• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.381-390
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• 2018

We have previously derived a novel antimicrobial peptide, LPcin-YK3(YK3), based on lactophoricin and have successfully studied and reported on the relationship between its structure and function. In this study, antimicrobial peptides with improved antimicrobial activity, less cytotoxicity, and shorter length were devised and characterized on the basis of YK3, and named YK5, YK8, and YK11. The peptide design was based on a variety of knowledge, and a total of nine analog peptides consisted of one to three amino acid substitutions and C-terminal deletions. In detail, tryptophan substitution improved the membrane perturbation, lysine substitution increased the net charge, and excessive amphipathicity decreased. The analog peptides were examined for structural characteristics through spectroscopic analytical techniques, and antimicrobial susceptibility tests were used to confirm their activity and safety. We expect that these studies will provide a platform for systematic engineering of new antibiotic peptides and generate libraries of various antibiotic peptides.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.15 no.spc1
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• pp.133-145
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• 2000

Symbiotic stars are known as binary systems with both cool and hot components with enshrounding nebulous gas. The cool component, M-type giant, is presumably loosing its mass into a hot white or main sequence companion star through the inner Lagrangian point. The lines emit from the ionized nebulous region around the hot star while the mass loss or accretion activity is believed to be the main cause of sudden variation of the continuum and line fluxes. We selected 17 symbiotics for which the emission line fluxes were measured from the IUE SWP, LWR data, to find variability of spectrum. We also investigated the periodic variation of emissions or eclipsing effect from the IUE lines. All of our symbiotics show very high electron densities in the emission regions. For other optical symbiotics, the observations had been carried in 1999 with BOAO mid-resolution spectrometer. We classified symbiotics based on their outburst activities, or emission line characteristics, i.e., $OVI{\lambda}6830.\;The\;OVI{\lambda}6830$ emission lines are also found in S-type symbiotics, which have been known as charateristics of D-types.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.50.3-51
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• 2016

Recent analysis on the thermophysical property of asteroids revealed that their thermal inertia decrease with their sizes at least for main belt asteroids. However, little is known about that of comet-like bodies. In this work we utilized a simple thermophysical model (TPM) to calculate the thermal inertia of a bare nucleus of the comet P/2006 HR30 (Siding Spring) and an asteroid in comet-like orbit 107P/(4015) Wilson-Harrington from AKARI observation data. From five spectroscopic observations of the targets, we find out that the former has thermal inertia of around $2,000J\;m^{-2}K^{-1}s^{-1/2}$ (using pV = 0.055) and the latter has about $1,000-2000J\;m^{-2}K^{-1}s^{-1/2}$ (using pV = 0.055 and 0.043, respectively). These are high enough for both of them to deposit water ice at few centimeters depth, and hence it is difficult to say they are cometary based on the results of this study. These values, however, dependent significantly on the errors of observation and the uncertainties of the input parameters, as well as other conditions which are ignored in simple TPM approach, such as shape model and surface roughness. Further detailed analyses on these cometary bodies will shed light on our understanding of the detailed surfacial characteristics of them.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2005

A pseudogap in the normal-state quasiparticle density of states of $high-T_c$ superconductors has been revealed in many different kinds of experiments. The existence of the pseudogap and the superconducting gap, and the correlation between them has attracted considerable attention because they are believed to be a key to understanding the mechanism of the $high-T_c$ superconductivity. The interlayer tunneling spectroscopy, excluding the surface-dependent effect, is one of the most accurate means to examine the electron spectral characteristics both in the superconducting and the normal states. In this study, a new constant-temperature intrinsic tunneling spectroscopic technique, excluding the overheating effect using the in-situ temperature monitoring combined with the digital proportional-integral-derivative control, is introduced. The implication on the $high-T_c$ superconductivity of the detailed temperature dependencies of the observed spectral weight in $Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+x}\;high-T_c$ material for overdoped and underdoped levels is discussed.

• BMB Reports
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.48-52
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• 1998

$p16^{INK4}$, which is a 16-kDa polypeptide protein, inhibits the catalytic activity of the CDK4-cyclinD complex to suppress rumor growth. Both unlabeled and isotope-labeled human tumor suppressor $p16^{INK4}$ protein were overexpressed and purified to characterize biochemical and structural properties. The purified p16 binds to monomeric GST-CDK4 and exists in a monomer conformation for several weeks at $4^{\circ}C$. The circular dichroism (CD) data indicates that p16 contains high percentage of ${\alpha}$-helix and that the helix percentage maximized at pH value of 7.0. One-and two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) data suggest that purified p16 from our construct has a unique folded conformation under our experimental conditions and exhibits quite stable conformational characteristics.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.709-715
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• 1999

A series of antifungal compounds were obtained from the methanol extract of the mycelium from marine actinomycetes M428 which was identified as a Stereptomyces species by fatty acid composition and biochemical characteristics. These compounds were purified by combined chromatographic techniques and the structures were characterized with spectroscopic methods including 1D and 2D NMR, and mass spectrometry as sn-l lysophosphatidyl inositols. The side chains were established by chemical degradation followed by GC analysis to be 14-methyl pentadecanoic acid (iso-palmitic acid, i-C16:0, compound A) and 13-methyl tetradecanoic acid (iso-pentadecanoic acid, i-C15:0, compound B). These compounds displayed highly selective antifungal activity against C. albicans with MIC values of $5{\;}\mu\textrm{g}/ml$ (compound A) and $2.5{\;}\mu\textrm{g}/ml$ (compound B), while it had almost negligible antibiotic activity against E. coli and P aerogenosa with MIC value higher than $50{\;}\mu\textrm{g}/ml$ and no cytotoxic activities against human myeloma leukemia K562 ($IC_{50}>100{\;}\mu\textrm{g}/ml$).

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.81-86
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• 2009

The luminescence and fluorescence were investigated by photoluminescence spectroscopy for six gemstones which exhibit color change effect. The shape of luminescence peaks appears different when observed by a photoluminescence spectroscopewith a 514 nm Ar laser source. However, it was not possible to observe the difference in the spectra between the natural and synthetic origins for the same type of gemstones. It was found that the photoluminescence spectrum was related to the crystal structure of the stones. Photoluminescence spectra using a 325 nm He-Cd source reveal that fluorescence is relatively strong for synthetic alexandrite, synthetic color change sapphire and natural alexandrite comparing to the rest of gemstones examined.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.432-438
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• 2006

Twelve actinomycete strains were isolated from Egyptian soil. The isolated actinomycete strains were then screened with regard to their potential to generate antibiotics. The most potent of the producer strains was selected and identified. The cultural and physiological characteristics of the strain identified. the strain as a member of the genus Streptomyces. The nucleotide sequence of the 16S rRNA gene (1.5kb) of the most potent strain evidenced a 99% similarity with Streptomyces spp. and S. aureofaciens 16S rRNA genes, and the isolated strain was ultimately identified as Streptomyces sp. MAR01. The extraction of the fermentation broth of this strain resulted in the isolation of one major compound, which was active in vitro against gram-positive, gram-negative representatives and Candida albicans. The chemical structure of this bioactive compound was elucidated based on the spectroscopic data obtained from the application of MS, IR, UV, $^1H$ NMR, $^{13}C$ NMR, and elemental analysis techniques. Via comparison to the reference data in the relevant literature and in the database search, this antibiotic, which had a molecular formula of $C_{19}H_{29}NO_2$ and a molecular weight of 303.44, was determined to differ from those produced by this genus as well as the available known antibiotics. Therefore, this antibiotic was designated Meroparamycin.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.323-330
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• 1995

Ceftezole pivaloyloxymethyl ester(CFZ-PV) was synthesized to improve oral absorption and bioavailability of parent drug by esterification of ceftezole(CFZ) with chloromethyl pivalate. The successful synthesis of CFZ-PV was conformed by spectroscopic analysis. Partition coefficient studies showed that CFZ-PV is more lipophillic than CFZ. The pharmacokinetic characteristics of CFZ-PV and CFZ were compared following oral administrations of these compounds to rabbits. The amount of CFZ in plasma was determined with an HPLC method. The ester compound (prodrug) was not detected in plasma following oral administration of CFZ-PV, and although CFZ-PV had not microbiological activity in vitro, the plasma taken after oral administration of CFZ-PV had microbiological activity. From above observations, it was noted that CFZ-PV is rapidly hydrolyzed to CFZ in the body. And the oral absorption of CFZ-PV was increased by yielding 2-fold bioavailability rather than CFZ. Therefore, CFZ-PV could be a novel prodrug of CFZ which can improve the oral bioavailability of CFZ.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.49.1-49.1
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• 2013

We have been carrying out near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as well as [Fe II] narrow band imaging observations of Cassiopeia A supernova remnant (SNR). In this presentation, we describe the spectral classification of the iron knots around the SNR. From eight long-slit spectroscopic observations for the iron-bright shell, we identified a total of 61 iron knots making use of a clump-finding algorithm, and performed principal component analysis in an attempt to spectrally classify the iron knots. Three major components have emerged from the analysis; (1) Iron-rich, (2) Helium-rich, and (3) Sulfur-rich groups. The Helium-rich knots have low radial velocities (${\mid}v_r{\mid}$ < 100 km/s) and radiate strong He I and [Fe II] lines, that match well with Quasi-Stationary Flocculi (QSFs) of circumstellar medium, while the Sulfur-rich knots show strong lines of oxygen burning materials with large radial velocity up to +2000 km/s, which imply that they are supernova ejecta (i.e. Fast-Moving Knots). The Iron-rich knots have intermediate characteristics; large velocity with QSF-like spectra. We suggest that the Iron-rich knots are missing "pure" iron materials ejected from the inner most region of the progenitor and now encountering the reverse shock.