• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.257-262
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• 2004

ErmSF is one of the ERM proteins which transfer the methyl group to A2058 in 23S rRNA to confer the resis­tance to MLS (macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B) antibiotics on microorganism. Unlike other ERM pro­teins, ErmSF contains long N-terminal end region (NTER), of which $25\%$ is composed of arginine that is known to interact with RNA well. Gradual deletion of NTER leaded us to the point where mutant protein lost much of activity in vivo. Overexpressed and purified mutant protein showed much reduced activity in vitro: $2\%$ activity relative to that of wild type protein. This fact suggests that this amino acid interact with RNA close to meth­ylatable adenine to locate it at an active site properly.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.458-468
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• 2007

To tolerate environmentally adverse conditions such as cold, drought, and salinity, plants often synthesize and accumulate proline in cells as compatible osmolytes. ${\Delta}^1$-Pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase(P5CS) catalyzes the rate-limiting step of proline biosynthesis from glutamate. Two complete genes, MtP5CS1 and MtP5CS2, were isolated from the model legume Medicago truncatula by cDNA cloning and bacterial artificial chromosome library screening. Nucleotide sequence analysis showed that both genes consisted of 20 exons and 19 introns. Alignment of the predicted amino acid sequences revealed high similarities with P5CS proteins from other plant species. The two MtP5CS genes were expressed in response to high salt and low temperature treatments. Semi-quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction showed that MtP5CS1 was expressed earlier than MtP5CS2, indicating differential regulation of the two genes. To evaluate the reverse genetic effects of nucleotide changes on MtP5CS function, a Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes approach was taken. Three mutants each were isolated for MtP5CS1 and MtP5CS2, of which a P5CS2 nonsense mutant carrying a codon change from arginine to stop was expected to bring translation to premature termination. These provide a valuable genetic resource with which to determine the function of the P5CS genes in environmental stress responses of legume crops.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.258-265
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• 2004

Numerous genes of Escherichia coli have been shown to growth phase-dependent expression throughout growth. The global patterns of growth phase-dependent gene expression of E. coli throughout growth using oligonucleotide microarrays containing a nearly complete set of 4,289 annotated open reading frames. To determine the change of gene expression throughout growth, we compared RNAs taken from timecourses with common reference RNA, which is combined with equal amount of RNA pooled from each time point. The hierarchical clustering of the conditions in accordance with timecourse expression revealed that growth phases were clustered into four classes, consistent with known physiological growth status. We analyzed the differences of expression levels at genome level in both exponential and stationary growth phase cultures. Statistical analysis showed that 213 genes are shown to, growth phase-dependent expression. We also analyzed the expression of 256 known operons and 208 regulatory genes. To assess the global impact of RpoS, we identified 193 genes coregulated with rpoS and their expression levels were examined in the isogenic rpoS mutant. The results revealed that 99 of 193 were novel RpoS-dependent stationary phase-induced genes and the majority of those are functionally unknown. Our data provide that global changes and adjustments of gene expression are coordinately regulated by growth transition in E. coli.

• BMB Reports
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• v.41 no.12
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• pp.868-874
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• 2008

Neurofilaments (NFs) are neuronal intermediate filaments composed of light (NF-L), middle (NF-M), and heavy (NF-H) subunits. NF-L self-assembles into a "core" filament with which NF-M or NF-H co-assembles to form the neuronal intermediate filament. Recent reports show that point mutations of the NF-L gene result in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT). However, the most recently described rod domain mutant of human NF-L (A148V) has not been characterized in cellular level. We cloned human NF-L and used it to engineer the A148V. In phenotypic analysis using SW13 cells, A148V mutation completely abolished filament formation despite of presence of NF-M. Moreover, A148V mutation reduced the levels of in vitro self-assembly using GST-NF-L (H/R) fusion protein whereas control (A296T) mutant did not affect the filament formation. These results suggest that alanine at position 148 is essentially required for NF-L self-assembly leading to subsequent filament formation in neuronal cells.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.39-50
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• 2007

Tau plays a role in numerous neuronal processes, such as vesicle transport, microtubule-plasma membrane interaction and intracellular localization of proteins. SUMO (Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier) modification (SUMOylation) appears to regulate diverse cellular processes including nuclear transport, signal transduction, apoptosis, autophagy, cell cycle control, ubiquitin-dependent degradation, as well as gene transcription. We noticed that putative SUMOylation site is localized at $^{340}K$ of $Tau(^{339}VKSE^{342})$ with the consensus sequence information (${\Phi}KxE$ ; where ${\Phi}$ represents L, I, V or F and x is any amino acid). In this report, we demonstrated that $^{340}K$ of Tau is the SUMOylation site and that a point mutant of Tau S214E (an analog of the phospho $^{214}S$ Tau) promotes its SUMOylation at $^{340}K$ and its nuclear or nuclear vicinity localization, by co-immunoprecipitation and confocal microscopy analysis. Further, we demonstrate that the Tau S214E (neither Tau S214A nor Tau K340R) mutant increases its protein stability. However, the SUMOylation at $^{340}K$ of Tau did not influence cell survival, as determined by FACS analysis. Therefore, our results suggested that the phosphorylation of Tau on $^{214}S$ residue promotes its SUMOylation on $^{340}K$ residue and nuclear vicinity localization, and increases its stability, without influencing cell survival.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.51-54
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• 2003

Analysis of the Neurospora crassa genome data reveals at least 14 proteins that contain tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) motifs. One of them shows over $60\%$ homology with SSN6 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a global repressor that mediates repression of genes involved in various cellular processes. Sequence analysis of its cDNA shows that it encodes a putative 102kDa protein. Mutant strains generated by RIP (repeat induced point mutation) process show four distinctive patterns of vegetative growth at various rates. They are male-fertile, yet all female-sterile and produced little or no perithecium. These results indicate that this gene is pleiotropic and involved in several cellular processes of vegetative growth, conidiation and sexual cycle. It is designated rcm-1(regulation of conidiation and morphology).

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.135-137
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• 2009

Mathematical models for describing the Human Immunodeficiency Virus(HIV) infection can be devised to better understand how the HIV causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome(AIDS). The HIV models can then be used to find clues to curing AIDS from a control theoretical point of view. Some models take Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes(CTL) response to HIV infection into account, and others consider mutants against the drugs. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no model developed, which describes CTL response and mutant HIV together. Hence we propose a unified model to consider both of these. On the basis of the resulting model, we also present a Model Predictive Control(MPC) scheme to find an optimal treatment strategy. The optimization is performed under the assumption that the Structured Treatment Interruption(STI) policy is employed.

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.225-235
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• 1999

MELAS is the condition associated with mutant mtDNA that most closely mimics thrombotic cerebrovascular disease. Characteristic abnormalities are two. first, 'ragged-red fibers' in muscle biopsy. second, point mutation in the mitochondrial DNA analyses. The characteristic clinical presentations of MELAS are short stature, recurrent stroke like episodes, migraine-like headache, sensorineural hearng loss, glucose intolerance and neuropathy. We now report a case of MELAS syndrome having mitochondrial DNA mutation with an A to G transition at the 3,243rd position diagnosed in Chung-ang Hospital.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.466-470
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• 2008

Human cytomegalovirus expresses an unusual protein kinase UL97, a member of ${H_V}{U_L}$ family of protein kinase. UL97 can phosphorylate nucleoside analogs such as ganciclovir as well as protein/peptide. It has previously been reported that UL97 is able to phosphorylate a KESYSVYVYKV peptide and that P+5 position (K) is important. We examined the extent of contribution of other positions (P-4 through P+6) of the peptide to be substrate of UL97 using alanine substituted peptides (Ala scanning) and deleted peptides. The result suggested that the E (P-2) is negative effect and P+5 (K) is still important. The peptide YSVYVYK is the shortest substrate enough to show high activity, which could be a starting point to develop peptidomimetic drug. This study would give important information to deeply understand the substrate specificity of UL97 and develop an antiviral drug using the small peptide identified here.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.9-19
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• 2011

The Bacillus subtilis pyrimidine biosynthetic (pyr) operon encodes all of the enzymes for the de novo biosynthesis of Uridine monophosphate (UMP) and additional cistrones encoding a uracil permease and the regulatory protein PyrR. The PyrR is a bifunctional protein with pyr mRNA-binding regulatory funtion and uracil phosphoribosyltransferase activity. To study the global regulation by the pyrR deletion, the proteome comparison between Bacillus subtilis DB104 and Bacillus subtilis DB104 ${\Delta}$pyrR in the minimal medium without pyrimidines was employed. Proteome analysis of the cytosolic proteins from both strains by 2D-gel electrophoresis showed the variations in levels of protein expression. On the silver stained 2D-gel with an isoelectric point (pI) between 4 and 10, about 1,300 spots were detected and 172 spots showed quantitative variations in which 42 high quantitatively variant proteins were identified. The results showed that production of the pyrimidine biosynthetic enzymes (PyrAA, PyrAB, PyrB, PyrC, PyrD, and PyrF) were significantly increased in B. subtilis DB104 ${\Delta}$pyrR. Besides, proteins associated carbohydrate metabolism, elongation protein synthesis, metabolism of cofactors and vitamins, motility, tRNA synthetase, catalase, ATP-binding protein, and cell division protein FtsZ were overproduced in the PyrR-deficient mutant. Based on analytic results, the PyrR might be involved a number of other metabolisms or various phenomena in the bacterial cell besides the pyrimidine biosynthesis.