• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.105-113
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• 2017

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: A high-fat diet (HFD) induces obesity, which is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and cancer, while a calorie-restricted diet can extend life span by reducing the risk of these diseases. It is known that health effects of diet are partially conveyed through epigenetic mechanism including DNA methylation. In this study, we investigated the genome-wide hepatic DNA methylation to identify the epigenetic effects of HFD-induced obesity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seven-week-old male C57BL/6 mice were fed control diet (CD), calorie-restricted control diet (CRCD), or HFD for 16 weeks (after one week of acclimation to the control diet). Food intake, body weight, and liver weight were measured. Hepatic triacylglycerol and cholesterol levels were determined using enzymatic colorimetric methods. Changes in genome-wide DNA methylation were determined by a DNA methylation microarray method combined with methylated DNA immunoprecipitation. The level of transcription of individual genes was measured by real-time PCR. RESULTS: The DNA methylation statuses of genes in biological networks related to lipid metabolism and hepatic steatosis were influenced by HFD-induced obesity. In HFD group, a proinflammatory Casp1 (Caspase 1) gene had hypomethylated CpG sites at the 1.5-kb upstream region of its transcription start site (TSS), and its mRNA level was higher compared with that in CD group. Additionally, an energy metabolism-associated gene Ndufb9 (NADH dehydrogenase 1 beta subcomplex 9) in HFD group had hypermethylated CpG sites at the 2.6-kb downstream region of its TSS, and its mRNA level was lower compared with that in CRCD group. CONCLUSIONS: HFD alters DNA methylation profiles in genes associated with liver lipid metabolism and hepatic steatosis. The methylation statuses of Casp1 and Ndufb9 were particularly influenced by the HFD. The expression of these genes in HFD differed significantly compared with CD and CRCD, respectively, suggesting that the expressions of Casp1 and Ndufb9 in liver were regulated by their methylation statuses.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.455-492
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• 2009

(Background) Recent biotechnological breakthroughs are shedding new lights on various ethical and legal issues about human biological material. Since Rudolph Virchow, a German pathologist, had founded the medical discipline of cellular pathology, issues centering around human biological materials began to draw attention. The issues involving human biological materials were revisited with more attention along with series concerns when the human genome map was finally completed. Recently, with researches on human genes and bioengineering reaping enormous commercial values in the form of material patent, such changes require a society to reassess the present and future status of human tissue within the legal system. This in turn gave rise to a heated debate over how to protect the rights of material donors: property rule vs. no property rule. (Debate and Cases) Property rule recognizes the donors' property rights on human biological materials. Thus, donors can claim real action if there were any bleach of informed consent or a donation contract. Donors can also claim damages to the responsible party when there is an infringement of property rights. Some even uphold the concept of material patents overtaking. From the viewpoint of no property rule, human biological materials are objects separated from donors. Thus, a recipient or a third party will be held liable if there were any infringement of donor's human rights. Human biological materials should not be commercially traded and a patent based on a human biological materials research does not belong to the donor of the tissues used during the course of research. In the US, two courts, Moore v. Regents of the University of California, and Greenberg v. Miami Children's Hospital Research Institute, Inc., have already decided that research participants retain no ownership of the biological specimens they contribute to medical research. Significantly, both Moore and Greenberg cases found that the researcher had parted with all ownership rights in the tissue samples when they donated them to the institutions, even though there was no provision in the informed consent forms stating either that the participants donated their tissue or waived their rights to ownership of the tissue. These rulings were led to huge controversy over property rights on human tissues. This research supports no property rule on the ground that it can protect the human dignity and prevent humans from objectification and commercialization. Human biological materials are already parted from human bodies and should be treated differently from the engineering and researches of those materials. Donors do not retain any ownership. (Suggestions) No property rule requires a legal breakthrough in the US in terms of donors' rights protection due to the absence of punitive damages provisions. The Donor rights issue on human biological material can be addressed through prospective legislation or tax policies, price control over patent products, and wider coverage of medical insurance. (Conclusions) Amid growing awareness over commercial values of human biological materials, no property rule should be adopted in order to protect human dignity but not without revamping legal provisions. The donors' rights issue in material patents requires prospective legislation based on current uncertainties. Also should be sought are solutions in the social context and all these discussions should be based on sound medical ethics of both medical staffs and researchers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 한국작물학회 2022년도 추계학술대회
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• pp.202-202
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• 2022

Recently days, soybean production in paddy field is increasing, from 4,422 ha in 2016 to 10,658 ha in 2021 in Korea. It is easy for Phytophthora stem and root rot (PSR) occurring in paddy field condition, when it is poorly drained soils with a high clay content, and temporary flooding and ponding. Therefore PSR resistant soybean cultivar is required. The objective of this study is to identify QTL region and candidate genes relating to PSR resistance of the race in main soybean cultivation area in Korea. 210 soybean materials including cultivars and germplasm were used for inoculation and genome-wide association study (GWAS). Inoculation was conducted using stem-scar method with 2 replications in 2-year for the race 3053 from Kimje and 3617 from Andong. 210 materials were genotyped with Soya SNP 180K chip, and structure analysis and association mapping were conducted with QTLMAX V2. The results of inoculation showed that survival ratio ranged from 0% to 96.7% and mean 9.7% for 3053 and ranged from 0% to 100% and mean 7.6% for 3617. Structure analysis showed linkage disequillibrium (LD) was decayed below r²=0.5 at 335kb of SNP distance. Significant SNPs (LOD>7.0) were identified in Chr 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 14, 15 for 3053 and Chr 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 14 for 3617. Especially, LD blocks (AX-90455181;15,056,628bp~AX-90475572;15,298,872bp) in Chr 2 for 3053 and 3067 were duplicated. 29 genes were identified on these genetic regions including Glyma.02gl47000 relating to ribosome recycling factor and defense response to fungus in Soybase.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제24권7호
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• pp.943-953
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• 2014

The XylH gene (1,167-bp) encoding a novel hemicellulase (41,584 Da) was identified from the genome of Microbacterium trichothecenolyticum HY-17, a gastrointestinal bacterium of Gryllotalpa orientalis. The enzyme consisted of a single catalytic domain, which is 74% identical to that of an endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanase (GH10) from Isoptericola variabilis 225. Unlike other endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanases from invertebrate-symbiotic bacteria, rXylH was an alkali-tolerant multifunctional enzyme possessing endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanase activity together with ${\beta}$-1,3/${\beta}$-1,4-glucanase activity, which exhibited its highest xylanolytic activity at pH 9.0 and 60oC, and was relatively stable within a broad pH range of 5.0-10.0. The susceptibilities of different xylosebased polysaccharides to the XylH were assessed to be as follows: oat spelts xylan > beechwood xylan > birchwood xylan > wheat arabinoxylan. rXylH was also able to readily cleave p-nitrophenyl (pNP) cellobioside and pNP-xylopyranoside, but did not hydrolyze other pNP-sugar derivatives, xylobiose, or hexose-based materials. Enzymatic hydrolysis of birchwood xylan resulted in the product composition of xylobiose (71.2%) and xylotriose (28.8%) as end products.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권9호
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• pp.4517-4525
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• 2016

Background: Sperm DNA damage is underlying aetiology of poor implantation and pregnancy rates but also affects health of offspring and may also result in denovo mutations in germ line and post fertilization. This may result in complex diseases, polygenic disorders and childhood cancers. Childhood cancer like retinoblastoma (RB) is more prevalent in developing countries and the incidence of RB has increased more than three fold in India in the last decade. Recent studies have documented increased incidence of cancers in children born to fathers who consume alcohol in excess and tobacco or who were conceived by assisted conception. The aetiology of childhood cancer and increased disease burden in these children is lin ked to oxidative stress (OS) and oxidative DNA damage( ODD) in sperm of their fathers. Though several antioxidants are in use to combat oxidative stress, the effect of majority of these formulations on DNA is not known. Yoga and meditation cause significant decline in OS and ODD and aid in regulating OS levels such that reactive oxygen speues meditated signal transduction, gene expression and several other physiological functions are not disrupted. Thus, this study aimed to analyze sperm ODD as a possible etiological factor in childhood cancer and role of simple life style interventions like yoga and meditation in significantly decreasing seminal oxidative stress and oxidative DNA damage and thereby decreasing incidence of childhood cancers. Materials and Methods: A total of 131 fathers of children with RB (non-familial sporadic heritable) and 50 controls (fathers of healthy children) were recruited at a tertiary center in India. Sperm parameters as per WHO 2010 guidelines and reactive oxygen species (ROS), DNA fragmentation index (DFI), 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxy guanosine (8-OHdG) and telomere length were estimated at day 0, and after 3 and 6 months of intervention. We also examined the compliance with yoga and meditation practice and smoking status at each follow-up. Results: The seminal mean ROS levels (p<0.05), sperm DFI (p<0.001), 8-OHdG (p<0.01) levels were significantly higher in fathers of children with RB, as compared to controls and the relative mean telomere length in the sperm was shorter. Levels of ROS were significantly reduced in tobacco users (p<0.05) as well as in alcoholics (p<0.05) after intervention. DFI reduced significantly (p<0.05) after 6 months of yoga and meditation practice in all groups. The levels of oxidative DNA damage marker 8-OHdG were reduced significantly after 3 months (p<0.05) and 6 months (p<0.05) of practice. Conclusions: Our results suggest that OS and ODD DNA may contribute to the development of childhood cancer. This may be due to accumulation of oxidized mutagenic base 8OHdG, and elevated MDA levels which results in MDA dimers which are also mutagenic, aberrant methylation pattern, altered gene expression which affect cell proliferation and survival through activation of transcription factors. Increased mt DNA mutations and aberrant repair of mt and nuclear DNA due to highly truncatred DNA repair mechanisms all contribute to sperm genome hypermutability and persistant oxidative DNA damage. Oxidative stress is also associated with genome wide hypomethylation, telomere shortening and mitochondrial dysfunction leading to genome hypermutability and instability. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to report decline in OS and ODD and improvement in sperm DNA integrity following adoption of meditation and yoga based life style modification.This may reduce disease burden in next generation and reduce incidence of childhood cancers.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권16호
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• pp.6845-6849
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• 2015

Background: Roles of tobacco and alcohol use in etiology of cancer are well established. Alterationin in P53 have essential roles neoplastic change by preventing genome mutation; the aim of this study was to assess the association between P53 mutation and tobacco and alcohol consumption, as well as to assess the epidemiology of tobacco and alcohol use as risk factors for cancer in the adult population of northern Saudi civilians. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey from October 2014 to January 2015, covering 3,398 adults, was performed. P53 mutation molecular detection was performed for 100 tobacco and alcohol users, usingDNA extracted from buccal cells. Results: Of the 3,398 participants 3,253/3398(95.7%) responded, with a male female ratio of 1.10: 1.00. Out of these, 24.8% had smoked tobacco in their lifetime and 2.7% were consumers of alcoholic beverages. None was identified with any P53 mutation. Conclusions: The prevalence of tobacco smoking among the northern Saudi civilians was relatively high. Females' attitudes in tobacco and alcohol related issues were found to be affected by social stigma. Tobacco and alcohol use has no link to P53 gene mutations.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• 제20권4호
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• pp.167-172
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• 2010

To meet on going challenges in nano-biomedical technology, the convergence of "spintronics", "biomedical" technology is a major break through in imaging, diagnosis and therapy, high-throughput genomic analysis. Especially magnetic bioassay is one of crucial devices for early diagnosis of specific analytes, point-of-care and U-health care application. In this paper, current status on high resolution magnetic sensors for bioassay and on-chip magnets for biomolecule transportation will be reviewed.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• 제34권3호
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• pp.167-172
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• 2007

A tomato zinc-finger protein gene, LeZFP1, encoding the Cys2/His2-type zinc-finger transcription factor was searched from cDNA microarray analysis of gene expression following induction of the overexpressed tomato transgenic plants showing resistance for pathogen and abiotic stresses. The full-length cDNA of LeZFP1 encoded a protein of 261 amino acid residues. Analysis of the deduced amino acid sequence of LeZFP1 revealed that it shares high sequence identity with pepper CAZFP1 (81% identity). We found that single copy of LeZFP1 gene is present in the tomato genome through southern blot analysis. The LeZFP1 transcripts were constitutively expressed in the tomato mature and young leaves, but were detectable weakly in the flower, stem and root. The LeZFP1 transcripts were significantly reduced in treated leaf tissues with NaCl and mannitol. The LeZFP1 gene was induced by oxidative stress especially. Our results indicated that LeZFP1 may play a role function involved in oxidative stress signaling pathways.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• 제47권4호
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• pp.431-434
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• 2014

Cytogenetic analysis was conducted to obtain basic information for chromosome manipulation of starry flounder Platichthys stellatus. Nuclear surface area and volume of erythrocyte were $7.60{\pm}0.93{\mu}m^2$ and $12.80{\pm}1.75{\mu}m^3$, respectively. The haploid DNA content of the species was 0.66 pg/haploid cell which correspond to 93% of olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus. A karyotype analysis was also carried out with the species using conventional staining and Ag-NOR banding techniques. It was consisted of 48 acrocentric chromosomes and inter-sex or intra-individual polymorphism was not detected in all specimens analyzed. The NOR regions, appearing a terminal position of the short arm of the smallest acrocentric pairs.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권20호
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• pp.8957-8961
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• 2014

Background: Promoter hypermethylation leads to altered gene functions and may result in malignant cellular transformation. Thus, identification of biomarkers for hypermethylated genes could be useful for diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Objectives: To screen hypermethylated genes with a microarray approach and to validate selected hypermethylated genes with the methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSPCR). Materials and Methods: Genome-wide analysis of normal oral mucosa and OSCC tissues was conducted using the Illumina methylation microarray. The specified differential genes were selected and hypermethylation status was further verified with an independent cohort sample of OSCC samples. Candidate genes were screened using microarray assay and run by MSPCR analysis. Results: TP73, PIK3R5, and CELSR3 demonstrated high percentages of differential hypermethylation status. Conclusions: Our microarray screening and MSPCR approaches revealed that the signature candidates of differentially hypermethylated genes may possibly become potential biomarkers which would be useful for diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic targets of OSCC in the near future.