• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.169-178
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• 2014

In this study, we investigated genetic diversity of 22 microsporidian isolates infecting tropical tasar silkworm, Antheraea mylitta collected from various geographical forest locations in the state of Jharkhand, India, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based marker assay: random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). A type species, NIK-1s_mys was used as control for comparison. The shape of mature microsporidians was found to be oval to elongate, measuring 3.80 to $5.10{\mu}m$ in length and 2.56 to $3.30{\mu}m$ in width. Of the 20 RAPD primers screened, 16 primers generated reproducible profiles with 298 polymorphic fragments displaying high degree of polymorphism (97%). A total of 14 RAPD primers produced 45 unique putative genetic markers, which were used to differentiate the microsporidians. Calculation of genetic distance coefficients based on dice coefficient method and clustering with un-weighted pair group method using arithmetic average (UPGMA) analysis was conducted to unravel the genetic diversity of microsporidians infecting tasar silkworm. The similarity coefficients varied from 0.059 to 0.980. UPGMA analysis generated a dendrogram with four microsporidian groups, which appear to be different from each other as well as from NIK-1s_mys. Two-dimensional distribution based on Euclidean distance matrix also revealed considerable variability among different microsporidians identified from the tasar silkworms. Clustering of few microsporidian isolates was in accordance with the geographic origin. The results indicate that the RAPD profiles and specific/unique genetic markers can be used for differentiating as well as to identify different microsporidians with considerable accuracy.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제37권11호
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• pp.827-832
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• 2014

The balance between bone formation by osteoblasts and destruction of mineralized bone matrix by osteoclasts is important for bone homeostasis. The increase of osteoclast differentiation by RANKL induces bone diseases such as osteoporosis. Recent studies have shown that insulin is one of main factors mediating the cross-talk between bone remodeling and energy metabolism. However, the systemic examination of insulin-induced differential gene expression profiles in osteoclasts has not been extensively studied. Here, we investigated the global effects of insulin on osteoclast precursors at the level of gene transcription by microarray analysis. The number of genes that were up-regulated by ${\geq}1.5$ fold after insulin treatment for 6 h, 12 h, or 24 h was 76, 73, and 39; and 96, 83, and 54 genes were down-regulated, respectively. The genes were classified by 20 biological processes or 24 molecular functions and the number of genes involved in 'development processes' and 'cell proliferation and differentiation' was 25 and 18, respectively, including Inhba, Socs, Plk3, Tnfsf4, and Plk1. The microarray results of these genes were verified by real-time RT-PCR analysis. We also compared the effects of insulin and RANKL on the expression of these genes. Most genes had a very similar pattern of expressions in insulin- and RANKL-treated cells. Interestingly, Tnfsf4 and Inhba genes were affected by insulin but not by RANKL. Taken together, these results suggest a potential role for insulin in osteoclast biology, thus contributing to the understanding of the pathogenesis and development of therapeutics for numerous bone and metabolic diseases.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.369-384
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• 2020

A wavefield sparse reconstruction technique based on compressed sensing is developed in this work to dramatically reduce the number of measurements. Firstly, a severely underdetermined representation of guided wavefield at a snapshot is established in the spatial domain. Secondly, an optimal compressed sensing model of guided wavefield sparse reconstruction is established based on l₁-norm penalty, where a suite of discrete cosine functions is selected as the dictionary to promote the sparsity. The regular, random and jittered undersampling schemes are compared and selected as the undersampling matrix of compressed sensing. Thirdly, a gradient projection method is employed to solve the compressed sensing model of wavefield sparse reconstruction from highly incomplete measurements. Finally, experiments with different excitation frequencies are conducted on an aluminum plate to verify the effectiveness of the proposed sparse reconstruction method, where a scanning laser Doppler vibrometer as the true benchmark is used to measure the original wavefield in a given inspection region. Experiments demonstrate that the missing wavefield data can be accurately reconstructed from less than 12% of the original measurements; The reconstruction accuracy of the jittered undersampling scheme is slightly higher than that of the random undersampling scheme in high probability, but the regular undersampling scheme fails to reconstruct the wavefield image; A quantified mapping relationship between the sparsity ratio and the recovery error over a special interval is established with respect to statistical modeling and analysis.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제30권6호
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• pp.661-671
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• 2022

Stayed cables are the key components for transmitting loads in cable-stayed bridges. Therefore, it is very important to evaluate the cable force condition to ensure bridge safety. An online condition assessment and anomaly localization method is proposed for cables based on the spatiotemporal correlation of grouped cable forces. First, an anomaly sensitive feature index is obtained based on the distribution characteristics of grouped cable forces. Second, an adaptive anomaly detection method based on the k-nearest neighbor rule is used to perform dissimilarity measurements on the extracted feature index, and such a method can effectively remove the interference of environment factors and vehicle loads on online condition assessment of the grouped cable forces. Furthermore, an online anomaly isolation and localization method for stay cables is established, and the complete decomposition contributions method is used to decompose the feature matrix of the grouped cable forces and build an anomaly isolation index. Finally, case studies were carried out to validate the proposed method using an in-service cable-stayed bridge equipped with a structural health monitoring system. The results show that the proposed approach is sensitive to the abnormal distribution of grouped cable forces and is robust to the influence of interference factors. In addition, the proposed approach can also localize the cables with abnormal cable forces online, which can be successfully applied to the field monitoring of cables for cable-stayed bridges.

• BMB Reports
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• 제56권2호
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• pp.114-119
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• 2023

Liver fibrosis is caused by chronic liver damage and results in the aberrant accumulation of extracellular matrix during disease progression. Despite the identification of the HAT enzyme p300 as a major factor for liver fibrosis, the development of therapeutic agents targeting the regulation of p300 has not been reported. We validated a novel p300 inhibitor (A6) on the improvement of liver fibrosis using two mouse models, mice on a choline-deficient high-fat diet and thioacetamide-treated mice. We demonstrated that pathological hall-marks of liver fibrosis were significantly diminished by A6 treatment through Masson's trichrome and Sirius red staining on liver tissue and found that A6 treatment reduced the expression of matricellular protein genes. We further showed that A6 treatment improved liver fibrosis by reducing the stability of p300 protein via disruption of p300 binding to AKT. Our findings suggest that targeting p300 through the specific inhibitor A6 has potential as a major therapeutic avenue for treating liver fibrosis.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제33권11호
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• pp.1484-1494
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• 2023

NUC1 (Nutraceutical compound 1) is an ethanol extract composed of a formulation based on medicinal herbs traditionally used for the treatment of arthritis in Korea and China. This study investigated the therapeutic effects of NUC1 on osteoarthritis (OA). The protective effect of NUC1 on OA was tested in a rabbit model of collagenase-induced arthritis (CIA) for 4 weeks. Results were compared among four groups (n = 9 per group): the normal group (untreated), the CIA group (vehicle control), the NUC1 group (CIA rabbits treated with 200 mg/kg NUC1), and the JOINS group (positive control, CIA rabbits treated with 200 mg/kg JOINS tablet). NUC1 significantly inhibited NO production (p < 0.05 at 125 ㎍/ml, p < 0.01 at 250 ㎍/ml, and p < 0.001 at 500 ㎍/ml) and iNOS expression in macrophages, in a concentration-dependent manner. NUC1 also inhibited the release and protein expression of MMP-1, 3, and 13, in TNF-α-induced chondrosarcoma cells in a concentration-dependent manner. In vivo, the MMP-1 and MMP-3 levels in synovial fluids were significantly (p < 0.05) lower in NUC1 group (77.50 ± 20.56 and 22.50 ± 7.39 pg/ml, respectively) than in the CIA group (148.33 ± 68.58 and 77.50 ± 20.46 pg/ml, respectively). Also, in histopathological, NUC1 ameliorated articular cartilage damage in OA by increasing the abundance of chondrocytes and proteoglycan in the articular cartilage. Thus, NUC1 showed promise as a potential therapeutic agent, and it can be generalized to a broader study population in different OA animal models.

• 생명과학회지
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• 제26권5호
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• pp.584-591
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• 2016

삼백초는 항산화 활성을 갖는 플라보노이드 화합물을 포함하고 있는 여러해살이 식물로 알려져 있다. 본 연구에서는 삼백초 물 추출물과 유기용매 분획물의 항산화 활성, 항염증 활성 및 PMA에 의해 유도된 MMP-2 및 MMP-9활성 억제 효과를 조사하였다. 시료들은 삼백초 물 추출을 헥산(hexane), 클로로포름(CHCl₃), 에틸 아세테이트(Ethyl acetate), 부탄올(butanol) 및 물(water)과 같은 용매로 분획화하여 사용하였고, 물 분획물의 수득율이 9.25%로 가장 높았다. 항산화 활성은 DPPH assay, 세포 생존율 측정은 MTS assay, 항염증 활성은 마우스 대식세포 Raw 264.7세포에서NO 생성 그리고 MMP-2 및 MMP-9의 mRNA 발현 및 단백질 활성 억제는 인간구강편평세포암종 YD-10B 세포에서 RT-PCR과 zymography방법을 통해 측정하였다. 본 연구의 결과에 의하면 MMP-2/-9 활성은 PMA에 의해 YD-10B세포에서 증가하였다. PMA 처리된 YD-10B 세포에서, 에틸 아세테이트 분획물이 증가된 MMP-2/-9의 mRNA 발현 및 단백질 활성을 유의하게 억제하였다. 그리고 항산화 활성도 에틸아세트 분획물이 73.38%의 가장 높게 나타났다. 또한 세포 독성을 나타내지 않는 농도에서, 에틸아세트 분획물이 Raw 264.7세포에서 농도 의존적으로 유의하게 항염증 활성을 보였다. 그러므로 본 연구에서는 삼백초 물 추출의 에틸아세트 분획물이 구강암의 암 침윤을 억제할 수 있는 효과적인 암 예방 및 치료를 위한 항암제로서의 가능성을 암시하고 있다.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• 제33권4호
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• pp.205-211
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• 2008

Gingival overgrowth can cause dental occlusion and seriously interfere with mastication, speech, and dental hygiene. It is observed in 25 to 81% of renal transplant patients treated with cyclosporine A (CsA). CsA-induced gingival overgrowth (CIGO) is caused by quantitative alteration of the extracellular matrix components, particularly collagen. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of CIGO remain poorly understood, despite intense clinical and laboratory investigations. The aim of the present work is to identify differentially expressed genes closely associated with CIGO. Human gingival fibroblasts were isolated by primary explant culture of gingival tissues from five healthy subjects (HGFs) and two patients with the CIGO (CIGO-HGFs). The proliferative activity of CsA-treated HGFs and CIGO-HGFs was examined using the MTT assay. The identification of differentially expressed genes in CsA-treated CIGO-HGF was performed by differential display reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) followed by DNA sequencing. CsA significantly increased the proliferation of two HGFs and two CIGO-HGFs, whereas three HGFs were not affected. Seven genes, including the beta subunit of prolyl 4-hydroxylase (P4HB) and testican 1, were upregulated by CsA in a highly proliferative CIGO-HGF. The increased P4HB and testican-1 mRNA levels were confirmed in CsA-treated CIGO-HGFs by semiquantitative RT-PCR. Furthermore, CsA increased type I collagen mRNA levels and suppressed MMP-2 mRNA levels, which are regulated by P4HB and testican-1, respectively. These results suggest that CsA may induce gingival overgrowth through the upregulation of P4HB and testican-1, resulting in the accumulation of extracellular matrix components.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• 제47권1호
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• pp.11-16
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• 2010

Objective: Abnormalities of the bone are frequently encountered in patients with meningioma, and hyperostosis and endostosis are common bone alterations in these tumors. Extensive bony destruction is very unusual in patients with meningioma. We report six cases of intracranial meningioma associated with an osteolytic lesion of the skull and discuss the underlying mechanisms that may be responsible for bone destruction in patients with meningioma. Methods: Six patients were classified into three groups, severe, moderate and mild, according to the degree of osteolytic bony destruction. The tumor was classified as intracranial or extracranial, depending on its location. We investigated the potential role of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) in meningioma-associated osteolysis. The levels of MMP expression were determined by gelatin zymography, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR analysis (RT-PCR) and immunohistochemical analysis. Results: Complete surgical removal of the lesion was performed in each patient. Histological examination revealed benign meningioma in four cases, and two cases of atypical meningioma. Patients did not have a poor prognosis except one case of recurred atypical meningioma. Gelatin zymography and RT-PCR detected high levels of MMP-2 in almost all extracranial masses in comparison with the intracranial masses and MMP9 in two. There was no difference in the severity of bone destruction. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed MMP-2 expression in the vicinity of the bone destruction, and a few MMP-9-positive stainings were observed. Conclusion: Osteolysis of the skull in patients with meningiomas might not be indicative of malignant pathological features and poor prognosis. Invasion to the extracranial portion and osteolysis might be associated with MMP-2 expression in meningioma.

• 대한전자공학회논문지SP
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• 제42권4호
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• pp.79-86
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• 2005

본 논문에서는 실시간 얼굴인식 시스템을 위한 새로운 LINF(Linear Independent Non-negative Factorization) 알고리즘을 제안한다. 시스템은 크게 얼굴추출 부분과 얼굴인식 부분으로 구성 되어 있으며, 얼굴추출 부분에는 차영상, 눈과 입의 영역 검출 그리고 정규화 방법을 사용하였고, 얼굴인식 부분에는 추출된 얼굴 후보 영역 영상에 LINF 를 적용하였다. 기존의 PCA(Principal Component Analysis)만을 사용한 인식시스템은 낮은 인식률을 보였으며, LDA(Linear Discriminants Analysis)만을 사용한 인식시스템에서는 학습데이터의 수에 비하여 영상의 화소 개수가 많은 경우 LDA를 그대로 적용하기 곤란하였다. 이러한 단점을 극복하기 위하여, 본 논문에서 제안하는 시스템은 기존의 고유얼굴과 달리 비음수 값을 갖는 행렬로 차원을 축소하여 LDA를 적용하였다. 제안한 시스템의 성능을 평가하기 위하여 자체 제작한 DAUface 데이터베이스와 영국 Cambridge 에 있는 AT&T 연구소에서 제공하는 ORL 데이터베이스를 가지고 실험을 하였다. 실험 결과, 제안된 방법이 PCA 방법과 LDA 방법, ICA(Independent Component Analysis) 방법, 그리고 PLMA(PCA-based LDA mixture algorithm)에 비해 인식률이 상당히 우수함을 알 수 있었다.