• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.449-454
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• 2007

An electrohydraulic (EH) pump-driven closed-loop blood pressure regulatory system was developed based on flow-mediated vascular occlusion using the vascular occlusive cuff technique. It is very useful for investigating blood pressure-dependant physiological variability, in particular, that could identify the principal mediators of renal autoregulation, such as tubuloglomerular feedback (TGF) and myogenic (MYO), during blood pressure regulation. To address this issue, renal perfusion pressure (RPP) should be well regulated under various experimental conditions. In this paper, we designed a new EH pump-driven RPP regulatory system capable of implementing precise and rapid RPP regulation. A closed-loop servo-controlwas developed with an optimal proportional plus integral (PI) compensation using the dynamic feedback RPP signal from animals. An in vivo performance was evaluated in terms of flow-mediated RPP occlusion, maintenance, and release responses. Step change to 80 mmHg reference from normal RPP revealed steady state error of ${\pm}3%$ during the RPP regulatory period after PI action. We obtained rapid RPP release time of approximately 300 ms. It is concluded that the proposed EH RPP regulatory system could be utilized in in vivo performance to study various pressure-flow relationships in diverse fields of physiology, and in particular, in renal autoregulation mechanisms.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2015

After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) accident, new regulatory requirements were enforced in July 2013 and a backfit was required for all existing nuclear power plants. It is required to take measures to prevent severe accidents and mitigate their radiological consequences. The Regulatory Standard and Research Department, Secretariat of Nuclear Regulation Authority (S/NRA/R) has been conducting numerical studies and experimental studies on relevant severe accident phenomena and countermeasures. This article highlights fission product (FP) release and hydrogen risk as two major areas. Relevant activities in the S/NRA/R are briefly introduced, as follows: 1. For FP release: Identifying the source terms and leak mechanisms is a key issue from the viewpoint of understanding the progression of accident phenomena and planning effective countermeasures that take into account vulnerabilities of containment under severe accident conditions. To resolve these issues, the activities focus on wet well venting, pool scrubbing, iodine chemistry (in-vessel and ex-vessel), containment failure mode, and treatment of radioactive liquid effluent. 2. For hydrogen risk: because of three incidents of hydrogen explosion in reactor buildings, a comprehensive reinforcement of the hydrogen risk management has been a high priority topic. Therefore, the activities in evaluation methods focus on hydrogen generation, hydrogen distribution, and hydrogen combustion.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.1628-1633
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• 2001

A goat ${\beta}$-casein gene was cloned and sequenced. Our previous study had determined the nucleotide sequences of the 5' flanking region and the structural gene including all 9 exons. In the present study, investigations were done on the regulatory sequences in the 5' flanking region of the goat ${\beta}$-casein gene by aligning and comparing it with the same gene from other mammals. The results showed that -200/-1 bp of the 5' flanking sequences contained six conserved clusters, in which the sites of gene expression regulated by the transcription factor and hormone might exist. It showed that fourteen glucocorticoid receptor elements, two cAMP responsive elements, two SV40 virus enhancer core sequences, two OCT-1 binding elements and one CTF/NF-1 binding element were dispersed in the 5' flanking region of goat ${\beta}$-casein gene. Our findings are perhaps valuable for the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms that control the expression of the goat ${\beta}$-casein gene.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 1998

Human cytochrome P450 4F2 shows high regioselectivity in hydroxylation of stearic acid and leukotriene $ B_4.$ As a first step of its regulation study, human cytochrome P450 4F2 genomic DNA was isolated from liver of a person who was administered clofibrate for 10 years. From Southern hybridization, restriction enzyme digestion and sequencing experiments, isolated genomic DNA fragment was found to contain around 32 Kb DNA and more than 20 Kb of $5^I$ end regulatory region. Sequences of the structural gene region revealed exon 1 and exon 2. Further regulation studies would elucidate the feedback mechanisms of the oxidative degradation of fatty acids, inflammatory response and the clearance of leukotriene B4 in the liver. Furthermore, regulation study of this gene could explain the species difference in responses to peroxisome proliferator and help in the safety evaluation of peroxisome proliferating chemicals to human being.

• BMB Reports
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.106-118
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• 2018

How the organ size is adjusted to the proper size during development and how organs know that they reach the original size during regeneration remain long-standing questions. Based on studies using multiple model organisms and approaches for over 20 years, a consensus has been established that the Hippo pathway plays crucial roles in controlling organ size and maintaining tissue homeostasis. Given the significance of these processes, the dysregulation of the Hippo pathway has also implicated various diseases, such as tissue degeneration and cancer. By regulating the downstream transcriptional coactivators YAP and TAZ, the Hippo pathway coordinates cell proliferation and apoptosis in response to a variety of signals including cell contact inhibition, polarity, mechanical sensation and soluble factors. Since the core components and their functions of the Hippo pathway are evolutionarily conserved, this pathway serves as a global regulator of organ size control. Therefore, further investigation of the regulatory mechanisms will provide physiological insights to better understand tissue homeostasis. In this review, the historical developments and current understandings of the regulatory mechanism of Hippo signaling pathway are discussed.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.478-484
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• 2021

Cellular resources including transcriptional and translational machineries in bacteria are limited, yet microorganisms depend upon them to maximize cellular fitness. Bacteria have evolved strategies for using resources economically. Regulatory networks for the gene expression system enable the cell to synthesize proteins only when necessary. At the same time, regulatory interactions enable the cell to limit losses when the system cannot make a cellular profit due to fake substrates. Also, the architecture of the gene expression flow can be advantageous for clustering functionally related products, thus resulting in effective interactions among molecules. In addition, cellular systems modulate the investment of proteomes, depending upon nutrient qualities, and fast-growing cells spend more resources on the synthesis of ribosomes, whereas nonribosomal proteins are synthesized in nutrient-limited conditions. A deeper understanding of cellular mechanisms underlying the optimal allocation of cellular resources can be used for biotechnological purposes, such as designing complex genetic circuits and constructing microbial cell factories.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.145-152
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• 2012

Chromatin structure and dynamics that are influenced by epigenetic marks, such as histone modification and DNA methylation, play a crucial role in modulating gene transcription. To understand the relationship between histone modifications and regulatory elements in breast cancer cells, we compared our chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-Seq) histone modification patterns for histone H3K4me1, H3K4me3, H3K9/16ac, and H3K27me3 in MCF-7 cells with publicly available formaldehyde-assisted isolation of regulatory elements (FAIRE)-chip signals in human chromosomes 8, 11, and 12, identified by a method called FAIRE. Active regulatory elements defined by FAIRE were highly associated with active histone modifications, like H3K4me3 and H3K9/16ac, especially near transcription start sites. The H3K9/16ac-enriched genes that overlapped with FAIRE signals (FAIRE-H3K9/14ac) were moderately correlated with gene expression levels. We also identified functional sequence motifs at H3K4me1-enriched FAIRE sites upstream of putative promoters, suggesting that regulatory elements could be associated with H3K4me1 to be regarded as distal regulatory elements. Our results might provide an insight into epigenetic regulatory mechanisms explaining the association of histone modifications with open chromatin structure in breast cancer cells.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.288-288
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• 2018

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.8.1-8.6
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• 2011

Background: Thanks to the development of the mathematical/statistical reverse engineering and the high-throughput measuring biotechnology, lots of biologically meaningful genegene interaction networks have been revealed. Steady-state analysis of these systems provides an important clue to understand and to predict the systematic behaviours of the biological system. However, modeling such a complex and large-scale system is one of the challenging difficulties in systems biology. Results: We introduce a new stochastic modeling approach that can describe gene regulatory mechanisms by dividing two (DNA and protein) layers. Simple queuing system is employed to explain the DNA layer and the protein layer is modeled using G-networks which enable us to account for the post-translational protein interactions. Our method is applied to a transcription repression system and an active protein degradation system. The steady-state results suggest that the active protein degradation system is more sensitive but the transcription repression system might be more reliable than the transcription repression system. Conclusions: Our two layer stochastic model successfully describes the long-run behaviour of gene regulatory networks which consist of various mRNA/protein processes. The analytic solution of the G-networks enables us to extend our model to a large-scale system. A more reliable modeling approach could be achieved by cooperating with a real experimental study in synthetic biology.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.27-30
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• 2002

Ralstonia eutrupha JMP134 is a well-known soil bacterium which can metabolite diverse aromatic compounds and xenobiotics, such as phenol, 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2, 4-D), and trichloroethylene (TCE), etc. Phenol is degraded through chromosomally encoded phenol degradation pathway. Phenol is first metabolized into catechol by a multicomponent phenol hydroxylase, which is further metabolized to TCA cycle intermediates via a meta-cleavage pathway. The nucleotide sequences of the genes for the phenol hydroxylase have previously been determined, and found to composed of eight genes phlKLMNOPRX in an operon structure. The phlR, whose gene product is a NtrC-like transcriptional activator, was found to be located at the internal region of the structural genes, which is not the case in most bacteria where the regulatory genes lie near the structural genes. In addition to this regulatory gene, we found other regulatory genes, the phlA and phlR2, downstream of the phlX. These genes were found to be overlapped and hence likely to be co-transcribed. The protein similarity analysis has revealed that the PhlA belongs to the GntR family, which are known to be negative regulators, whereas the PhlR2 shares high homology with the NtrC-type family of transcriptional activators like the PhlR. Disruption of the phlA by insertional mutation has led to the constitutive expression of the activity of phenol hydroxylase in JMP134, indicating that PhlA is a negative regulator. Possible regulatory mechanisms of phenol metabolism in R. eutropha JMP134 has been discussed.