• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.22-26
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• 2020

Chrysosplenium aureobracteatum Y. I. Kim & Y. D. Kim (Saxifragaceae) is a recently described endemic species growing in the central part of the Korean peninsula. It requires constant monitoring for conservation due to its limited distributions. There is also a need for molecular markers for proper assessments of the genetic differentiation of C. aureobracteatum from species morphologically similar to it. In this study, we developed microsatellite markers that can be used to evaluate the genetic diversity of this species, representing fundamental data with which to conserve the natural populations of the species. A total of 17 expressed sequence tag-simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers were developed by the Illumina pair-end sequencing of the transcriptomes of C. aureobracteatum. These markers were successfully applied to populations of C. aureobracteatum and to its most closely related species, C. barbatum, revealing high polymorphism in both species. The EST-SSR markers developed in this study were proven to be useful not only to monitor the population genetic structure of C. aureobracteatum for conservation purposes but also to study the genetic delimitation of the species from species closely related to it.

• Journal of Menopausal Medicine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.176-182
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• 2018

Objectives: Menopause is associated with adverse metabolic changes in plasma lipoprotein and inflammation markers. Estrogens have beneficial effects on lipid metabolism and inflammation. Isoflavones (ISO) have structurally similar to estradiol. Our objective was analize the effect of soy-ISO on serum lipid and inflammatory markers (sP-selectin and sCD40L) in postmenopausal women. Methods: A 12-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled intervention with soy-ISO (50 mg, twice daily) was conducted in 35 healthy postmenopausal women (55-72 years old). The women were divided in 2 groups: 20 were allocated to soy-ISO, and 15 to a placebo group. Results: The changes of total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides, low-density lipoproteins-cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, Apo-A1, sP-selectin and sCD40L in 2 groups before and after 12-week treatment showed no statistical significance. In subgroup analysis, soy-ISO supplementation significantly decreased the levels of TC, LDL-C and sCD40L in women under 65 years old, and with null effects on serum lipid and inflammation markers in women over 65 years old. Conclusions: Soy-ISO did not significantly favorable effects on the lipid profile and inflammatory markers in postmenopausal women. However, in women under 65 years of age, soy-ISO significantly decreased the TC, LDL-C and sCD40L, whereas, no effects on lipid profile and inflammation markers in women over 65 years old were observed.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.71-75
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• 2024

In this review, we compared the success rates of DNA amplification and introduced the efficient non-invasive sampling of fecal samples collected from captive and wild Korean long-tailed gorals (Naemorhedus caudatus) by referring to previous non-invasive studies, including three important references (Kim et al., 2008; Kim, 2021; Kim, 2022). A large difference in PCR success rates in the captive and wild populations was observed for mitochondrial (100 and 70.0%), sex-linked (44.4 and 20.8%), and microsatellite markers (73.9 and 34.8%, respectively). Out of the three types of genetic markers, the mitochondrial maker showed the highest success rate, followed by microsatellite and sex-linked markers. In addition, we estimated two factors that affected the PCR success, including the length of the amplified fragments (long, medium, and short) and the type of primer (universal and specific) in fecal samples from a captive population. The length of the PCR fragment was inversely proportional to the PCR success (5.3, 44.4, and 55.6% for long, medium, and short fragments, respectively), and the specific primer set (100%) was more efficient than the universal primer set (60.0%). This review is fundamental but would be greatly helpful for new non-invasive conservation genetic studies, particularly those that use fecal samples from captive and wild populations of rare endangered species. We recommend beginning conservation genetic experiments using mitochondrial markers and then nuclear markers, such as microsatellite and sex-linked markers, to save time, costs, and labor.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.223-234
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• 2013

Poultry industry is abounding day by day as it engrosses less cost of investment per bird as compared to large animals. Poultry have the most copious genomic tool box amongst domestic animals for the detection of quantitative trait loci (QTL) and marker assisted selection (MAS). Use of multiple markers and least square techniques for mapping of QTL affecting quality and production traits in poultry is in vogue. Examples of genetic tests that are available to or used in industry programs are documented and classified into causative mutations (direct markers), linked markers in population-wide linkage disequilibrium (LD) with the QTL (LD markers), and linked markers in population wide equilibrium with the QTL (LE markers). Development of genome-wide SNP assays, role of 42 K, 60 K (Illumina) and 600 K (Affymetrix$^{(R)}$ Axim$^{(R)}$) SNP chip with next generation sequencing for identification of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) has been documented. Hybridization based, PCR based, DNA chip and sequencing based are the major segments of DNA markers which help in conducting of MAS in poultry. Economic index-marker assisted selection (EI-MAS) provides platform for simultaneous selection for production traits while giving due weightage to their marginal economic values by calculating predicted breeding value, using information on DNA markers which are normally associated with relevant QTL. Understanding of linkage equilibrium, linkage dis-equilibrium, relation between the markers and gene of interest are quite important for success of MAS. This kind of selection is the most useful tool in enhancing disease resistance by identifying candidate genes to improve the immune response. The application of marker assisted selection in selection procedures would help in improvement of economic traits in poultry.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.46
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• pp.355-377
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• 2017

Compared with other Altaic languages, Japanese and Korean languages are much closer to each other in grammar, and also to Ryukyuan language. According to the literature, Korean people are the first foreigners to record Ryukyuan language in a written form. In the passage "pronunciation interpreting the Ryukyuan Kingdom" from A Journey to the Eastern Countries (1512), Korean people perfectly preserved the pronunciation and meanings of words and sentences in Ryukyuan language in both Korean and Chinese languages, which is an extremely valuable material. Unfortunately, the later time period witnessed stagnation after a prominent beginning. In order to clarify the language family to which Korean belongs to, it is necessary to thoroughly compare Korean language with Japanese and Ryukyuan languages. Different from lexis, grammar underwent a slow and gradual process of variation. A comparative study of the three languages can provide strong evidence for defining the language family of Korean. Based on this rationale, this paper starts from the comparison of grammar elements of these three languages, aiming at case markers including the nominative case markers and the accusative case markers, and observes the procedures and functions diachronically. Based on the examples from the medieval data, it is found that the nominative case markers and the accusative case markers of these three languages vary from each other in forms and origins. Although they show some similarities in functions, it can be conjectured that there is no cognate for the three languages in the history.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 2015

Evaluation and screening of vaccines against tuberculosis depends on development of proper cost effective disease models along with identification of different immune markers that can be used as surrogate endpoints of protection in preclinical and clinical studies. The objective of the present study was therefore evaluation of subcutaneous model of M.tuberculosis infection along with investigation of different immune biomarkers of tuberculosis infection in BALB/c mice. Groups of mice were infected subcutaneously with two different doses : high ($2{\times}10^6CFU$) and low doses ($2{\times}10^2CFU$) of M.tuberculosis and immune markers including humoral and cellular markers were evaluated 30 days post M.tuberculosis infections. Based on results, we found that high dose of subcutaneous infection produced chronic disease with significant (p<0.001) production of immune markers of infection like $IFN{\gamma}$, heat shock antigens (65, 71) and antibody titres against panel of M.tuberculosis antigens (ESAT-6, CFP-10, Ag85B, 45kDa, GroES, Hsp-16) all of which correlated with high bacterial burden in lungs and spleen. To conclude high dose of subcutaneous infection produces chronic TB infection in mice and can be used as convenient alternative to aerosol models in resource limited settings. Moreover assessment of immune markers namely mycobacterial antigens and antibodies can provide us valuable insights on modulation of immune response post infection. However further investigations along with optimization of study protocols are needed to justify the outcome of present study and establish such markers as surrogate endpoints of vaccine protection in preclinical and clinical studies in future.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.76-86
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• 2018

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers affecting women worldwide. Although the survival rate of breast cancer has increased, breast cancer still results in a high mortality rate. Breast cancer deaths are caused by metastasis that occurs in organ dysfunction. Recently, there have been many studies on circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are related to breast cancer metastasis in the blood. Recent studies have demonstrated that some CTCs do not express epithelial markers. Therefore, in this study, total RNA was extracted from blood without separating out the CTCs, and the characteristics of the CTCs were analyzed by RT-qPCR. Cyclin D1 and twist-related protein 1 (TWIST1) are well-known markers for predicting the prognosis of patients with breast cancer. However, few studies have demonstrated the use of CCND1 and TWIST1 in blood as diagnostic and prognostic markers of breast cancer. In this study, patients with late-stage breast cancer had overexpressed CCND1 and TWIST1 than patients with different stages of breast cancer (P < 0.001 and P < 0.01, respectively). The relative expression level of CCND1 in survivors was higher than in patients who died (P = 0.06). The relative expression level of TWIST1 in survivors was lower than in patients who died (P = 0.08). Overall CCND1 and TWIST1 were not useful as markers for the diagnosis of breast cancer through blood. However, we showed the possibility of using CCND1 and TWIST1 as prognostic markers, and a large-scale study is needed to confirm the usefulness of these prognostic markers.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.347-353
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• 2011

In this study, simple sequence repeat (SSR) analyses were utilized for evaluation of genetic diversity and discrimination of 17 accessions. Five cultivars, which were developed from Korea, and 12 foreign accessions, which were collected from China, Japan, Russia and USA, were evaluated by nine markers out of 22 SSR markers. A total of 39 alleles were detected, ranging from 2 to 8, with an average of 4.3 alleles per locus. The expected heterozygosity and PIC values were 0.627 and 0.553, with a range from 0.21 (GB-PG-078) to 0.76 (GB-PG-142) and from 0.19 (GB-PG-078) to 0.70 (GB-PG-142), respectively. Four makers out of nine SSR markers, GB-PG-026, GB-PG-043, GB-PG-142 and GB-PG-177, were selected as key factors for discrimination of Korean ginseng cultivars and foreign accessions. All of Korean ginseng cultivars and foreign accessions were individually by the combination of four SSR markers. Consequently, the SSR markers developed in this study may prove useful for the evaluation of genetic diversity and discrimination of Korean ginseng cultivars and foreign accessions.

• BMB Reports
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.37-45
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• 2006

Bulked segregant analysis (BSA) and AFLP were used for isolation of genomic sex determination markers in Penaeus monodon. A total of 256 primer combinations were tested against 6-10 bulked genomic DNA of P. monodon. Five and one candidate female- and male-specific AFLP fragments were identified. Female-specific fragments were cloned and further characterized. SCAR markers derived from FE10M9520, FE10M10725.1, FE10M10725.2 and FE14M16340 provided the positive amplification product in both male and female P. monodon. Further analysis of these markers using SSCP and genome walk analysis indicated that they were not sex-linked. In addition, sex-specific (or differential) expression markers in ovaries and testes of P. monodon were analyzed by RAP-PCR (150 primer combinations). Twenty-one and fourteen RAP-PCR fragments specifically/differentially expressed in ovaries and testes of P. monodon were successfully cloned and sequenced. Expression patterns of 25 transcripts were tested against the first stranded cDNA of ovaries and testes of 3-month-old and broodstock-sized P. monodon (N = 5 and N = 7 - 10 for females and N = 4 and N = 5 - 7 for males, respectively). Five (FI-4, FI-44, FIII-4, FIII-39 and FIII-58) and two (M457-A01 and MII-51) derived RAP-PCR markers revealed female- and male-specific expression patterns in P. monodon. Surprisingly, MII-5 originally found in testes showed a higher expression level in ovaries than did testes of juvenile shrimps but a temporal female-specific pattern in P. monodon adults.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.213-221
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• 2020

Salvianolic acid B (SAB) is an active phytocomponent of a popular Chinese herb called Radix Salvia militiorrhiza with numerous biological properties. The anti-psoriasis activity of SAB was examined by evaluating various psoriasis inflammatory and keratin markers against imiquimod (IMQ)-induced psoriasis on BALB/c mice. Totally 50 healthy BALB/c mice were evenly divided into 5 groups including control, drug control (SAB; 40 mg/kg), IMQ-induced psoriasis (5%), IMQ exposure and treated with SAB (40 mg/kg), or standard methotrexate (MTX; 1 mg/kg). Mice supplemented with either SAB or MTX significantly lowered the values of psoriasis area severity index (PASI), erythema, scaling, skin thickness, inflammatory markers (interleukin [IL]-22/23/17A/1β/6) and lipid peroxidation product (malondialdehyde). Also, IMQ exposed BALB/c mice treated with SAB or MTX display lesser histopathological changes with enhanced antioxidant activities (catalase, superoxide dismutase). Moreover, the protein expression of keratin markers (K16 and K17) and phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) signaling proteins (pAkt/Akt and pPI3K/PI3K) were significantly downregulated after administration with SAB and MTX as compared with IMQ induced mice. Taking together, SAB and MTX significantly ameliorate psoriatic changes by inhibiting psoriatic inflammatory and keratin markers through abolishing PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. However, further studies (clinical trials) are needed to confirm the anti-psoriatic property of SAB before recommending to psoriasis patients.