• Entomological Research
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• 제48권6호
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• pp.533-539
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• 2018

The RNA interference (RNAi) has been considered as an important genetic tool and applied to develop a new living modified (LM) crop trait which is an improvement of nutrient quality or pest management. The RNAi of DvSnf7 has been used for resistance to LM maize and the Western Corn Rootworm which is a major agricultural pest for the US Corn Belt. Most of the environmental risk assessments (ERA) of double strand RNA (dsRNA) have been performed using in vitro transcript products, and not in vivo expressed product. A large amount of dsRNA was required for the acute toxicity assay of water fleas. Therefore development of massive dsRNA purification techniques is critical. Daphnia, a freshwater microcrustacean, is a model organism for studying cellular and molecular mechanism involved in life history traits and ecotoxicology. In this study, we established the massive dsRNA purification method using Escherichia coli and implemented acute toxicity assays to Daphnia magna. As a result, the present RNase A and DNase I, dsRNA was efficiently purified without any special techniques or equipment. Even though purified dsRNA existed during the acute toxicity test, lethality or abnormal behavior were not observed in D. magna. These results indicated that GFP and DvSnf7 dsRNA were not significantly affected to D. magna due to their lack of sequence matching in its genome. The purification method of dsRNA and the acute toxicity assay of water fleas using purified dsRNA would be suitable for the toxicological studies of LMOs to aquatic non-target organisms.

• BMB Reports
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• 제29권4호
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• pp.353-358
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• 1996

Bovine angiogenin (bAng) is a potent blood vessel inducing protein purified from cow In ilk. fluorescence spectroscopy has been used to study the interaction of bAng with actin in 50 mM Tris-HCl pH 7.5, and 1 mM $CaCl_2$ at $25^{\circ}C$. Actin contains four tryptophans but bAng contains no tryptophans. A 50% decrease in intrinsic fluorescence accompanied formation of the bAng/actin complex. By contrast, the interaction of RNase A, a homologous protein to bAng, with actin results in about 10% quenching of the fluorescence. Fluorescence titration experiments were performed by adding increasing concentrations of bAng (0~1.0 ${\mu}M$) to a constant concentration of actin (0.1 ${\mu}M$), and the dissociation constant $K_d$ for the bAng/actin complex and the stoichiometry n were measured as $20{\pm}1$ nM and $1.0{\pm}0.1$ respectively. These results suggest that the interaction between bAng with actin is specific and that quenching of actin fluorescence has occurred in the bAng/actin complex. The bAng binding sites of actin are discussed in the results of this study, and we propose that Trp-80 in the small domain of bovine actin is responsible for the bAng/actin binding.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• 제46권5호
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• pp.841-848
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• 2004

살균된 우유에 오염된 Salmonella의 신속한 검출 방법을 공중 보건의 보호를 위하여 중요하다. RT-PCR 방법은 생균과 사균을 분별하여 검출할 수 있는 분자유전학적 방법이다. 본 연구의 RT-PCR 방법은 Salmonella의 type 1 fImbriae의 단량체 단백질을 암호화하는 fimA 유전자의 mRNA를 주형으로 하여 DNA를 증폭하는 방법으로서 활력이 있는 Salmonella를 검출할수 있기 위하여 개발되었다. RNA 시료를 RQRNase-free DNase로 처리하여 오염된 DNA를 파괴하여 RT-PCR 반응에서 주형으로서 DNA가 합성되는 것을 방지할 수 있었다. 이 RT-PCR 방법은 Salmonella 7균주를 검출하였으나 Escherichia coli, Shigella sonnei, Citrobacter freundii, 및 Klebsiella pneumoniae 는 검출하지 않았다. 우유 내에서 열처리된 $10^7/ml과 10^6/ml$ 세균수의 Salmonella는 검출되 었으나 $10^5{\sim}100/ml$는 검출되지 않았다. RT-PCR를 검출할 수 있는 활력이 있는 Salmonella의 최소 세균수는 100/ml이었다.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• 제7권1호
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• pp.1-5
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• 2002

A fusion protein, consisting of a human epidermal growth factor (hEGF) as the recognition domain and human angiogenin as the toxin domain, can be used as a targeted therapeutic against breast cancer cells among others. The fusion protein was expressed as inclusion body in recombinant E. coli, and when the conventional, solution-phase refolding process was used the refolding yield was very low due to severe aggregation. It was probably because of the opposite electric charge at a neutral pH resulting from the vastly different pI values of each domain. The solid-phase refolding process that exploited the ionic interactions between ionic exchanger surface and the fusion protein was tried, but the adsorption yield was also very low, below $ 30\%$, regardless of the resins and pH conditions used. Therefore, to provide a higher ionic affinity toward the solid matrix, six lysine residues were tagged to the N-terminus of the hEGF domain. When heparin-Sepharose was used as the matrix, the adsorption capacity increased 2.5-3 times to about $88\%$. Besides the intrinsic affinity of angiogenin to heparin, the poly-lysine tag provided additional ionic affinity. And the subsequent refolding yield increased nearly 13-fold, from ca. $4.8\%$ in the conventional refolding of the untagged fusion protein to $63.6\%$. The process was highly reproducible. The refolded protein in the column eluate retained RNase bioactivity of angiogenin.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제44권8호
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• pp.602-612
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• 2021

DNA methylation is an important epigenetic mechanism affecting genome structure, gene regulation, and the silencing of transposable elements. Cell- and tissue-specific methylation patterns are critical for differentiation and development in eukaryotes. Dynamic spatiotemporal methylation data in these cells or tissues is, therefore, of great interest. However, the construction of bisulfite sequencing libraries can be challenging if the starting material is limited or the genome size is small, such as in Arabidopsis. Here, we describe detailed methods for the purification of Arabidopsis embryos at all stages, and the construction of comprehensive bisulfite libraries from small quantities of input. We constructed bisulfite libraries by releasing embryos from intact seeds, using a different approach for each developmental stage, and manually picking single-embryo with microcapillaries. From these libraries, reliable Arabidopsis methylome data were collected allowing, on average, 11-fold coverage of the genome using as few as five globular, heart, and torpedo embryos as raw input material without the need for DNA purification step. On the other hand, purified DNA from as few as eight bending torpedo embryos or a single mature embryo is sufficient for library construction when RNase A is treated before DNA extraction. This method can be broadly applied to cells from different tissues or cells from other model organisms. Methylome construction can be achieved using a minimal amount of input material using our method; thereby, it has the potential to increase our understanding of dynamic spatiotemporal methylation patterns in model organisms.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.386-392
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• 2015

A novel recombinant bacmid, bEasyBm, that enables the easy and fast generation of pure recombinant baculovirus without any purification step was constructed. In bEasyBm, attR recombination sites were introduced to facilitate the generation of a recombinant viral genome by in vitro transposition. Moreover, the extracellular RNase gene from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, barnase, was expressed under the control of the Cotesia plutellae bracovirus early promoter to negatively select against the nonrecombinant background. The bEasyBm bacmid could only replicate in host insect cells when the barnase gene was replaced with the gene of interest by in vitro transposition. When bEasyBm was transposed with pDualBac-EGFP, the resulting recombinant virus, EasyBm-EGFP, showed high levels of EGFP expression efficiency compared with that of non-purified recombinant virus BmGOZA-EGFP, which was constructed using the bBmGOZA system. In addition, nonrecombinant backgrounds were not detected in unpurified EasyBm-EGFP stocks. Based on these results, a high-throughput system for the generation of multiple recombinant viruses at a time was established.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권1호
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• pp.315-321
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• 2016

Background: Herbal medicine has becoming a potential source of treatment for different types of cancer including breast cancer. It has been shown that plants from the family Rhamnaceae possess anticancer activity. Objective: In this study, we determined the antiproliferative influence of Ziziphus spina christi- a species from this family- on the MCF-7 (human breast adenocarcinoma) cell line. Materials and Methods: The cytotoxicity of the total extract, ethanol, ethanol-aqueous (1:1) as well as aqueous fractions of Ziziphus spina christi leaves was evaluated through MTT assay against MCF-7 cell line. Cell cycle inhibition and apoptosis induction were assessed by flowcytometry cycle RNase/PI analysis and Annexin V-FLUOS, respectively. Apoptosis was also analyzed by immunoblotting assay. Results: Our results indicated that the ethanolic fraction had the lowest $IC_{50}$ value (0.02 mg/ml), induced cell cycle arrest at the G1/S phase as well as apoptosis after a 48h of treatment. Conclusions: This is the first report on anticancer effect of Ziziphus spina christi ethanolic fraction on breast cancer cells, providing a scientific basis for its utility in traditional medicine. However, further in-depth studies are needed to confirm the precise mechanisms.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• 제11권1호
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• pp.9-13
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• 2007

Antioxidant properties have been proposed as a mechanism for the putative anti-inflammatory effects of phenolic compounds. To reveal the relationship between antioxidant activity and anti-inflammatory effects of various antioxidants, we measured 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picryhydrazyl(DPPH)-reducing activity and examined the inhibitory effects on LPS-induced inflammation-related gene expression in the BV2 microglial cell line. Lipopolysaccharide(LPS)(0.2 ${\mu}g/ml$) was used with or without antioxidants to treat cells, and the regulation of iNOS and cytokine gene expression was monitored using an RNase protection assay(RPA). Although, all tested antioxidants had similar DPPH-reducing activity and inhibited nitrite production, but the curcuminoid antioxidants(ferulic acid, caffeic acid, and curcumin) inhibited LPS-induced gene expression(iNOS, $TNF-\alpha,\;IL-1{\beta}$, IL-6, and IL-1 Ra) in a concentration-dependent manner. Other tested antioxidants did not exhibit the same effects; N-acetylcysteine(NAC) only began to suppress $IL-1{\beta}$ gene expression just below the concentration at which cytotoxicity occurred. Moreover, the antioxidant potency of curcuminoids appeared to have no correlation with anti-inflammatory potency. Only curcumin could inhibit LPS-induced microglial activation at a micromolar level. These data suggest that curcumin may be a safe antioxidant possessing anti-inflammatory activity.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제27권5호
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• pp.699-704
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• 2006

Escherichia coli RNase P is a ribonucleoprotein composed of M1 RNA and C5 protein. Previously, analysis of RNA aptamers selected for C5 protein from a synthetic RNA library showed that C5 protein could bind various RNA molecules as an RNA binding protein. In this study, we searched cellular RNA motifs that could be recognized by C5 protein by a genomic SELEX approach. We found various C5 protein-binding RNA motifs derived from E. coli genomic sequences. Our results suggest that C5 protein interacts with various cellular RNA species in addition to M1 RNA.

• 대한본초학회지
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• 제21권2호
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• pp.9-13
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• 2006

Objectives : To determine the DNA sequence of the 18S rRNA gene of the Rehmannia glutinosa and analyze it phylogenetically Methods : Dried root of the Rehmannia glutinosa was ground with a mortar and pestle. Glass beads(0.5 mm in diameter), TE buffer and SDS solution were added to that. The mixture was vortexed vigorously and extracted with the mixture of phenol, chloroform and isoamyl alcohol and with the mixture of the chloroform and isoamyl alcohol. The nucleic acids were precipitated with ethanol and resuspended in TE buffer. Contaminating RNA was digested with RNAse A and the DNA was purified further with the Geneclean Turbo Kit. This DNA was used as a template for amplification of the 18S rRNA gene by PCR. The PCR product was cloned in the pBluescript SK II plasmid by blunt-end ligation and the DNA sequence of the insert was determined. This DNA sequence was analyzed phylogenetically by the BLAST program. Results and Conclusion : Vortexing the ground powder of the dried plant root with glass beads during cell lysis improved recovery of DNA. The DNA sequence of the Rehmannia glutinosa 18S rRNA gene was determined and deposited at the GenBank as the accession number DQ469606. Phylogenetic analysis of that sequence showed the relationship between the members of the family of Scrophulariaceae and also the close relationship of the Buddleja davidii to the members of the Scrophulariaceae family.