• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.8 s.88
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• pp.1034-1038
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• 2007

Hypericin (HyH) is a substance which is isolated a medicinal herb, Hypericum perforatum L., commonly known as St. John's Wort. Hypericum erectum is a long-lived herb that is distributed in Korea. Cloned HyH genes H. erectum of were conformed by sequencing. The cDNA Hyp-1 sequence has 732 bp with an open reading frame of 567. Thus coding for a protein of 152 amino acid residues. A BLAST re-search using the deduced nucleotide sequences in HyH gene produced significant alignments with the H. perforatum. Sequences in HyH gene showed significant homology with Rubus idaeus putative allergen Rub-i-1 mRNA, Protein sequence comparisons revealed significant homology between Hyp-1 and the phenolic oxidative coupling protein hyp-1 of H. perforatum (98%). Additionally, Hyp-1 showed sig-nificant homology with various other classes of allergens, including Pru-av-1 (62%) from Prunus avium and allergen Bet-vl-Sc3 from Betula pendula (60%). Thus, the result of this study may offer an important information to establish an assay system for chemicals of the herbal medicines for H. erectum as well as H. perforatum.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.90-93
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• 2010

A-kinase-anchoring proteins (AKAPs) are scaffold proteins which compartmentalize protein kinase A (PKA, cAMP-dependent protein kinase) and other enzymes to specific subcellular sites. The spatiotemporal control of these enzymes by AKAPs is important for cellular function like cell growth and development etc. Hence, it is important to understand the basic function of AKAPs and their functional domains. However, diverse names, function, cellular localizations and many members of AKAPs increase difficulties when researchers search appropriate AKAPs for their experimental purpose. Nevertheless, there was no previous AKAPs-related database regardless of their important cellular functions and difficulty of finding appropriate AKAPs. So, we developed AKAPs database (AKAPDB), which contains their sequence information, functions and other information derived from prediction programs and other databases. Therefore, we propose that AKAPDB can be an important tool to researchers in the related fields. AKAPDB is available via the internet at http://plaza3.snu.ac.kr/akapdb/.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.26
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• pp.10.1-10.7
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• 2011

Objects: Chironomus riparius, a non-biting midge (Chironomidae, Diptera), is extensively used as a model organism in aquatic ecotoxicological studies, and considering the potential of C. riparius larvae as a bio-monitoring species, little is known about its genome sequences. This study reports the results of an Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) sequencing project conducted on C. riparius larvae using 454 pyrosequencing. Method: To gain a better understanding of C. riparius transcriptome, we generated ESTs database of C.ripairus using pyrosequencing method. Results: Sequencing runs, using normalized cDNA collections from fourth instar larvae, yielded 20,020 expressed sequence tags, which were assembled into 8,565 contigs and 11,455 singletons. Sequence analysis was performed by BlastX search against the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) nucleotide (nr) and uniprot protein database. Based on the gene ontology classifications, 24% (E-value${\leq}1^{-5}$) of the sequences had known gene functions, 24% had unknown functions and 52% of sequences did not match any known sequences in the existing database. Sequence comparison revealed 81% of the genes have homologous genes among other insects belonging to the order Diptera providing tools for comparative genome analyses. Targeted searches using these annotations identified genes associated with essential metabolic pathways, signaling pathways, detoxification of toxic metabolites and stress response genes of ecotoxicological interest. Conclusions: The results obtained from this study would eventually make ecotoxicogenomics possible in a truly environmentally relevant species, such as, C. riparius.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.620-627
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• 2004

On the foundation of a database of genome sequences and protein analyses, the ability to clone a gene based on a peptide analysis is becoming more feasible and effective for identifying a specific gene and its protein product of interest. As such, the current study conducted a protein analysis using 2-D PAGE followed by MALDI- TOF and ESI-MS to identify a highly expressed gene product of C. parasitica. A distinctive and highly expressed protein spot with a molecular size of 47.2 kDa was randomly selected and MALDI-TOF MS analysis was conducted. A homology search indicated that the protein appeared to be a fungal enolase (enol). Meanwhile, multiple alignments of fungal enolases revealed a conserved amino acid sequence, from which degenerated primers were designed. A screening of the genomic $\lambda$ library of C. parasitica, using the PCR amplicon as a probe, was conducted to obtain the full-length gene, while RT-PCR was performed for the cDNA. The E. coli-expressed eno 1 exhibited enolase enzymatic activity, indicating that the cloned gene encoded the C. parasitica enolase. Moreover, ESI-MS of two of the separated peptides resolved from the protein spot on 2-D PAGE revealed sequences identical to the deduced sequences, suggesting that the cloned gene indeed encoded the resolved protein spot. Northern blot analysis indicated a consistent accumulation of an eno1 transcript during the cultivation.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.43.1-43.13
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• 2020

The coronavirus disease 2019 is a contagious disease and had caused havoc throughout the world by creating widespread mortality and morbidity. The unavailability of vaccines and proper antiviral drugs encourages the researchers to identify potential antiviral drugs to be used against the virus. The presence of RNA binding domain in the nucleocapsid (N) protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) could be a potential drug target, which serves multiple critical functions during the viral life cycle, especially the viral replication. Since vaccine development might take some time, the identification of a drug compound targeting viral replication might offer a solution for treatment. The study analyzed the phylogenetic relationship of N protein sequence divergence with other 49 coronavirus species and also identified the conserved regions according to protein families through conserved domain search. Good structural binding affinities of a few natural and/or synthetic phytocompounds or drugs against N protein were determined using the molecular docking approaches. The analyzed compounds presented the higher numbers of hydrogen bonds of selected chemicals supporting the drug-ability of these compounds. Among them, the established antiviral drug glycyrrhizic acid and the phytochemical theaflavin can be considered as possible drug compounds against target N protein of SARS-CoV-2 as they showed lower binding affinities. The findings of this study might lead to the development of a drug for the SARS-CoV-2 mediated disease and offer solution to treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.85-90
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• 2007

The chicken liver has been involved in various biological functions including detoxification, glycogen storage and plasma protein synthesis. The aim of this study was to investigate differentially expressed genes in chicken liver in four different growing stages. Using 10 arbitrary Annealing Control Primers (ACPs), five differentially expressed genes have been identified. Based on the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) search results, three of them were matched with previously known genes, and the other two were matched with unknown EST sequence and a hypothetical protein, respectively. In order to confirm the expression results, quantitative real-time PCR was also performed. The high similarities between the expression data using arbitrary ACPs and quantitative real-time PCR indicate that the identified genes are the real differentially expressed genes in different growing stages. The genes identified in this study can be used as valuable biomarkers in chicken with further investigation of the functions.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2001

Background: Hepatitis C virus(HCV), a family of Flaviviridae, has a host cell-derived envelope containing a positive-stranded RNA genome, and has been known as the maj or etiological agent for chronic hepatitis, hepatic cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. There remains a need to dissect a molecular mechanism of pathogenesis for the development of therapeutic and effective preventive measure for HCV. Identification of cellular receptor is of central importance not only to understand the viral pathogenesis, but also to exploit strategies for prevention of HCV. This study was aimed at identifying peptide mimotopes inhibiting the binding of E2 protein of HCV to MOLT-4 cell. Methods: In this study, phage peptide library displaying a random peptides consisting of 7 or 12 random peptides was employed in order to pan against E2 protein. Free HCV particles were separated from the immune complex forms by immunoprecipitation using anti-human IgG antibody, and used for HCV-capture ELISA. To identify the peptides inhibiting E2-binding to MOLT-4 cells, E2 protein was subj ect to bind to MOLT-4 cells under the competition with phage peptides. Results: Several phage peptides were selected for their specific binding to E2 protein, which showed the conserved sequence of SHFWRAP from 3 different peptide sequences. They were also able to recognize the HCV particles in the sera of HCV patients captured by monoclonal antibody against E2 protein. Two of them, showing peptide sequence of HLGPWMSHWFQR and WAPPLERSSLFY respectively, were revealed to inhibit the binding of E2 protein to MOLT-4 cell efficiently in dose dependent mode. However, few membrane-associated receptor candidates were seen using Fasta3 programe for homology search with these peptides. Conclusion: Phage peptides containing HLGPWMSHWFQR and WAPPLERSSLFY respectively, showed the inhibition of E2-binding to MOLT-4 cells. However, they did not reveal any homologues to cellular receptors from GenBank database. In further study, cellular receptor could be identified through the screening of cDNA library from MOLT-4 or hepatocytes using antibodies against these peptide mimotopes.

• Bioinformatics and Biosystems
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.109-114
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• 2006

In proteomics research, proteins are digested into peptides by an enzyme and in mass spectrometer, these peptides break into fragment ions to generate tandem mass spectra. The tandem mass spectral data obtained from the mass spectrometer consists of the molecular weights of the precursor ion and fragment ions. The precursor ion mass of tandem mass spectrum is the first value that is fetched to sort the candidate peptides in the database search. We look far the peptide sequences whose molecular weight matches with precursor ion mass of the mass spectrum. Then, we choose one peptide sequence that shows the best match with fragment ions information. The precursor ion mass of the tandem mass spectrum is compared with that of the digested peptides of protein database within the mass tolerance that is assigned by users according to the mass spectrometer accuracy. In this study, we used reversed sequence database method to analyze the molecular weight distribution of precursor ions of the tandem mass spectra obtained by the FT LTQ mass spectrometer for human plasma sample. By reinterpreting the precursor ion mass distribution, we could compute the experimental accuracy and we suggested a method to improve the protein identification performance.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.301-307
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• 2012

Olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus is one of the most widely cultured fish species in Korea. Although olive flounder receive attention from aquaculture and fisheries and extensive research has been conducted eye morphological change in metamorphosis, but little information was known to molecular mechanism and gene expression of eye development- related genes during the early part of eye formation period. For the reason of eyesight is the most important sense in flounder larvae to search prey, the screening and identification of expressed genes in the eye will provide useful insight into the molecular regulation mechanism of eye development in olive flounder. Through the search of an olive flounder DNA database of expressed sequence tags (EST), we found a partial sequence that was similar to crystallin beta A1 and gamma S. Microscopic observation of retinal formation correspond with the time of expression of the crystallin beta A1 and gamma S gene in the developmental stage, these result suggesting that beta A1 and gamma S play a vital role in the remodeling of the retina during eye development. The expression of crystallin beta A1 and gamma S were obviously strong in eye at all tested developing stage, it is also hypothesized that crystallin acts as a molecular chaperone to prevent protein aggregation during maturation and aging in the eye.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.631-633
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• 2005

For biohydrogen production, hydrogenase is a key enzyme. In the present work we performed search of [NiFe]-hydrogenases from hydrogen producing microorganisms using degenerate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) strategy. Degenerate primers were designed from the conserved region of [NiFe]-hydrogenase group I especially on structural genes encoding for catalytic subunit of [NiFe]-hydrogenase from bacteria producing hydrogen. Most of [NiFe]-hydrogenase (group I) are expressed via complex mechanism with aid of auxiliary protein and localized through twin-arginine translocation pathway. [NiFe]-hydrogenase is composed of large and small subunits for catalytic activity. It is known that only small subunit has signal peptide for periplasmic localization and large & small subunitscome together before localization. During this process, large subunit is treated by endopeptidase for maturation. Based on these information we used signal peptide sequence and C-terminal of large subunit by recognized by endopeptidase as templates for degenerate primers. About 2,900 bp of PCR products were successfully amplified using the designed degenerate primers from genomic DNAs of several microorganisms. The amplified PCR products were inserted into T-vector and then sequenced to confirm.