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Recent Advancement in the Stem Cell Biology (Stem Cell Biology, 최근의 진보)

  • Harn, Chang-Yawl
    • Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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    • v.33 no.3
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    • pp.195-207
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    • 2006
  • Stem cells are the primordial, initial cells which usually divide asymmetrically giving rise to on the one hand self-renewals and on the other hand progenitor cells with potential for differentiation. Zygote (fertilized egg), with totipotency, deserves the top-ranking stem cell - he totipotent stem cell (TSC). Both the ICM (inner cell mass) taken from the 6 days-old human blastocyst and ESC (embryonic stem cell) derived from the in vitro cultured ICM have slightly less potency for differentiation than the zygote, and are termed pluripotent stem cells. Stem cells in the tissues and organs of fetus, infant, and adult have highly reduced potency and committed to produce only progenitor cells for particular tissues. These tissue-specific stem cells are called multipotent stem cells. These tissue-specific/committed multipotent stem cells, when placed in altered environment other than their original niche, can yield cells characteristic of the altered environment. These findings are certainly of potential interest from the clinical, therapeutic perspective. The controversial terminology 'somatic stem cell plasticity' coined by the stem cell community seems to have been proved true. Followings are some of the recent knowledges related to the stem cell. Just as the tissues of our body have their own multipotent stem cells, cancerous tumor has undifferentiated cells known as cancer stem cell (CSC). Each time CSC cleaves, it makes two daughter cells with different fate. One is endowed with immortality, the remarkable ability to divide indefinitely, while the other progeny cell divides occasionally but lives forever. In the cancer tumor, CSC is minority being as few as 3-5% of the tumor mass but it is the culprit behind the tumor-malignancy, metastasis, and recurrence of cancer. CSC is like a master print. As long as the original exists, copies can be made and the disease can persist. If the CSC is destroyed, cancer tumor can't grow. In the decades-long cancer therapy, efforts were focused on the reducing of the bulk of cancerous growth. How cancer therapy is changing to destroy the origin of tumor, the CSC. The next generation of treatments should be to recognize and target the root cause of cancerous growth, the CSC, rather than the reducing of the bulk of tumor, Now the strategy is to find a way to identify and isolate the stem cells. The surfaces of normal as well as the cancer stem cells are studded with proteins. In leukaemia stem cell, for example, protein CD 34 is identified. In the new treatment of cancer disease it is needed to look for protein unique to the CSC. Blocking the stem cell's source of nutrients might be another effective strategy. The mystery of sternness of stem cells has begun to be deciphered. ESC can replicate indefinitely and yet retains the potential to turn into any kind of differentiated cells. Polycomb group protein such as Suz 12 repress most of the regulatory genes which, activated, are turned to be developmental genes. These protein molecules keep the ESC in an undifferentiated state. Many of the regulator genes silenced by polycomb proteins are also occupied by such ESC transcription factors as Oct 4, Sox 2, and Nanog. Both polycomb and transcription factor proteins seem to cooperate to keep the ESC in an undifferentiated state, pluripotent, and self-renewable. A normal prion protein (PrP) is found throughout the body from blood to the brain. Prion diseases such as mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) are caused when a normal prion protein misfolds to give rise to PrP$^{SC}$ and assault brain tissue. Why has human body kept such a deadly and enigmatic protein? Although our body has preserved the prion protein, prion diseases are of rare occurrence. Deadly prion diseases have been intensively studied, but normal prion problems are not. Very few facts on the benefit of prion proteins have been known so far. It was found that PrP was hugely expressed on the stem cell surface of bone marrow and on the cells of neural progenitor, PrP seems to have some function in cell maturation and facilitate the division of stem cells and their self-renewal. PrP also might help guide the decision of neural progenitor cell to become a neuron.

Comparison of AndroMed and Tris-egg Yolk Extender for Cryopreservation of Korean Native Bull Semen (Chick Cow) (칡소 정액 동결을 위한 AndroMed와 Tris-egg Yolk 희석제의 동결성 비교)

  • Cho, Sang-Rae;Kim, Sung-Jae;Son, Jun-Kyu;Choi, Sun-Ho;Choe, Chang-Yong;Ko, Yeoung-Kyu;Lee, Poong-Yeon;Kim, Hyun-Jong
    • Journal of Embryo Transfer
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    • v.26 no.1
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    • pp.65-70
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    • 2011
  • This study was conducted to investigate the survival rate of AndroMed and Tris-egg yolk extender for cryopreservation of Korean Native Bull Semen (Chick Cow). Semen was collected from a Korean Native Bull Semen over 3 year's old. The semen was diluted 1:1 by AndroMed and Tris-egg yolk extender. The pellet was diluted to final sperm concentration of $5{\times}10^7$ cell/ml by doubling in every 10 minutes at $4^{\circ}C$ cold chamber. The semen was equilibrated for 1 hrs at cold chamber and packed to 0.5 ml straw. The semen straws were located above 5 cm of liquid nitrogen for 5 minutes. And then the frozen straw was plunged to LN2. The presented straws were examined the viability and motility after thawed at $37^{\circ}C$ water bath. The survival rates was significantly higher (p<0.05) in Tris-egg yolk extender than AndroMed extender ($89.7{\pm}19.8$ vs. $73.4{\pm}11.2$). However, motility was no significant differences ($78.4{\pm}18.7$ vs. $67.9{\pm}14.6$). Survival rate in time of equilibration between visual and CASA program had higher in 2 h ($86.33{\pm}9.4$ vs. $92.32{\pm}12.4$) than in 5 h ($78.20{\pm}7.8$ vs. $88.28{\pm}13.1$) 15 h ($65.24{\pm}6.6$ vs. $76.48{\pm}17.3$) 20 h ($56.26{\pm}4.6$ vs. $67.73{\pm}18.4$). The development rates to cleavage was higher in Tris-egg yolk extender than AndroMed extender (82.2% vs. 81.7%). Similarly, the development rates to blastocyst was significantly higher (p<0.05) in Tris-egg yolk extender than AndroMed extender (42.3% vs. 29.6%). In conclusion, the obvious impact of this study will be its practical application to improve viability and fertilizing ability of cryopreserved spermatozoa used for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and AI, Which in turn will be beneficial to animal genetic resources conservation.

Development of a New Terrain Type Classification to be used in Highway Design (도로설계 적정화를 위한 새로운 지형구분에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Sang-Youp;Choi, Jai-Sung;Lee, Seung-Yong;Han, Hyung-Gwan
    • International Journal of Highway Engineering
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    • v.8 no.4 s.30
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    • pp.49-62
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    • 2006
  • The republic of korea has put a great emphasis on the role of the road as widening a social infra-structural facility. Thus, vast amount of money has been invested on the road establishment. As a result, there has been fruitful outcomes in establishing the road system of the nation especially for the flat road with ease. However, in order to have more systematic and sustainable road system, we should turn our attention to more painful and high-cost regions such as mountainous districts and those are to be developed effectively. The configuration of the road is an important factor to be considered in making a decision for the road planning. Nevertheless, current road planning criterion has no such clarified and objective judging standard for figuring the configuration of the road out and, as a result, speed planning can be decided incorrectly. our research has acknowledged the necessity of estimating the configuration of the road and aimed to make it organized and sorted according to the height, slope, and the vehicle's speed. The results are as follows. First, our research made use of GIS data and classified the road into 9 different areas according to the height and the slope. Also, road classification being matched to the data of vehicle's speed, it has been shown that those characteristics of different areas have made an influence on vehicle's speed. Secondly, based on the results of the similarity between geographical classification and, vehicle's speed of sorted groups according to the height and the slope, conclusively we have classified as flat, rolling region and mountain. Since our research has made use of vehicle's speed for National Highway, it is not applicable to different functional highways. However, for the highway to be established hereafter, it can be a standard for reflection geographical characteristics.

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Antecedents of Manufacturer's Private Label Program Engagement : A Focus on Strategic Market Management Perspective (제조업체 Private Labels 도입의 선행요인 : 전략적 시장관리 관점을 중심으로)

  • Lim, Chae-Un;Yi, Ho-Taek
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.65-86
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    • 2012
  • The $20^{th}$ century was the era of manufacturer brands which built higher brand equity for consumers. Consumers moved from generic products of inconsistent quality produced by local factories in the $19^{th}$ century to branded products from global manufacturers and manufacturer brands reached consumers through distributors and retailers. Retailers were relatively small compared to their largest suppliers. However, sometime in the 1970s, things began to slowly change as retailers started to develop their own national chains and began international expansion, and consolidation of the retail industry from mom-and-pop stores to global players was well under way (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007, p.2) In South Korea, since the middle of the 1990s, the bulking up of retailers that started then has changed the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. Retailer private labels, generally referred to as own labels, store brands, distributors own private-label, home brand or own label brand have also been performing strongly in every single local market (Bushman 1993; De Wulf et al. 2005). Private labels now account for one out of every five items sold every day in U.S. supermarkets, drug chains, and mass merchandisers (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007), and the market share in Western Europe is even larger (Euromonitor 2007). In the UK, grocery market share of private labels grew from 39% of sales in 2008 to 41% in 2010 (Marian 2010). Planet Retail (2007, p.1) recently concluded that "[PLs] are set for accelerated growth, with the majority of the world's leading grocers increasing their own label penetration." Private labels have gained wide attention both in the academic literature and popular business press and there is a glowing academic research to the perspective of manufacturers and retailers. Empirical research on private labels has mainly studies the factors explaining private labels market shares across product categories and/or retail chains (Dahr and Hoch 1997; Hoch and Banerji, 1993), factors influencing the private labels proneness of consumers (Baltas and Doyle 1998; Burton et al. 1998; Richardson et al. 1996) and factors how to react brand manufacturers towards PLs (Dunne and Narasimhan 1999; Hoch 1996; Quelch and Harding 1996; Verhoef et al. 2000). Nevertheless, empirical research on factors influencing the production in terms of a manufacturer-retailer is rather anecdotal than theory-based. The objective of this paper is to bridge the gap in these two types of research and explore the factors which influence on manufacturer's private label production based on two competing theories: S-C-P (Structure - Conduct - Performance) paradigm and resource-based theory. In order to do so, the authors used in-depth interview with marketing managers, reviewed retail press and research and presents the conceptual framework that integrates the major determinants of private labels production. From a manufacturer's perspective, supplying private labels often starts on a strategic basis. When a manufacturer engages in private labels, the manufacturer does not have to spend on advertising, retailer promotions or maintain a dedicated sales force. Moreover, if a manufacturer has weak marketing capabilities, the manufacturer can make use of retailer's marketing capability to produce private labels and lessen its marketing cost and increases its profit margin. Figure 1. is the theoretical framework based on a strategic market management perspective, integrated concept of both S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The model includes one mediate variable, marketing capabilities, and the other moderate variable, competitive intensity. Manufacturer's national brand reputation, firm's marketing investment, and product portfolio, which are hypothesized to positively affected manufacturer's marketing capabilities. Then, marketing capabilities has negatively effected on private label production. Moderating effects of competitive intensity are hypothesized on the relationship between marketing capabilities and private label production. To verify the proposed research model and hypotheses, data were collected from 192 manufacturers (212 responses) who are producing private labels in South Korea. Cronbach's alpha test, explanatory / comfirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis were employed to validate hypotheses. The following results were drawing using structural equation modeling and all hypotheses are supported. Findings indicate that manufacturer's private label production is strongly related to its marketing capabilities. Consumer marketing capabilities, in turn, is directly connected with the 3 strategic factors (e.g., marketing investment, manufacturer's national brand reputation, and product portfolio). It is moderated by competitive intensity between marketing capabilities and private label production. In conclusion, this research may be the first study to investigate the reasons manufacturers engage in private labels based on two competing theoretic views, S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The private label phenomenon has received growing attention by marketing scholars. In many industries, private labels represent formidable competition to manufacturer brands and manufacturers have a dilemma with selling to as well as competing with their retailers. The current study suggests key factors when manufacturers consider engaging in private label production.

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Purification and Identification of Apoptosis Modulator Pipernonaline from Piper longum Linn. against Prostate Cancer Cells (필발(Piper longum Linn.)로부터 전립선암 세포사멸물질 pipernonaline의 분리 및 동정)

  • Kim, Kwang-Youn;Kim, Yun-Jin;Lee, Wan;Yu, Sun-Nyoung;Cho, Hyo-Jin;Lee, Sun-Yi;Lee, Han-Seung;Sohn, Jae-Hak;Oh, Hyuncheol;Ahn, Soon-Cheol
    • Journal of Life Science
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    • v.19 no.5
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    • pp.671-675
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    • 2009
  • Prostate cancer has been a critical health problem due to an increase of prostate cancer-related deaths worldwide. Also, a frequent treatment option for prostate cancer is androgen ablation, but this treatment has a limited scope, especially for hormone-refractory cancer. There is an urgent need for the identification of alternative therapeutic strategies for prostate cancer. Previously, over one hundred species of dried-plant methanol extracts were tested for inhibitory effects on proliferation. One of them, Piper longum Linn. was selected based on its potent anti-proliferation effect. The dried root of P. longum Linn. was extracted with 100% methanol for 2-3 days and its extract was fractionated using chloroform. The chloroform layer was then subjected to column chromatography on silica gel, reverse phase-18 (RP-18) and Sephadex LH-20, in turn. Finally, the pure compound was obtained and identified as pipernonaline by NMR spectroscopic and physico-chemical analysis. In this study, anti-proliferation and cell cycle arrest effects of pipernonaline on human prostate cancer PC-3 cells were investigated using the MTT and PI staining, respectively. Our findings suggest that pipernonaline represents a dose-dependent growth inhibition pattern on PC-3 cells and, moreover, its growth inhibition is associated with sub-G1 and G0/G1 cell cycle accumulation in PC-3 cells. Also, these results provide an anticancer candidate for human prostate cancer.

InGaZnO active layer 두께에 따른 thin-film transistor 전기적인 영향

  • U, Chang-Ho;Kim, Yeong-Lee;An, Cheol-Hyeon;Kim, Dong-Chan;Gong, Bo-Hyeon;Bae, Yeong-Suk;Seo, Dong-Gyu;Jo, Hyeong-Gyun
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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    • 2009.11a
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    • pp.5-5
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    • 2009
  • Thin-film-transistors (TFTs) that can be prepared at low temperatures have attracted much attention because of the great potential for transparent and flexible electronics. One of the mainstreams in this field is the use of organic semiconductors such as pentacene. But device performance of the organic TFTs is still limited due to low field-effect mobility and rapid degradation after exposing to air. Alternative approach is the use of amorphous oxide semiconductors as a channel. Amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOSs) based TFTs showed the fast technological development, because AOS films can be fabricated at room temperature and exhibit the possibility in application like flexible display, electronic paper, and larges solar cells. Among the various AOSs, a-IGZO has lots of advantages because it has high channel mobility, uniform surface roughness and good transparency. [1] The high mobility is attributed to the overlap of spherical s-orbital of the heavy post-transition metal cations. This study demonstrated the effect of the variation in channel thickness from 30nm to 200nm on the TFT device performance. When the thickness was increased, turn-on voltage and subthreshold swing was decreased. The a-IGZO channels and source/drain metals were deposited with shadow mask. The a-IGZO channel layer was deposited on $SiO_2$/p-Si substrates by RF magnetron sputtering, where RF power is 150W. And working pressure is 3m Torr, at $O_2/Ar$ (2/28 sccm) atmosphere. The electrodes were formed with electron-beam evaporated Ti (30 nm) and Au (70 nm) bilayer. Finally, Al (150nm) as a gate metal was thermal-evaporated. TFT devices were heat-treated in a furnace at 250 $^{\circ}C$ and nitrogen atmosphere for 1hour. The electrical properties of the TFTs were measured using a probe-station. The TFT with channel thickness of 150nm exhibits a good subthreshold swing (SS) of 0.72 V/decade and on-off ratio of $1{\times}10^8$. The field effect mobility and threshold voltage were evaluated as 7.2 and 8 V, respectively.

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Synthesis and Color Tuning of Poly(p-phenylenevinylene) Containing Terphenyl Units for Light Emitting Diodes

  • Jin, Young-Eup;Kim, Jin-Woo;Park, Sung-Heum;Kim, Hee-Joo;Lee, Kwang-Hee;Suh, Hong-Suk
    • Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.26 no.11
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    • pp.1807-1818
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    • 2005
  • New PPV based conjugated polymers, containing terphenyl units, were prepared as the electroluminescent (EL) layer in light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The prepared polymers, poly[2,5-bis(4-(2-etylhexyloxy)phenyl)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (BEHP-PPV), poly[2-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-5-(4-(4-(2-etylhexyloxy)phenyl)phenyl)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (EEPP-PPV) and poly[2-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-5-(9,9-bis(2-etylhexyl)fluorenyl)-1,4 phenylenevinylene] (EHF-PPV), were soluble in common organic solvents and used as the EL layer in double layer light-emitting diodes (LEDs) (ITO/PEDOT/polymer/Al). The polymers were prepared by the Gilch reaction. The number-average molecular weight $(M_n)$, weight-average molecular weight $(M_w)$, and the polydispersities (PDI) of these polymers were in the range of 9000-58000, 27000-231000, 2.9-3.9, respectively. These polymers have quite good thermal stability with decomposition starting above 320-350. The polymers show photoluminescence (PL) with maximum peaks at around 526-562 nm (exciting wavelength, 410 nm) and blue EL with maximum peaks at around $\lambda_{max}$ = 526-552 nm. The current-voltageluminance (I-V-L) characteristics of polymers show turn-on voltages of 5 V. Even though both of EEPP-PPV and BEHP-PPV have the same terphenyl group in the repeating unit, EEPP-PPV with directly substituted alkoxy group in the back bone has longer effective conjugation length than BEHP-PPV, and exhibits red shift in the PL spectra. Both of EEPP-PPV and EHF-PPV have ter-phenyl units and directly substituted alkoxy group in back bone. EHF-PPV with fluorenyl unit attached to the PPV backbone has shorter effective conjugation length than EEPP-PPV with biphenyl unit, and exhibits blue shift in the PL spectra.

The effect of progressive tensional force on mRNA expression of osteoprotegerin and receptor activator of nuclear factor ${\kappa}B$ ligand in the human periodontal ligament cell (기계적 자극이 치주인대 세포의 osteoprotegerin과 receptor activator of nuclear factor ${\kappa}B$ ligand mRNA 발현에 미치는 영향)

  • Lee, Kie-Joo;Lee, Syng-Ill;Hwang, Chung-Ju;Ohk, Seung-Ho;Tian, Yu-Shin
    • The korean journal of orthodontics
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    • v.35 no.4 s.111
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    • pp.262-274
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    • 2005
  • Tooth movement is a result of mutual physiologic responses between the periodontal ligament and alveolar bone stimulated by mechanical strain. The PDL cell and osteoblast are known to have an influence on bone formation by controlling collagen synthesis and alkaline phosphatase activation. Moreover. recent studies have shown that the PDL cell and osteoblast release osteoprotegerin (OPG) and the receptor activator of nuclear factor ぉ ligand (RANKL) to control the level of osteoclast differentiation and activation which in turn influences bone resorption. In this study. progressively increased, continuous tensional force was applied to PDL cells. The objective was to find out which kind of biochemical reactions occur after tensional force application and to illuminate the alveolar bone resorption and apposition mechanism. Continuous and progressively increased tensile force was applied to PDL cells cultured on a petriperm dish with a flexible membrane The amount of $PGE_2$ and ALP synthesis were measured after 1, 3, 0 and 12 hours of force application. Secondly RT-PCR analysis was carried out for OPG and RANKL which control osteoclast differentiation and MMP-1 -8, -9, -13 aud TIMP-1 which regulate the resolution of collagen and resorption of the osteoid layer According to the results. we concluded that progressively increased, concluded force application to human PDL cells reduces $PGE_2$ synthesis, and increases OPG mRNA expression.

Studies on the Suitability and Efficiency of Human Follicular Fluid as Protein Supplement in Assisted Reproductive Technology(ART);III. Effect of Human Follicular Fluid on Improvement of Pregnancy Rates in ART (생식보조시술시 단백질원으로서 인간난포액의 적합성 및 효율성에 관한 연구;III. 인간난포액이 생식보조시술시 임신율 향상에 미치는 효과)

  • Koo, J.J.;Chi, H.J.;Kim, D.H.;Kim, J.Y.;Chang, S.S.
    • Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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    • v.23 no.1
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    • pp.103-108
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    • 1996
  • Through the previous studies(I,II), it was observed that human follicular fluid(HFF) was more effective than human fetal cord serum(HFCS) on promoting meiotic resumption of oocytes and improving embryonic development of mouse in vitro. On the basis of these results, we have gradually exchanged HFCS with HFF as protein supplement in human ART. This study was performed to investigate the efficiency of HFF on improving the pregnancy rate in ART. Oocytes were retrieved transvaginally from patients treated with pituitary suppression with GnRH-agonist and ovarian stimulation with human menopausal gonadotro-pin(HMG) and pure follicle stimulating hormone(FSH). Aspirated oocytes were rinsed and cultured in TCM-199 containing HFF, and the concentrations of HFF were adjusted to 10, 20, and 30% according to the use for insemination, embryo growth and embryo transfer, respectively. As possible as, we tried to do embryo transfer into fallopian tube to mimic the coincidence of the cell stage with the place of sojourn in vivo, so we performed various ART programs(IVF & ET; in vitro fertilization, ZIFT; zygote intra fallopian-tube transfer, ZIFT & ET) according to the tubal conditions of patients. On the while, intra cytoplasmic sperm injection(ICSI) was used to assist IVF of the patients who had shown poor standard IVF results by immunological or severe male factor. Of the 255 cycles of ART programs using HFF as protein supplement, 118 cycles were turn out to be succeeded in pregnancy(46.2%, per cycle, p<0.05), while 21 pregnancies were achieved in the 69 cycles using HFCS(30.4%). The 255 cycles using HFF were subdivided into cycles with the type of ART programs, and each pregnancy rate of the ART programs were 44.7% (IVF & ET, 76/170 cycles), 53.4%(ZIFT, 31/58 cycles) and 40.7% (ZIFT & ET, 11/27 cycles), respectively. In the 61 ICSI cycles using HFF, 28 cycles succeed in pregnancy(45.9%), while 7 pregnancies were obtained in the 17 ICSI cycles using HFCS. Also the ongoing pregnancy rate in the group using HFF(78.8%, 93/118 cycles) was higher than that in the group using HFCS(61.9%). Therefore, we found that the use of HFF as protein supplement was more suitable and effective than the use of HFCS to improve the pregnancy rate in ART.

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Inhibition of Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Expression by YS 49, a Synthetic Isoquinoline Alkaloid, in ROS 17/2.8 Cells Activated with $TNF-{\alpha},\;IFN-{\gamma}$ and LPS

  • Kang, Young-Jin;Kang, Sun-Young;Lee, Young-Soo;Park, Min-Kyu;Kim, Hye-Jung;Seo, Han-Geuk;Lee, Jae-Heun;YunChoi, Hye-Sook;Chang, Ki-Churl
    • The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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    • v.8 no.5
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    • pp.273-280
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    • 2004
  • Nitric oxide (NO) has been suggested to act as a mediator of cytokine-induced effects of turn over of bone. Activation of the inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) by inflammation has been related with apoptotic cell death in osteoblast. YS 49, a synthetic isoquinoline alkaloid, inhibits NO production in macrophages activated with cytokines. In the present study, we investigated the molecular mechanism of YS 49 to inhibit iNOS expression in ROS 17/2.8 cells, which were activated with combined treatment of inflammatory cytokines $(TNF-{\alpha},\;IFN-{\gamma})$ and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Results indicated that YS 49 concentration-dependently reduced iNOS mRNA and protein expression, as evidenced by Northern and Western blot analysis, respectively. The underlying mechanism by which YS 49 suppressed iNOS expression was not to affect iNOS mRNA stability but to inhibit activation and translocation of $NF-_kB$ by preventing the degradation of its inhibitory protein $I_kB_{\alpha}$. As expected, YS 49 prevented NO-induced apoptotic cell death by sodium nitroprusside. Taken together, it is concluded that YS 49 inhibits iNOS expression by interfering with degradation of phosphorylated inhibitory $_kB_{\alpha}\;(p-I_kB_{\alpha})$. These actions may be beneficial for the treatment of inflammation of the joint, such as rheumatoid arthritis.