• Toxicological Research
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.9-14
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• 2016

The National Toxicology Program Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM) provides validation support for US Federal agencies and the US Tox21 interagency consortium, an interagency collaboration that is using high throughput screening (HTS) and other advanced approaches to better understand and predict chemical hazards to humans and the environment. The use of HTS data from assays relevant to the estrogen receptor signaling data pathway is used as an example of how HTS data can be combined with computational modeling to meet the needs of US agencies. As brief summary of US efforts in the areas of biologics testing, acute toxicity, and skin sensitization will also be provided.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.161-164
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• 2003

Recombinant light chain of Clostridium botulinum neurotoxin type B stimulated transglutaminase activity in a dose dependent manner, Compared to native toxin, recombinant light chain showed av greater stimulatory effect on transglutaminase activity. Zn-chelating agents, inhibiting the proteolytic activity of the clostridial toxins, did not interfere with this stimulation. These results suggest that the light chain plays a major stimulatory role, which is not due to its metallopeptidase activity, but is possibly due to specific interaction with transglutaminase. More importantly, this report provides a new insight into the intracellular action of C. botulinum neurotoxins.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.22 no.1 s.56
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• pp.27-36
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• 2007

Cyanides and dichlorophenols were important pollutants in industrial effluents of steel, petroleum, plastics, pesticides, synthetic dye and/or fiber manufacturing. The toxic effects of cyanide and 3, 5-dichlorophenol in the unary and binary solutions to Vibrio fischeri were determined using the newly developed $N-tox^{(R)}$ bioassay system. This bioassay system relies upon the attenuation of light intensity emitted by Vibrio fischeri exposed to various pollutants including metals and organic compounds. Most of studies dealing with toxicity of pollutants concerned single chemical species, while the organisms were typically exposed to pollutant mixtures. The present study showed that the toxicity of some binary combinations of cyanide and 3, 5-dichlorophenol significantly was lower than the predicted toxicity from the addicted model. This antagonistic interaction was well explained by chemical interaction model presented in this study.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.61-67
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• 2010

In operating estimation system, the river and lake is almost simple monitoring system or independent monitoring system. But the present system has many weak points about the concurrent analysis ability of various information collection. Sensors generating the information is not accurate. Therefore, we have something that can be improved. Although we have the related facilities of the purification plant, forebays and sewage disposal plant, and suffer from the difficulty about lack of system of estimation, management and control. As a result of this paper, monitoring system can observe the water pollution and various water environment of whole country. Also, through the sensors of USN, Zigbee, RFID and middle ware, which can service and construct service platform, we present standard plan of remarkable scalability service platform.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.151-158
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• 2022

Background: Chemical emissions in the environment have rapidly increased with the accelerated industrialization taking place in recent decades. Residents of industrial complexes are concerned about the health risks posed by chemical exposure. Objectives: This study was performed to suggest modeling methods that take into account multimedia and multi-pathways in human exposure and risk assessment. Methods: The concentration of benzene emitted at industrial complexes in Daesan, South Korea and the exposure of local residents was estimated using the Caltox model. The amount of human exposure based on inhalation rate was stochastically predicted for various activity stages such as resting, normal walking, and fast walking. Results: The coefficient of determination (R²) for the CalTOX model efficiency was 0.9676 and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) was 0.0035, indicating good agreement between predictions and measurements. However, the efficiency index (EI) appeared to be a negative value at -1094.4997. This can be explained as the atmospheric concentration being calculated only from the emissions from industrial facilities in the study area. In the human exposure assessment, the higher the inhalation rate percentile value, the higher the inhalation rate and lifetime average daily dose (LADD) at each activity step. Conclusions: Prediction using the Caltox model might be appropriate for comparing with actual measurements. The LADD of females was higher ratio with an increase in inhalation rate than those of males. This finding would imply that females may be more susceptible to benzene as their inhalation rate increases.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.736-744
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• 2023

The introduction of the toxT-139F allele triggers the expression of TCP (toxin co-regulated pilus) and CT (cholera toxin) under simple laboratory culture conditions in most Vibrio cholerae strains. Such V. cholerae strains, especially strains that have been used in OCVs (oral cholera vaccines), can induce antibody responses against TCP in animal models. However, CT produced in these V. cholerae strains is secreted into the culture medium. In this study, V. cholerae strains that can express intracellular CTB under the control of the toxT-139F allele have been constructed for potential application in OCVs. First, we constructed a recombinant plasmid directly linking the ctxAB promoter to ctxB without ctxA and confirmed CTB expression from the plasmid in V. cholerae containing the toxT-139F allele. We constructed another recombinant plasmid to express NtrCTB, from which 14 internal amino acids-from the 7^th to the 20^th amino acid-of the leader peptide of CTB have been omitted, and we found that NtrCTB remained in the cells. Based on those results, we constructed V. cholerae strains in which chromosomal ctxAB is replaced by ntrctxB or ntrctxB-dimer. Both NtrCTB and NtrCTB-dimer remained in the bacterial cells, and 60% of the NtrCTB-dimer in the bacterial cells was maintained in a soluble form. To develop improved OCVs, these strains could be tested to see whether they induce immune responses against CTB in animal models.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.53-63
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• 2007

Soil risk assessment models were used to determine the goals of soil remediation and to establish the soil quality standards in developed countries. Recently, Korean Ministry of Environment prepared the guideline for soil risk assessment. Soil risk assessment model applicable to Korean situation will be needed in the near future. In this study, three models for soil risk assessment were extensively compared to suggest the fundamental components that required for the soil risk assessment in Korea. The models considered in this study were CalTOX in the United States, CLEA (Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment) in the United Kingdom, and CSOIL in the Netherlands. The major exposure routes and the intake estimation equations suitable for Korean situation were suggested. The exposure routes suggested were intake of the crops, underground water, indoor outdoor soil ingestion, dust inhalation and a volatile matter inhalation. The equations for intake estimation used in CalTOX and CSOIL seem to be applicable for the calculation of the human intake in Korea.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.246-254
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• 2023

V. parahaemolyticus causes waterborne and foodborne disease such as acute diarrhea. In this study, V. parahaemolyticus isolates from seawater, fish tanks, and distributed fishery products in Jeju were investigated for potential toxin or species-specific genes (tdh, trh, tlh, and toxR) using RT-PCR and their genetic characteristics were analyzed using Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Overall, V. parahaemolyticus of 90 strains (36.7%), including 33 strains from seawater, 8 strains from fish tanks, and 50 strains from fishery products, were isolated from 245 samples. All V. parahaemolyticus strains did not detect the tdh gene, whereas all strains detected tlh or toxR genes. In addition, trh genes were detected in 3 strains from seawater and 1 strain from fishery products. Monthly quantitative testing of seawater revealed that V. parahaemolyticus was positively correlated with water temperature. The 90 strains of V. parahemolyticus obtained in this study showed by gene homology between types, ranging from 64.0-97.3%. Among these, thirteen types showed 100% homology between genes. These results indicate that continuous monitoring is needed to facilitate food poisoning epidemiological investigations because some isolated V. parahaemolyticus strains harbored toxin genes and V. parahaemolyticus strains isolated from seawater, fish tanks, and distributed fishery products showed genetic similarity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.64.2-64.2
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• 2008

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.622-627
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• 2002

Diphtheria toxin repressor (DtxR) binds to approximately 30 to 35-bp regions containing an interrupted 9-bp inverted repeat within a 19-bp core sequence. The core sequence is fairly conserved and critical for DtxR binding. The flanking regions that are consisted of 5 to 8 more of nucleotides from the core are also required for DtxR binding. The nucleotides in both flanking regions are A-T rich. To examine whether the A-T nucleotides in both flanking regions from the core have significant roles for DtxR binding, a DNA fragment was constructed based on the diphtheria tox promoter/operator, and DNA fragments with substitution of A and T nucleotides In the flanking regions to G and C were also constructed. To assess the effect of these substitutions on binding of DtxR and repressibility by DtxR, $\beta$-galactosidase activity from lacZ fused to the region was assessed. Gel mobility shift of the region by purified DtxR was also examined. The DNA fragments containing the mutations in the flanking regions still exhibited repression and mobility shift with DtxR. The core segment with the mutation is still, therefore, recognized by DtxR. Nonetheless, the results from the assays indicated that the substitution significantly decreased repression of the operator by DtxR in vivo under high-iron condition and decreased binding of DtxR to the operator. These results suggest that A and T nucleotides fur both flanking regions are preferred for the binding of DtxR.