• BMB Reports
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• v.41 no.11
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• pp.814-819
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• 2008

Interleukin-32 (IL-32) induces a variety of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines. The IL-32 transcript was reported originally in activated T cells; subsequently, it was demonstrated to be abundantly expressed in epithelial and endothelial cells upon stimulation with inflammatory cytokines. IL-32 is regulated robustly by other major proinflammatory cytokines, thereby suggesting that IL-32 is crucial to inflammation and immune responses. Recently, an IL-32$\alpha$-affinity column was employed in order to isolate an IL-32 binding protein, neutrophil proteinase 3 (PR3). Proteinase 3 processes a variety of inflammatory cytokines, including TNF$\alpha$, IL-$1{\beta}$, IL-8, and IL-32, thereby enhancing their biological activities. In the current study, we designed four PR3-cleaved IL-32 separate domains, identified by potential PR3 cleavage sites in the IL-32$\alpha$ and $\gamma$ polypeptides. The separate domains of the IL-32 isoforms $\alpha$ and $\gamma$ were more active than the intrinsic $\alpha$ and $\gamma$ isoforms. Interestingly, the N-terminal IL-32 isoform $\gamma$ separate domain evidenced the highest levels of biological activity among the IL-32 separate domains.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.361-370
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• 1985

The effect of major ingradients (Water, Soybean oil, Na-caseinate, Soybean protein isolate, Corn starch. Lactic acid and disodium phosphate) on the textural properties of imitation cheese were studied by response surface methodology and evaluated by contour diagram. The hardness of imitation cheese was directly influenced by the contents of water, oil and Na-caseinate and also affected by the interactions between water and oil and corn starch and lactic acid/phosphate. The adhesiveness was strongly affected by the interactions between caseinate and lactic acid/phosphate, SPI and corn starch and corn starch and lactic acid/phosphate. The springiness was directly influenced by the contents of oil, caseinate and lactic acid/phosphate, and also affected by the interactions between SPI and lactic acid/phosphate and corn starch and lactic acid/phosphate. The melting property was strongly influenced by the contents and interactions of lactic acid/phosphate.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.1716-1720
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• 2011

A bacterium hydrolysing various organic materials including cellulose, protein, starch and lipid was isolated. The isolate was identified as Bacillus subtilis, and named Bacillus subtilis CK-2 in this paper. This bacterium showed optimal growth at $40\sim45^{\circ}C$, pH 6~9, and 0~3% of NaCl. B. subtilis CK-2 seemed to synthesis highly active autolysin. The hydrolytic enzymes produced by B. subtilis CK-2 were primary enzymes because extracellular enzyme activities varied similarly to the growth curve. The hydrolytic enzymes seemed to be stable at basic pH conditions. From these results, B. subtilis CK-2 was found to bea useful bacterial agent for composting, or for use in feed-production waste in agriculture, fishery, forest materials, livestock farming, and food.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.345-355
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• 2014

Mitigating secondary delayed neuronal injury has been a therapeutic strategy for minimizing neurological symptoms after several types of brain injury. Interestingly, secondary neuronal loss appeared to be closely related to functional loss and/or death of astrocytes. In the brain damage induced by agonists of two glutamate receptors, N-ethyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) and kainic acid (KA), NMDA induced neuronal death within 3 h, but did not increase further thereafter. However, in the KA-injected brain, neuronal death was not obviously detectable even at injection sites at 3 h, but extensively increased to encompass the entire hemisphere at 7 days. Brain inflammation, a possible cause of secondary neuronal damage, showed little differences between the two models. Importantly, however, astrocyte behavior was completely different. In the NMDA-injected cortex, the loss of glial fibrillary acidic protein-expressing ($GFAP^+$) astrocytes was confined to the injection site until 7 days after the injection, and astrocytes around the damage sites showed extensive gliosis and appeared to isolate the damage sites. In contrast, in the KA-injected brain, $GFAP^+$ astrocytes, like neurons, slowly, but progressively, disappeared across the entire hemisphere. Other markers of astrocytes, including $S100{\beta}$, glutamate transporter EAAT2, the potassium channel Kir4.1 and glutamine synthase, showed patterns similar to that of GFAP in both NMDA- and KA-injected cortexes. More importantly, astrocyte disappearance and/or functional loss preceded neuronal death in the KA-injected brain. Taken together, these results suggest that loss of astrocyte support to neurons may be a critical cause of delayed neuronal death in the injured brain.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.244-251
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• 2015

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have described the importance of bacteria that can degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Here we screened bacterial isolates from commercial gasoline for PAH degraders and characterized their ability to degrade PAHs, lipids and proteins as well as their enantioselective epoxide hydrolase activity, salt tolerance, and seawater survival. METHODS AND RESULTS: One hundred two bacteria isolates from commercial gasoline were screened for PAH degraders by adding selected PAHs on to the surface of agar plates by the sublimation method. A clear zone was found only around the colonies of PAH degraders, which accounted for 13 isolates. These were identified as belonging to Bacillus sp., Brevibacterium sp., Micrococcus sp., Corynebacterium sp., Arthrobacter sp., and Gordonia sp. based on 16S rRNA sequences. Six isolates belonging to Corynebacterium sp., 3 of Micrococcus sp., Arthrobacter sp. S49, and Gordonia sp. H37 were lipid degraders. Arthrobacter sp. S49 was the only isolate showing high proteolytic activity. Among the PAH-degrading bacteria, Arthrobacter sp. S49, Brevibacterium sp. S47, Corynebacterium sp. SK20, and Gordonia sp. H37 showed enantioselective epoxide hydrolase activity with biocatalytic resolution of racemic styrene oxide. Among these, highest enantioselective hydrolysis activity was seen in Gordonia sp. H37. An intrinsic resistance to kanamycin was observed in most of the isolates and Corynebacterium sp. SK20 showed resistance to additional antibiotics such as tetracycline, ampicillin, and penicillin. CONCLUSION: Of the 13 PAH-degraders isolated from commercial gasoline, Arthrobacter sp. S49 showed the highest lipid and protein degrading activity along with high active epoxide hydrolase activity, which was the highest in Gordonia sp. H37. Our results suggest that bacteria from commercial gasoline may have the potential to degrade PAHs, lipids, and proteins, and may possess enantioselective epoxide hydrolase activity, high salt tolerance, and growth potential in seawater.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.313-316
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• 2002

Systemic virus symptoms caused by a Potexvirus were observed on leaves of infected hosta (Hasta spp.) plants cultivated in Seoul, Korea. Symptoms on diseased hosta plants include mosaic, mottle, irregular blotchy patches, and chlorotic spots on or distortion of the leaves. No other viruses, such as Cucumber mosaic virus, Lily symptomless virus, or Potyvirus, were detected from the same plants by electron microscopy and by Western blot and RT-PCR analyses, indicating that they were singly infected by the potexvirus. The symptoms differed among cultivars and species of hosta, and affected the quality of plants for commercialization, as well as, plant growth and flowering of susceptible cultivars. Most of the cultivars and species investigated were susceptible to the virus, while some were not infected by the virus at all. Purified virus particles were of filamentous type with unaggregated forms 540 nm in length, which is a typical potexviral morphology. The virus consisted of a single-stranded RNA molecule of 6 kb long for genome and single component of coat protein (CP) about 27 kDa. The CP strongly reacted with the antiserum against Hosta vims X (HVX), suggesting that the virus is an isolate of HVX. This is the first report of the occurrence and identification of HVX from hosta plants in Korea.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.371-378
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• 2015

Surveys of yellowing viruses in plastic tunnels and in open field crops of melon (Cucumis melo cultivar catalupo), oriental melon (C. melo cultivar oriental melon), and cucumber (C. sativus) were carried out in two melon-growing areas in 2014, Korea. Severe yellowing symptoms on older leaves of melon and chlorotic spots on younger leaves of melon were observed in the plastic tunnels. The symptoms were widespread and included initial chlorotic lesions followed by yellowing of whole leaves and thickening of older leaves. RT-PCR analysis using total RNA extracted from diseased leaves did not show any synthesized products for four cucurbit-infecting viruses; Beet pseudo-yellows virus, Cucumber mosaic virus, Cucurbit yellows stunting disorder virus, and Melon necrotic spot virus. Virus identification using RT-PCR showed Cucurbit aphid-borne yellows Virus (CABYV) was largely distributed in melon, oriental melon and cucumber. This result was verified by aphid (Aphis gossypii) transmission of CABYV. The complete coat protein (CP) gene amplified from melon was cloned and sequenced. The CP gene nucleotide and the deduced amino acid sequence comparisons as well as phylogenetic tree analysis of CABYV CPs showed that the CABYV isolates were undivided into subgroups. Although the low incidence of CABYV in infections to cucurbit crops in this survey, CABYV may become an important treat for cucurbit crops in many different regions in Korea, suggesting that CABYV should be taken into account in disease control of cucurbit crops in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.55-64
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• 2002

The envelope glycoprotein of HIV-1 forms an oligomeric complex resulting in playing a role to induce neutralizing antibody and cell-mediate immune responses. The oligomer exists as a trimer of gp120-gp41 heterodimer which mediates HIV-1 attachment and fusion. We made a cDNA clone of gp140 consisting of gp120 and ectodomain of gp41 from the primary African isolate. To express the oligomeric gp140 in mammalian cells, we adopted the Semliki Forest virus (SFV) based expression system. The oligomeric gp140 in the secretory form was expressed and purified from the cell culture supernatant and characterized. The antibody inducing activity of the purified gp140 was also examined in mice inoculation.

• The Korean Journal of Malacology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.181-187
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• 2013

In order to investigate environmental stress inducible genes in abalone, we analyzed differentially expressed transcripts from a Pacific abalone, Haliotis discus hannai, after exposure to heat-, cold- or hyposalinity-shock by suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) method. 1,074 unique sequences from SSH libraries were composed to 115 clusters and 986 singletons, the overall redundancy of the library was 16.3%. From the BLAST search, of the 1,316 ESTs, 998 ESTs (75.8%) were identified as known genes, but 318 clones (24.2%) did not match to any previously described genes. From the comparison results of ESTs pattern of three SSH cDNA libraries, the most abundant EST was different in each SSH library: small heat shock protein p26 (sHSP26) in heat-shock, trypsinogen 2 in cold-shock, and actin in hyposalinity SSH cDNA library. Based on sequence similarities, several response-to-stress genes such as heat shock proteins (HSPs) were identified commonly from the abalone SSH libraries. HSP70 gene was induced by environmental stress regardless of temperature-shock or salinity-stress, while the increase of sHSP26 mRNA expression was not detected in cold-shock but in heat-shock condition. These results suggest that the suppression subtractive hybridization method is an efficient way to isolate differentially expressed gene from the invertebrate environmental stress-response transcriptome.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Sericultural Science Conference
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• 1997.06a
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• pp.23-49
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• 1997

This is a progress report of rice biotechnology including development of gene transformation system, gene cloning and molecular mapping in rice. The scope of the research was focused on the connection between conventional breeding and biotech-researches. Plant transformation via Agrobacterium or particle bombardment was developed to introduce one or several genes to recommended rice cultivars. Two chimeric genes containing a maize ribosome inactivating protein gene (RIP) and a gerbicide resistant gene (bar) were introduced to Nipponbare, a Japonica cultivar, and transmitted to Korean cultivars. The homozygous progenies of herbicide resistant transgenic plant showed good fertility and agronomic characters. To explore the genetic resourses in rice, over 8,000 cDNA clones from immature rice seed have been isolated and sequenced. About 13% of clones were identified as enzymes related to metabolic pathway. Among them, twenty clones have high homology with genes encoding enzymes in the photorespiratory carbon cycle reaction. Up to now about 100 clones were fully sequenced and registered at EMBL and GenBank. For the mapping of quantitative tarits loci (QTL) and eternal recombinant inbred population with 164 F13 lines (MGRI) was developed from a cross between Milyang 23 and Gihobyeo, Korean rice cultivars. After construction of fully saturated RFLP and AFLP map, quantitative traits using MGRI population were analyzed and integrated into the molecular map. Eighty seven loci were determined with 27 QTL characters including yield and yield components on rice chromosomes. Map based cloning was also tried to isolate semi-dwarf (sd-1) gene in rice. A DNA probe, RG 109, the most tightly linked to sd-1 gene was used to screen from bacterial artifical chromosome (BAC) libraries and five over lapping clones presumably containing sd-1 gene were isolated. Rice genetic database including results of biotech reasearch and classical genetics is provided at Korea Rice Genome Server which is accessible with world wide web (www) browser. The server provides rice cDNA sequences and map informations linked with phenotypic images.