg/g in 80% ethanol extracts of sweet potatoes. The polyphenol content was highest Sinjami variety (p < 0.05). Radical scavenging activity against DPPH and $ABTS^{{\cdot}+}$ was high in Sinjami (p < 0.05) and the ethanol extract from Sinjami also showed effective superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like activity, which decreased significantly by steaming and roasting (p < 0.05). Ethanol extracts from the four sweet potato variaties did not inhibit cancer cell growth in MCF-7 or HepG2 cells at concentrations of 1, 10, and $100\;{\mu}g$/mL. Of the investigated sweet potato variaties, only Sinjami exhibited strong antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella typhimurium. The antimicrobial activity of Sinjami against E. coli, St. aureus, and S. typhimurium decreased following steaming and roasting (p < 0.05). These results indicate that the Sinjami Korean sweet potato had higher polyphenol content, radical scavenging activity, SOD-like activity, and antimicrobial activity than those of the other variaties and consuming raw Sinjami might be beneficial for maintenance of biological activities.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.329-336
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• 2006

The characteristics of mash qualities of takju prepared by addition of chestnut peel powder(5%, 10%, 20% and 30% per steamed rice) were investigated during fermentation. That is, in all fermentation periods, changes of pit total acid, organic acids, solids, amino nitrogen, total sugar and reducing sugar, microorganisms, alcohol and color were determined and analyzed. There was significant differences in characteristics of mash qualities by addition of chestnut peel powder. In general, contents of total acid, organic acids, amino nitrogen, total sugar, reducing sugar and ethanol of takju added with chestnut peel powder were lower than those of steamed rice only, whereas solid contents was higher. But ethanol content of takju added with 5% of chestnut peel powder after 8 days of fermentation was 9.6% which was similar to that of takju prepared by addition of steamed lice only. Also, microbial populations such as total viable cells, yeast and lactic acid bacteria of the treatments were increased to about $10^8CFU/mL$ after 2 days of fermentation and then decreased gradually. In the beginning stage of fermentation color differences value of the treatments were $1.99{\sim}10.27$, and the differentials reduced gradually during fermentation.

• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.95-110
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• 2006

The treatment for oral and maxillofacial carcinoma with chemotherapeutic agents is evaluated by many effective methods to reduce the tumor mass and cancer cell proliferation. However these chemotherapy have many serious side effects, such as bone marrow suppression, renal toxicity, G-I troubles. Therefore a possible approach to develop a clinically applicable chemotherapeutic agent is to screen anticancer activity of Taxol which is known to have very little side effect and have been used to breast cancer and ovarian carcinoma. Taxol is a new anti-microtubular anti-cancer agent extracted from the bark of the Pacific yew, Taxus brevifolia. Paclitaxel(Taxol) acts by promoting tubulin polymerization and over stabilizing microtubules agianst depolymerization. Despite the constant improvements of methods of the cancer treatment especially chemotherapy, the rate of cancer metastasis and recurrent are not decreased. Thus the investigation of new drug which have very little side effect and a possible clinically application continues to be a high priority. Considering that the Taxol have shown very effective chemotherapeutic agent with relatively low toxicity in many solid tumors, it deserves to evaluate its efficacy in oral squamous cell carcinoma. In this study, to investigate the in-vivo and in-vitro anti-cancer efficacy of Taxol in oral squamous cell carcinoma and lastly, the potency of Paclitaxel in the clinical application for oral cancer was evaluated. In vivo study, after HN22 cell line were xenografted in nude mice, the growth of tumor mass was observed, 3 mg/Kg taxol was injected intraperitoneally into nude mice containing tumor mass. The methods of these study were measurement of total volume of tumor mass, histopathologic study, immunohistochemical study, drug resistance assay, growth curve, MTT assay, flow cytometry, cDNA microarray in vivo and in vitro. The results were obtained as following. 1. The visual inspection of the experimental group showed that the volume of the tumor mass was slightly decreased but no significant difference with control group. 2. Ki-67 index was decreased at weeks 4 in experimental group. 3. Microscopic view of the xenografted tumor mass showed well differentiated squamous cell carcinoma and after Taxol injection, some necrotic tissue was seen weeks 4. 4. The growth curve of the tumor cells were decreased after 1day Taxol treatment. 5. According to the MTT assay, HN22 cell line showed relative drug resistancy above $5\;{\mu}g/ml$ concentrations of Taxol. 6. In drug resistance assay, the decrease of cell counts was seen relatively according to concentration. 7. In Flow cytometry, G2M phase cell arrests were seen in low concentration of the Taxol, while S phase cell arrests were seen in high concentration of the Taxol. 8. Using cDNA microarray technique, variable gene expression of ANGPTL4, TXNRD1, FAS, RRAGA, CTGF, CYCLINEA, P19, DUSP5, CEBPG, BTG1 were detacted in the oral squamous cell carcinoma cell after taxol treatment. In this study paclitaxel is effective against oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines in vitro, but week effect was observed in vivo. So we need continuous study about anticancer effect of taxol in vivo in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.104-113
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• 1991

This experiment was conducted to find the effect of calcium salts on the inhibition of 'Campbell Early' grape(Vitis labruscana B.) berry absicission induced by ethephon. Ethylene evolution, berry abscission rate, and fruit quality were examined. Several mineral contents were determinded in the berries and morphological changes of cells in abscission zone were also studied. 1. Calcium acetate($4.4-8.8g/{\ell}$) and calcium hydroxide($2.2-8.8g/{\ell}$) completely inhibited berry abscission when applied with ethephon 1,000 ppm while calcium chloride was less effective. 2. Ethylene evolution in the berries treated with ethephon alone reached to maximum peak one day after application. However, that peak in the treatment of ethephon with calcium acetate occurred 3 hours after application. 3. No decrease of ethylene production capacity was observed in the ethephon solution even when held up to 36 hours after preparation but the effect on berry abscission was significantly reduced. In contrast, ethylene production of the solution prepared with calcium acetate was greatly decreased along with the increase of holding time. The effect of calcium acetate in aged solution on the inhibition of berry abscission was not altered. 4. There were no differences in mineral contents such as Ca, Mg, and K between the berries sprayed with ethephon 500 ppm or not. Additional calcium accumulation was not found in the skin, flesh, and petiole of clusters sprayed with 3 kinds of calcium salts (1.5 g net Ca per liter) respectively when analyzed 2 weeks before maturity. 5. Ethephon (1,000 ppm) alone induced the development of abscission layer in petiole but those applied with calcium acetate (0.05 M) did not develop any distinct abscission layer 3days after treatment.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.75-88
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• 2005

Ameloblastoma is the most commonly occurring odontogenic tumor in oral cavity. Although most are benign epithelial neoplasm, they are generally considered to be locally aggressive and destructive, exhibiting a high rate of recurrence. The biological behavior of this neoplasm is a slowly growing, locally invasive tumor without metastasis, therefore malignant neoplasm, changed its histological appearance to carcinoma or showed distant metastasis, is only defined clinically. In this study, we identified the differentially expressed genes(DEGs) in stages under benign or malignant ameloblastoma compared with normal patient using ordered differential display(ODD) reverse transcription(RT)-PCR and $GeneFishing^{TM}$ technology. ODD RT-PCR is rather effective when the investigation of samples containing very small amounts of total RNA must be accomplished. ODD RT-PCR used the means of amplification with anchored T-primer and adaptor specific primer. bearing definite two bases at their 3' ends and so this method could display differential 3'-expressed sequence taqs(ESTs) patterns without using full-length cDNAs. Compared with standard differential display, ODD RT-PCR is more simple and have enough sensitivity to search for molecular markers by comparing gene expression profiles, However, this method required much effort and skill to perform. $GeneFishing^{TM}$ modified from DD-PCR is an improved method for detecting differentially expressed genes in two or more related samples. This two step RT-PCR method uses a constant reverse primer(anchor ACP-T) to prime the RT reaction and arbitrary primer pairs(annealing control primers, ACPs) during PCR. Because of high annealing specificity of ACPs than ODD RT-PCR, the application of $GeneFishing^{TM}$ to DEG discovery generates reproducible, authentic, and long(100bp to 2kb) PCR products that are detectable on agarose gels. Consequently, various DEGs observed differential expression levels on agarose gels were isolated from normal, benign, and malignant tissues using these methods. The expression patterns of the some isolated DEGs through ODD RT-PCR and $GeneFishing^{TM}$ were confirmed by Northern blot analysis and RT-PCR. The results showed that these identified DEGs were implicated in ameloblastoma neoplasm processes. Therefore, the identified DEGs will be further studied in order to be applied in candidate selection for marker as an early diagnosis during ameloblastoma neoplasm processes.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.5-12
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• 2010

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the preoperative and postoperative nutritional statuses of patients with gastric cancer and to investigate the nutritional factors that are correlated with perioperative complications. Materials and Methods: From January 2008 to Jun 2008, 669 patients who underwent curative gastrectomy were enrolled in a retrospective study. To evaluate the changes of their nutritional status preoperatively and postoperatively, we measured the total lymphocyte count, the serum albumin, the body weight change and the BMI. The nutritional factors correlated with short-term postoperative complications were analyzed. Results: The total lymphocyte count and serum albumin decreased from the first preoperative day to the $5^{th}$ day after operation, but they tended to increase and approach the normal range 6 months after operation. The only factor correlated with the short-term postoperative complications (defined as the ones that occurred for 30 days) was the serum albumin checked on the $5^{th}$ day after operation. Conclusion: Low serum albumin on the $5^{th}$ day after operation was correlated with postoperative short-term complications. Serum albumin can be the preoperative statistical parameter that can predict the occurrence of postoperative complications.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.45 no.7
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• pp.929-937
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Acanthopanax senticosus extract (ASE) (ethanol : DW=1:1, v/v) on inhibition of type 2 diabetes using an OLETF rat model via regulation of HbA1c and AGEs levels. Supplementation with ASE 0.1% and 0.5% effectively lowered levels of glucose, insulin, oral glucose tolerance test, and Homa-insulin resistance, suggesting reduced insulin resistance. Blood levels of HbA1c and AGEs were significantly reduced in a dose-dependent manner. As oxidative stress plays a key role in accelerating production of HbA1c and AGEs, which worsen symptoms of type 2 diabetes, levels of malonaldehyde and pro-inflammatory cytokines were measured. Lipid peroxidation in both blood and liver tissues was significantly reduced, and induction of pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin-${\beta}$ and tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$, which elevate production of HbA1c and AGEs, was inhibited (P<0.05). To evaluate the possible cellular events after AGEs receptor activation, genetic expression of protein kinase C (PKC)-${\delta}$ and transforming growth factor (TGF)-${\beta}$ was measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Supplementation with both ASE 0.1% and 0.5% significantly inhibited mRNA expression of PKC-${\delta}$ and TGF-${\beta}$, indicating that ASE may have beneficial effects on preventing insulin-resistant cells or tissues from progressing to diabetic complications. Taken together, ASE has potential to improve type 2 diabetes by inhibiting insulin resistance and protein glycosylation, including production of HbA1c and AGEs. Anti-oxidative activities of ASE are a main requisite for reducing production of HbA1c and AGEs and are also related to regulation of the PKC signaling pathway, resulting in suppression of TGF-${\beta}$, which increases synthesis of collagen, prostaglandin, and disease-related proteins.