• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.11-15
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• 2008

The expression of neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) is regulated by various spliced first exons (exon 1a-1i), sharing differentially common exon 2 in diverse human tissues. The highly complex structure and regulation of human nNOS gene gave limitations of information for the precise mechanism of nNOS regulation. In the present study, we report that the repeats of polymorphic dinucleotides $(GT)^nA(TG)^n$ repeats located in just upstream to the exon 1f in human nNOS gene play suppressive role in transcription, as shown in the characteristics of Z-DNA motif in other genes. In neuronal and trophoblast cells transfected transiently with luciferase construct without dinucleotide repeats at the 5'-flanking region of exon 1f in nNOS gene, the luciferase activity was increased markedly. However, the presence of the dinucleotide repeats dramatically suppressed the luciferase activity to the basal level, and which was dependent on the length of $(GT)^n$ and $(TG)^n$ repeats. More importantly, we found the polymorphisms in the length of dinucleotide repeats in human. Furthermore, we show for the first time here that there is a significant association of the lengths of polymorphic dinucleotide $(GT)^n$ and $(TG)^n$ repeats with the risk of schizophrenia.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.200-205
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• 2010

We report temperature and strain sensing characteristics of two kinds of in-line fiber interferometers. One interferometer consists of a section of Hollow Optical Fiber(HOF) spliced between two Photonic Bandgap Fibers(PBGF) and the other is built by splicing a section of HOF between two Large Mode Area-Photonic Crystal Fibers(LMA-PCF). To minimize the splice losses, we carefully optimized the heating time and arc current of the splicer so as not to collapse the air holes of the fiber. It is found that the first interferometer has a temperature sensitivity of 15.4 pm/$^{\circ}C$ and a strain sensitivity of 0.24 pm/${\mu}\varepsilon$. The other interferometer exhibits a temperature sensitivity of 17.4 pm/$^{\circ}C$ and a strain sensitivity of 0.2 pm/${\mu}\varepsilon$.

• BMB Reports
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.413-417
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• 1998

Transgenic mice containing a bovine ${\beta}-Casein/Human$ lysozyme fusion gene (pBZ) were generated in order to produce human lysozyme in their milk. The expression vector was a quadripartite fusion consisting of a 2 kb upstream DNA of the bovine ${\beta}-casein$ gene, human lysozyme gene, intron II of the rabbit ${\beta}-globin$ gene, and the polyadenylation/termination signals of SV40 DNA. Fertilized mouse zygotes were microinjected with pBZ, then transferred into the oviduct of foster mothers. Out of 20 mice born, 11 survived until postweaning and three were identified as positivetransgenic by Southern blot analysis (one male and two females). The founder mice were mated to BCFl mice to produce transgenic progeny. It was confirmed by RT-PCR and Northern blot analyses that the transgene was specifically expressed in the mammary gland of the founder mice. Furthermore, the artificial introns within the transgenic RNA was proven to be correctly spliced out as judged by RT-PCR analysis. These results indicated that transgenic mice generated in this study properly expressed the human lysozyme RNA in their mammary gland.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.60 no.10
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• pp.25.1-25.10
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• 2018

The central dogma of gene expression propounds that DNA is transcribed to mRNA and finally gets translated into protein. Only 2-3% of the genomic DNA is transcribed to protein-coding mRNA. Interestingly, only a further minuscule part of genomic DNA encodes for long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) which are characteristically more than 200 nucleotides long and can be transcribed from both protein-coding (e.g. H19 and TUG1) as well as non-coding DNA by RNA polymerase II. The lncRNAs do not have open reading frames (with some exceptions), 3`-untranslated regions (3'-UTRs) and necessarily these RNAs lack any translation-termination regions, however, these can be spliced, capped and polyadenylated as mRNA molecules. The flexibility of lncRNAs confers them specific 3D-conformations that eventually enable the lncRNAs to interact with proteins, DNA or other RNA molecules via base pairing or by forming networks. The lncRNAs play a major role in gene regulation, cell differentiation, cancer cell invasion and metastasis and chromatin remodeling. Deregulation of lncRNA is also responsible for numerous diseases in mammals. Various studies have revealed their significance as biomarkers for prognosis and diagnosis of cancer. The aim of this review is to overview the salient features, evolution, biogenesis and biological importance of these molecules in the mammalian system.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.131-149
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• 2013

Various types of reinforcement splicing methods have been developed and implemented in reinforced concrete construction projects for achieving the continuity of reinforcements. Due to the complicated reinforcement arrangements and the difficulties in securing bar spacing, the traditional lap splicing method, which has been widely used in reinforced concrete constructions, often shows low constructability and difficulties in quality control. Also, lap spliced regions are likely to be over-reinforced, which may not be desirable in seismic design. On the other hand, mechanical splicing methods can offer simple and clear arrangements of reinforcement. In order to utilize the couplers for the ribbed-deformed bars, however, additional screw processing at the ends of reinforcing bars is typically required, which often lead to performance degradations of reinforced concrete members due to the lack of workmanship in screw processing or in adjusting the length of reinforcing bars. On the contrary, the use of screw-ribbed reinforcements can easily solve these issues on the mechanical splicing methods, because it does not require the screw process on the bar. In this study, the mechanical coupler suitable for the screw-ribbed reinforcements has been developed, in which any gap between the reinforcements and sleeve device can be removed by grouting high-flow inorganic mortar. This study presents the uniaxial tension tests on the screw-ribbed reinforcement with the mechanical sleeve devices and the cyclic loading tests on RC columns with the developed coupler. The test results show that the mechanical sleeve connection developed in this study has an excellent splicing performance, and that it is applicable to reinforced concrete columns with a proper confinement by hoop reinforcement.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.102-110
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• 2010

Alternative splicing is an important process in gene expression. Alternative Splicing can lead to mutations and diseases. Most studies detect alternatively spliced genes with ESTs (Expressed Sequence Tags). However, reliance on ESTs might have some weaknesses in predicting alternative splicing. ESTs have been stored in the libraries. The EST libraries are often not clearly organized and annotated. We can pick erroneous ESTs. It is also difficult to predict whether or not alternative splicing exists for those genes where ESTs are not available. To address these issues and to improve the quality of detection and prediction for alternative splicing, we propose the One-leaf One-node Tree Algorithm that uses pre-mRNAs. It is achieved by codons, three nucleotides, as attributes for each chromosome in Arabidopsis thaliana. The proposed decision tree shows that alternative and normal splicing have different splicing patterns according to triplet nucleotides in each chromosome. Based on the patterns, alternative splicing of unlabeled genes can also be predicted.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.833-839
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a selective feature extraction algorithm between Markov transition probability and co-occurrence probability for an effective image splicing detection. The Features used in our method are composed of the difference values between DCT coefficients in the adjacent blocks and the value of Kullback-Leibler divergence(KLD) is calculated to evaluate the differences between the distribution of original image features and spliced image features. KLD value is an efficient measure for selecting Markov feature or Co-occurrence feature because KLD shows non-similarity of the two distributions. After training the extracted feature vectors using the SVM classifier, we determine whether the presence of the image splicing forgery. To verify our algorithm we used grid search and 6-folds cross-validation. Based on the experimental results it shows that the proposed method has good detection performance with a limited number of features compared to conventional methods.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.259-265
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• 2013

The anti-apoptotic effect of (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) during unilateral testicular torsion and detorsion (TT/D) was established in our previous study. In mice, the smallest inhibitor of apoptosis, survivin, is alternatively spliced into three variants, each suggested to have a unique function. Here, we assessed how EGCG exerts its protective effect through the expression of the different survivin splice variants and determined its effect on the morphology of the seminiferous tubules during TT/D. Three mouse groups were used: sham, TT/D+vehicle and TT/D treated with EGCG. The expression of the survivin variants (140 and 40) and other apoptosis genes (p53, Bax and Bcl-2) was measured with semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Histological analysis was performed to assess DNA fragmentation, damage to spermatogenesis and morphometric changes in the seminiferous tubules. In the TT/D+vehicle group, survivin 140 expression was markedly decreased, whereas survivin 40 expression was not significantly different. In parallel, there was an increase in the mRNA level of p53 and the Bax to Bcl-2 ratio in support of apoptosis induction. Histological analyses revealed increased DNA fragmentation and increased damage to spermatogenesis associated with decreased seminiferous tubular diameter and decreased germinal epithelial cell thickness in the TT/D+vehicle group. These changes were reversed to almost sham levels upon EGCG treatment. Our data indicate that EGCG protects the testis from TT/D-induced damage by protecting the morphology of the seminiferous tubules and modulating survivin 140 expression.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.73-78
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• 2008

Immune system can protect host attacking from a variety of microorganism and virus through innate and adaptive immunities. The innate immune system can be activated by recognition of conserved carbohydrates on the cell surface of pathogen resulting in protection, immunity regulation and inflammation. Immunostimulating and anti-tumor ${\beta}$-glucan, major cell wall component of many fungi, could be recognized as pathogen associated molecular pattern (PAMP) by C-type lectin such as pathogen recognition receptor (PRR) of host innate immunity cells. In spite of many studies of basidiomycetes ${\beta}$-glucan on immunostimulation, little is known about the precise mechanism as molecular-level. Among C-type lectins, dectin-1 was cloned and reported as a ${\beta}$-glucan receptor. In this report, we demonstrated induction of cytokine gene transcription by Ganoderma lucidum ${\beta}$-glucan in the absence or presence of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) by RT-PCR analysis. The expression of murine dectin-1 (MD-1) on RAW264.7 macrophage by RT-PCR showing both the full length, 757 bp $(MD-1{\alpha})$ and alternative spliced form, 620 bp $(MD-1{\beta})$. Both $MD-1{\alpha}$ and $MD-1{\beta}$ mRNAs were induced by ${\beta $-glucan both in the absence and presence of LPS. To explore expression of inflammatory cytokines by ${\beta}$-glucan, RAW264.7 cells were treated with ${\beta}$-glucan for 12 hours. As a result, the expressions of IL-1 IL-6, IL-l0 and $TNF-{\alpha}$ were increased by ${\beta}$-glucan treatment in a dose-dependent fashion. From these results, ${\beta}$-glucan induced transcriptions of dectin-1 and immune activating cytokine genes, indicating induction of immune allertness by expressing dectin-1 and secreting inflammatory cytokines.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.160-167
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• 2014

This paper presents a spliced color image detection method using Benford' Law and color difference. For a suspicious image, after color conversion, the discrete wavelet transform and the discrete cosine transform are performed. We extract the difference between the ideal Benford distribution and the empirical Benford distribution of the suspicious image as features. The difference between Benford distributions for each color component were also used as features. Our method shows superior splicing detection performance using only 13 features. After training the extracted feature vector using SVM classifier, we determine whether the presence of the image splicing forgery. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods with smaller number of features in terms of splicing detection accuracy.