• BMB Reports
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.167-172
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• 2016

Kaiso is a Pox Virus and Zinc Finger (POZ-ZF) transcription factor with bi-modal DNA-binding specificity. Here, we demonstrated that Kaiso expression is inversely correlated with glucocorticoid receptor (GR) expression in breast carcinomas. Knockdown of Kaiso increased GR expression, while overexpression of Kaiso inhibited GR expression in breast cancer cells. Furthermore, Kaiso repressed GR proximal promoter-reporter activity in a dose-dependent manner. Remarkably, ChIP experiments demonstrated that endogenous Kaiso was associated with the GR promoter sequence in a methylation-dependent manner. Since glucocorticoids inhibit chemotherapyinduced apoptosis and have been widely used as a co-treatment of patients with breast cancer, we assessed the role of Kasio in GR-mediated anti-apoptotic effects. We found that overexpression of Kaiso attenuated the anti-apoptotic effects of glucocorticoids in breast cancer cells. Our findings suggest that GR is a putative target gene of Kaiso and suggest Kaiso to be a potential therapeutic target in GC-combination chemotherapy in breast cancer.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.1158-1162
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• 2006

The glyoxylate cycle can conserve carbons and adequately supply tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle intermediates for biosynthesis when microorganisms grow on $C_{2}$ carbon sources. It has been reported that isocitrate lyase (ICL1), a key enzyme of the glyoxylate cycle, is highly induced when Magnaporthe grisea, the causal agent of rice blast, infects its host. Therefore, the glyoxylate cycle is considered as a new target for antifungal agents. A 1.6-kb DNA fragment encoding the ICL1 from M. grisea KJ201 was amplified by PCR, cloned into a vector providing His-tag at the N-terminus, expressed in Escherichia coli, and purified using Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. The molecular mass of the purified ICL1 was approximately 60 kDa, as determined by SDS-PAGE. The ICL1 inhibitory effects of TCA cycle intermediates and their analogs were investigated. Among them, 3-nitropropionate was found to be the strongest inhibitor with an $IC_{50}$ value of $11.0{\mu}g/ml$. 3-Nitropropionate inhibited the appressorium development in M. grisea at the ${\mu}M$ level, whereas conidia germination remained unaffected. This compound also inhibited the mycelial growth of the fungus on minimal medium containing acetate as a $C_{2}$ carbon source. These results suggest that ICL1 plays a crucial role in appressorium formation of M. grisea and is a new target for the control of phytopathogenic fungal infection.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.17-22
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• 2014

Nardostachys chinensis (N. chinensis) has been used in traditional medicine as a sedative and analgesic. It has been reported that N. chinensis extract has an antioxidant activity. However, the mechanism has not been elucidated. In this study, we showed that FOXO3a was activated by N. chinensis extract. FOXO3a is a transcriptional factor that involved in cell cycle arrest, DNA repair, apoptosis, and detoxification of reactive oxygen spices (ROS). Protein level of FOXO3a was increased by N. chinensis extract whereas phospho-FOXO3a (Thr 32) was not changed. Promoter activities of target genes of FOXO3a such as MnSOD, p27, and GADD45 were increased by N. chinensis extract. Among target genes, protein level of MnSOD was increased by N. chinensis extract, and this leads to removal of ROS level in human embryonic fibroblast (HEF) cells. These results suggested that N. chinensis extract has an antioxidant activity by upregulation of MnSOD through FOXO3a activation.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.273-277
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• 2013

Vibriosis caused by Vibrio anguillarum and edwardsiellosis caused by Edwardsiella tarda are septicemic diseases of many commercially important freshwater and marine fishes, and threaten the aquaculture industry in Korea. Early diagnosis and accurate identification of these two bacterial species could help to prevent these diseases and minimize the damage to cultured marine species. This study designed a duplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method for the simultaneous detection of two major fish pathogens: V. anguillarum and E. tarda. Each pair of oligonucleotide primers exclusively amplified the target groEL gene of the specific microorganism. Twenty-two Vibrio and ten non-Vibrio enteric species were used to check the specificity of the primers, which were found to be highly specific for the target species, even among closely related species. The detection limit was 400 pg for V. anguillarum and 4 ng for E. tarda when mixed purified DNA was used as the template. This assay showed high specificity and sensitivity in the simultaneous detection of V. anguillarum and E. tarda from artificially inoculated seawater and fish.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.173-181
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• 2014

The early and accurate detection of plant viruses is an essential component to control those. Because the globalization of trade by free trade agreement (FTA) and the rapid climate change promote the country-to-country transfer of viruses and their hosts and vectors, diagnosis of viral diseases is getting more important. Because symptoms of viral diseases are not distinct with great variety and are confused with those of abiotic stresses, symptomatic diagnosis may not be appropriate. From the last three decades, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), developed based on serological principle, have been widely used. However, ELISAs to detect plant viruses decrease due to some limitations such as availability of antibody for target virus, cost to produce antibody, requirement of large volume of sample, and time to complete ELISAs. Many advanced techniques allow overcoming demerits of ELISAs. Since the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) developed as a technique to amplify target DNA, PCR evolved to many variants with greater sensitivity than ELISAs. Many systems of plant virus detection are reviewed here, which includes immunological-based detection system, PCR techniques, and hybridization-based methods such as microarray. Some of techniques have been used in practical, while some are still under developing to get the level of confidence for actual use.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.50-57
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• 2014

We present a new next-generation sequencing-based method to identify somatic mutations of lung cancer. It is a comprehensive mutation profiling protocol to detect somatic mutations in 30 genes found frequently in lung adenocarcinoma. The total length of the target regions is 107 kb, and a capture assay was designed to cover 99% of it. This method exhibited about 97% mean coverage at $30{\times}$ sequencing depth and 42% average specificity when sequencing of more than 3.25 Gb was carried out for the normal sample. We discovered 513 variations from targeted exome sequencing of lung cancer cells, which is 3.9-fold higher than in the normal sample. The variations in cancer cells included previously reported somatic mutations in the COSMIC database, such as variations in TP53, KRAS, and STK11 of sample H-23 and in EGFR of sample H-1650, especially with more than $1,000{\times}$ coverage. Among the somatic mutations, up to 91% of single nucleotide polymorphisms from the two cancer samples were validated by DNA microarray-based genotyping. Our results demonstrated the feasibility of high-throughput mutation profiling with lung adenocarcinoma samples, and the profiling method can be used as a robust and effective protocol for somatic variant screening.

• BMB Reports
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.139-143
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• 2004

The antioxidant responsive element (ARE) is a cis-acting regulatory element of genes encoding phase II detoxification enzymes and antioxidant proteins, such as NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase 1, glutathione S-transferases, and glutamate-cysteine ligase. Interestingly, it has been reported that Nrf2 (NF-E2-related factor 2) regulates a wide array of ARE-driven genes in various cell types. Nrf2 is a basic leucine zipper transcription factor, which was originally identified as a binding protein of locus control region of ss-globin gene. The DNA binding sequence of Nrf2 and ARE sequence are very similar, and many studies demonstrated that Nrf2 binds to the ARE sites leading to up-regulation of downstream genes. The function of Nrf2 and its downstream target genes suggests that the Nrf2-ARE pathway is important in the cellular antioxidant defense system. In support of this, many studies showed a critical role of Nrf2 in cellular protection and anti-carcinogenicity, implying that the Nrf2-ARE pathway may serve as a therapeutic target for neurodegenerative diseases and cancers, in which oxidative stress is closely implicated.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.153-164
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• 1998

Cytokines regulate proliferation, differentiation and functions of haemotopoietic cells. Each cytokine possesses a variety of activities on various target cells (pleiotropy) and various cytokines have similar and overlapping activities on the same target cells (redundancy). The nature of these cytokine activities predicts unique feature of cytokine receptors, namely, cytokine has multiple receptors, different cytokines share a common receptor, and different cytokine receptors are linked to common signaling pathways. cDNA cloning of genes for cytokine receptors revealed distinct sets of receptor family with different structural features. The cytokine receptor superfamily consists of a largest family, and contains more than twenty cytokine receptor subunits. This receptor has common structural features in both extracellular and intracellular regions without tyrosine kinase domain. Another striking feature of the receptor is to share common subunit of multiple cytokines, which partly explains the redundancy of activities of some cytokines. Recent studies revealed detailed signaling events of the cytokine receptor, the primary activation of JAK and subsequent phosphorylation of tyrosine residues of receptor, and various cellular proteins. Many SH2 containing adapter proteins play an important role in cytokine signals, and this system has similarities with tyrosine kinase receptor signal transduction. STAT may mainly account for cytokine specific functions as suggested by knockout mice studies. It is of importance to note that cytokine activates multiple signaling pathways and the balance and combination of related signaling events may determine the specificity of functions of cytokines.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.317-320
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• 2003

Genome-wide systematic deletion mutants were generated using a PCR-based targeted mutagenesis of Schizosacchaaromyces pombe. In a drug-sensitivity assay using thiabendazole(TBZ), an inhibitor of microtubule assembly, a heterozygous nda2 mutant ($nda2^+/nda2^-$), deleting one copy of nda2 encoding the microtubule subunit alpha1 demonstrated a distinct sensitivity to TBZ, indicating TBZ-induced haploinsufficiency. This result suggests that profiling drug-induced haploinsufficiency can be exploited to identify target genes for drugs and discover new drugs.

• BMB Reports
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.299-304
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• 2024

Upregulation of PRAME (preferentially expressed antigen of melanoma) has been implicated in the progression of a variety of cancers, including melanoma. The tumor suppressor p53 is a transcriptional regulator that mediates cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in response to stress signals. Here, we report that PRAME is a novel repressive target of p53. This was supported by analysis of melanoma cell lines carrying wild-type p53 and human melanoma databases. mRNA expression of PRAME was downregulated by p53 overexpression and activation using DNA-damaging agents, but upregulated by p53 depletion. We identified a p53-responsive element (p53RE) in the promoter region of PRAME. Luciferase and ChIP assays showed that p53 represses the transcriptional activity of the PRAME promoter and is recruited to the p53RE together with HDAC1 upon etoposide treatment. The functional significance of p53 activation-mediated PRAME downregulation was demonstrated by measuring colony formation and p27 expression in melanoma cells. These data suggest that p53 activation, which leads to PRAME downregulation, could be a therapeutic strategy in melanoma cells.