• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.216-219
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to establish experimental canine skin barrier disruption model, the study was designed to observe calcium ion in skin frozen tissue of canine skin and also the modulation of calcium ion distribution of normal skin with disrupted skin such as clipping, acetone, tape stripping damages according to time. To compare the changes of calcium ion gradient after damages, the distribution of calcium ion in the canine epidermis was visualized by blotting to gel containing chemical indicator (Calcium Green-1) with fluorescent microscope and the effects of skin barrier damages were examined according to time. Three mins and 1hr after acetone damage, the gradations of epidermis and hair follicle showed more radiant and disappeared after 48 hrs. On the contrary, 3mins and 1hr after tape stripping damage, the gradations showed more radiant than those of acetone damage, and these gradations were stabilized after 48 hrs. The method we presented here could show the visual image of the calcium ions in frozen tissue without further preparation, and it might be useful to investigate the role of calcium ion in the canine epidermal barrier recovery, however, it might be need further methodological improvement to get accurate quantitative information.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.433-440
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• 2009

High levels of inflammatory cytokines were proposed contributors to the pathogenesis of a various inflammatory skin disorders. Therefore, investigating the immune response of the inflammatory skin disorder allows a better understanding of pathogenesis of a various inflammatory skin disorders and therapeutic approaches. The aim of this study was to analyze of the immune response in dogs with chronic inflammatory skin disease. To this aim, the present study evaluated relative mRNA expression of canine $IFN-{\gamma}$, IL-4, $TGF-{\beta}$ and IL-10 using TaqMan realtime PCR assays and semi-quantitative RT-PCR in freshly isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells from twenty dogs with chronic inflammatory skin disease and ten normal dogs. The relative mRNA expression levels of IL-4 mRNA were significantly higher in dogs with chronic inflammatory skin disease than those in normal dogs (P < 0.01). The results of present study also showed a tendency towards increased expression of IL-10 transcripts in dogs with chronic inflammatory skin disease. However, there were no significant differences in the levels $IFN-{\gamma},\;TGF-{\beta}$ between normal and chronically inflammed dogs. In addition, the concentration of serum IgE was significantly increased in dogs with chronic inflammatory skin disease compared with those in normal dogs (P < 0.01). In histopathological examination, we found that there were markedly increased mast cell counts in chronically inflammed dogs (P < 0.05). These results suggest that the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory skin disease might be associated with a T-cell mediated inflammatory responses characterized by a Th2-skewed immune response. Based on these results, the modulation of Th1/Th2 balance may be an effective therapeutic strategy for the treatment of chronic inflammatory skin disease.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.304-320
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• 2007

Objective : To evaluate the effect of Astragalus Membranaceus Extrac (AME) on myelosuppression, activity and immune modulation in 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) treated mice. Method : We carried out complete blood count, histological analysis of bone marrow, and cell colony forming assay for hematopoietic progenitor to evaluate the effect of AME on myelosuppression and conducted swimming test, survival rate, nitric oxide (NO) assay, 51Cr release assay in natural killer cell, mRNA expression of $IL-1{\beta}$, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, $TNF-{\alpht}$, $IFN-{\gamma}$, $TGF-{\beta}$ and GM-CSF in spleen cells to evaluate the effect of AME on quality of life (QOL). Results : AME improved 5-FU induced myelosuppression and peripheral blood count was recovered effectively, had significant efficacy to protect against chemotherapy induced marrow-destruction and on hematopoiesis compared with the control group, improved increase survival rate and the swimming time, had a stimulatory effect on macrophage activation and NK cell activity, and up-regulated cytokine gene transcription (IL-2, IL-6, $IFN-{\gamma}$) in murine immunologic system. Conclusion : We can conclude that AM is an effective herbal agent for improvement of myelosuppression and QOL in 5-FU treated mice.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.645-661
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• 2009

The water extract of Dohongsamul-Tang(DHSMT) has been traditionally used to stroke and brain injuries in Oriental Medicine. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of DHSMT on the gene expression profile of cerebral infarction by cDNA microarray in photothrombotic ischemia mouse model. Photothrombotic ischemia was induced in stereotactically held male BALB/c mice using rose bengal and cold light. MRI was performed 24 hours after inducing photothrombosis using 1.5 T MRI and 47 mm surface coil to obtain T2-weighted, and contrast-enhanced images. After MRI test, animal was sacrificed and the brain sections were stained for hematoxylin and eosin and immunohistochemistry. MRI and histological analysis revealed that lesion of thrombotic ischemia was well induced in the cortex with the evidence of biological courses of infarction. The target area of thrombotic infarction was 1 mm anterior to bregma and 3 mm lateral to midline with 2 mm in diameter, which were decreased by administration of DHSMT. To assess gene expression pattern of cerebral infarction, mRNA was isolated and reacted with microarray chip(Agilant's DNA Microarray 44K). Scatter and MA plot analysis were performed to clustering of each functional genes. M value [M=log2(R/G), A={log2(R ${\times}$ G)}/2] was between -0.5 and +0.5 with 40% difference. After pretreatment with DHSMT, the expression levels of mRNA of many genes involved in various signaling pathway such as apoptosis, cell cycle, cell proliferation, response to oxidative stress, immune response, angiogenesis, and inflammatory cytokine were markedly inhibited in photothrombotic ischemia lesion compared to the control group. These results suggest that DHSMT prevent ischemic death of brain on photothrombotic ischemia model of mice through modulation of gene expression at the transcriptional level.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.70-78
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• 2009

Coptis japonica (C. japonica) is a perennial medicinal plant that has anti-inflammatory activity. C. japonica contains numerous biologically active alkaloids including berberine, palmatine, epi-berberine, and coptisine. The most well-known anti-inflammatory principal in C. japonica is berberine. For example, berberine has been implicated in the inhibition of iNOS induction by cytokines in microglial cells. However, the efficacies of other alkaloids components on microglial activation were not investigated yet. In this study, we investigated the effects of three alkaloids (palmatine, epi-berberine and coptisine) from C. japonica on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced microglial activation. BV2 microglial cells were immunostimulated with LPS and then the production of several inflammatory mediators such as nitric oxide (NO), reactive oxygen species (ROS) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) were examined as well as the phosphorylation status of Erk1/2 mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK). Palmatine and to a lesser extent epi-berberine and coptisine, significantly reduced the release of NO, which was mediated by the inhibition of LPS-stimulated mRNA and protein induction of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) from BV2 microglia. In addition to NO, palmatine inhibited MMP-9 enzymatic activity and mRNA induction by LPS. Palmatine also inhibited the increase in the LPS-induced MMP-9 promoter activity determined by MMP-9 promoter luciferase reporter assay. LPS stimulation increased Erk1/2 phosphorylation in BV2 cells and these alkaloids inhibited the LPS-induced phosphorylation of Erk1/2. The anti-inflammatory effect of palmatine in LPS-stimulated microglia may suggest the potential use of the alkaloids in the modulation of neuroinflammatory responses, which might be important in the pathophysiological events of several neurological diseases including Alzheimer's disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson's disease (PD) and stroke.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.320-327
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• 2020

In current study, we aimed to investigate whether the gentiopicroside (GPS) derived from Gentiana manshurica Kitagawa could block the progression of alcoholic hepatic steatosis to fibrosis induced by chronic ethanol intake. C57BL/6 mice were fed an ethanol-containing Lieber-DeCarli diet for 4 weeks. LX-2 human hepatic stellate cells were treated with GPS 1 h prior to transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) stimulation, and murine hepatocyte AML12 cells were pretreated by GPS 1 h prior to ethanol treatment. GPS inhibited the expression of type I collagen (collagen I), α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and tissue inhibitor of metal protease 1 in ethanol-fed mouse livers with mild fibrosis. In addition, the imbalanced lipid metabolism induced by chronic ethanol-feeding was ameliorated by GPS pretreatment, characterized by the modulation of lipid accumulation. Consistently, GPS inhibited the expression of collagen I and α-SMA in LX-2 cells stimulated by TGF-β. Inhibition of lipid synthesis and promotion of oxidation by GPS were also confirmed in ethanol-treated AML12 cells. GPS could prevent hepatic steatosis advancing to the inception of a mild fibrosis caused by chronic alcohol exposure, suggesting GPS might be a promising therapy for targeting the early stage of alcoholic liver disease.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.28 no.1C
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• pp.1-8
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• 2003

In this paper, performance of the CPC(complex phase code) which is recently proposed as a practical phase encoding method for phase-code multiplexes holographic memory system is comparatively analyzed with those of the conventional phase codes such as PR(pure random code), RCE(random code with equality), WHM(Walsh Hadamard Matrix). In computer simulation, the size of an address bean is fixed at 32$\times$32 pixels and 0%-25% phase-error ratio in a pixel are intentionally added to the real phase values to consider the nonlinear phase-modulation characteristics of the practical spatial light modulator. From comparative analysis of crosstalks and signal-to-noise ratios for these phase codes by calculating auto-correlation and cross-correlation, it is found that the CPC have the lowest cross-correlation mean value of 0.021, the lowest standard deviation of 0.0113 and the highest signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) of 27.4 among the four types of phase code. In addition, from the calculation of the number of all possible address beams for these four types of phase code as the size of the address beam is fixed to 3232 pixels, the CPC is found to have 6.334$\times$10$^{49}$ address beams, which are relatively higher number than that of the conventional phase codes.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.267-272
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• 2005

The effects of As addition in amorphous selenium (a-Se) films for digital X-ray conversion material have been studied using the moving photocarrier grating (MPG) technique. This method utilizes the moving interference pattern generated by the superposition of the two frequency shifted laser beams for the illumination of the sample. This moving intensity grating induces a short circuit current, jsc in a-Se:As film. The transport parameters of the sample are extracted from the grating-velocity dependent short circuit current induced in the sample along the modulation direction. The electron and hole mobility, and recombination lifetime of a-Se films with arsenic (As) additions have been obtained. We have found an increase in hole drift mobility and recombination lifetime, especially when 0.3% As is added into a-Se film, whereas electron mobility decreases with As addition due to the defect density. The transport properties for As doped a-Se films obtained by using MPG technique have been compared with X-ray sensitivity for a-Se:As device. The fabricated a-Se(0.3% As) device film exhibited the highest X-ray sensitivity out of 5 samples.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.1808-1814
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• 2009

In our previous study, a new herbal preparation (HemoHIM) was developed as a functional food for the radioprotection and immunomodulatory agents. In order elucidate the mechanism involved, we examined the effect of HemoHIM on the compound 48/80-induced histamine release, and on the phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA)/calcium ionophore (A23187)-induced inflammatory cytokine secretion in HMC-1. The cell culture supernatants were harvested, and the cytokines (IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-$\alpha$, GM-CSF) in the supernatants were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The total RNA of the cells was extracted, and the cytokines or c-kit/tryptase/Fc$\varepsilon$RI's messenger RNA expressions were examined using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Under low concentrations, HemoHIM inhibited histamine release in HMC-1 stimulated compound 48/80. Furthermore HemoHIM inhibited PMA/A23187-induced inflammatory cytokines' secreation or mRNA expression in a dose-dependent manner. But IL-8 secretion was not inhibited by low concentrayion of HemoHIM, respectively. The mRNA expression of c-kit and Fc$\varepsilon$RI were also inhibited in a dose-dependent manner. Tryptase mRNA expression was only inhibited by low concentration of HemoHIM. These results indicated that HemoHIM might be an useful agent for protection against allergy as well as immune modulation, especially since it is a relatively nontoxic natural product.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.1064-1072
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• 2013

Circadian rhythm is controlled by hormonal oscillations governing the physiology of all living organisms. In mammals, the main function of the pineal gland is to transform the circadian rhythm generated in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus into rhythmic signals of circulating melatonin characterized by a largely nocturnal increase that closely reflects the duration of night time. The pineal gland has lost direct photosensitivity, but responds to light via multi-synaptic pathways that include a subset of retinal ganglion cells. Rhythmic control is achieved through a tight coupling between environmental lighting and arylalkylamine-N-acetyltransferase (AANAT) expression, which is the rhythm-controlling enzyme in melatonin synthesis. Previous studies on the nocturnal expression of AANAT protein have described transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and post-translational regulatory mechanisms. Molecular mechanisms for dependent AANAT expression provide novel aspects for melatonin's circadian rhythmicity. Extensive animal research has linked pineal melatonin for the expression of seasonal rhythmicity in many mammalian species to the modulation of circadian rhythms and to sleep regulation. It has value in treating various circadian rhythm disorders, such as jet lag or shift-work sleep disorders. Melatonin, also, in a broad range of effects with a significant regulation influences many of the body's physiological functions. In addition, this hormone is known to influence reproductive, cardiovascular, and immunological regulation as well as psychiatric disorders.