• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.75-82
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• 2012

We have developed and optimized a multiplex polymerase chain reaction (mPCR) for simultaneous detection of Brucella, Salmonella and Leptospira with high sensitivity and specificity. Three pairs of oligonucleotide primers were designed to specifically amplify the targeted genes of Salmonella, Leptospira and Brucella species with sizes of 521, 408 and 223 bp, respectively. The mPCR did not produce any nonspecific amplification products when tested against 15 related species of bacteria. The sensitivity of the mPCR was 100 fg for Brucella and 1 pg for both Salmonella and Leptospira species. In the field application, kidney, liver and spleen were collected from wild rats and stray cats and examined by mPCR. The high specificity and sensitivity of this mPCR assay provide a valuable tool for diagnosis and for the simultaneous and rapid detection of three zoonotic bacteria that cause disease in both humans and animals. Therefore, this assay could be a useful alternative to the conventional method of culture and single PCR for the detection of each pathogen.

• Korean Journal of Head & Neck Oncology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-24
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• 2003

Objectives: In this report, we confirmed the distributed pattern of ALA and ALA-methylester in normal and tumor-bearing region. Materials and Methods: ALA and ALA-methylester were administered to nude mouse by intratumoral, subcutaneous and intravenous injection. After injection, the fluorescence in normal and tumor region was measured by LESA (laser electronic spectrum analyzer). Results: The tumor-specificity of ALA and ALA-methylester was shown in the case of intratumoral injection. In all case, the fluorescence caused by ALA and ALA-methylester was maximally increased in 2 hours after injection. Then while the fluorescence level was rapidly decreased to control level in normal region, it was still remained in tumor region. Conclusion: According to this result, The intratumoral injection was more efficient administration method for PDT/PDD than subcutaneous and intravenous injection.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.13
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• pp.5175-5180
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• 2014

Objective: In this study, tumor-stage predictive abilities of miR21, miR155, miR29a and miR92a were evaluated in rectal cancer (RC). Methods: Expression of miR21, miR155, miR29a and miR92a was detected and quantitated in tumor tissue and in adjacent normal tissue from 40 patients by TaqMan MicroRNA assay. Results: Significant overexpression of miR21, miR155, miR29a and miR92a was observed in RC tissues. While high expression of miR21, miR155 and miR29a in N1-2 and C-D stages presented a potential correlation with N and Duke stages, partial correlation analysis suggested that only miR155 rather than miR21 and miR29a played a greater influencing role. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis showed that miR155 could discriminate N0 from N1-2 with 85.0% sensitivity and 85.0% specificity, N2 from N0-1 with 90.0% sensitivity and 96.7% specificity, and C-D stage from A-B stage with 81.0% sensitivity and 84.2% specificity. Conclusions: Increase in expression of miR155 might represent a novel predictor for RC N and Dukes staging.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.488-494
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• 1992

Three clones containing mouse CD4 gene were prepared using AKR genomic cosmid library. The role of 6, 500 bp 5' flanking region of the first exon of the AKR CD4 gene in tissue or developmental stage specific expression of CD4 has been studied. The deletion constructs containing various amounts of CD4 5' flanking sequences were prepared, and they were transfected into the cell lines representing different cell types or developmental stages of CD4 expression. Study of the reporter gene expression revealed that at least 1, 700 bp of 5' flanking region did retain promoter activity for CD4 expression. This area did not seem to contain enhancer activity for a full expression of CD4. However, the putative promoter interacted with other tissue specific enhancer sequence and showed the tissue specificity of the enhancer element.

• The Korean Journal of Zoology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.433-441
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• 1995

Mammary tissue-specificity of the caprine $\beta$-lactoglobulin promoter appears to be secured by repression in non-expressing cells. In order to identify the mechanism of the negative regulation, the upstream promoter sequence of the caprine $\beta$-lactoglobulin gene was analyzed in detail. The repression was mediated by the upstream flanking sequence from -47O to -205. The sequence could repress the promoter activity of $\beta$-lactoglobulin in either orientation. The effect of the putative negative regulation element of caprine $\beta$-lactoglobulin on heterlogous promoters, however, varied: the promoter activity of herpes simplex virus thimidine kinase was either repressed or activated by the sequence depending on its orientation, while the SV4O early promoter was activated rather than repressed. The regulatory sequence involving the putative negative regulatory element was strongly shifted with the nuclear extract from non-mammary HeLa and CV-1 cells, while only weak shift was observed with that of mammary HC11 cells. Such correlation between repression and factor binding suggests that the protected regions in foot-printing assay may be the negative regulatory elements of $\beta$-lactoalobulin that serve tissue-specific repression.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.84-86
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• 2008

The Tetrahymena group I intron has been shown to employ a trans-splicing reaction and has been modified to specifically target and replace human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) RNA with a suicide gene transcript, resulting in the induction of selective cytotoxicity in cancer cells that express the target RNA, in animal models as well as in cell cultures. In this study, we evaluated the target RNA specificity of trans-splicing phenomena by the group I intron in mice that were intraperitoneally inoculated with hTERT-expressing human cancer cells to validate the anti-cancer therapeutic applicability of the group I intron. To this end, an adenoviral vector that encoded for the hTERT-targeting group I intron was constructed and systemically injected into the animal. 5'-end RACE-PCR and sequencing analyses of the trans-spliced cDNA clones revealed that all of the analyzed products in the tumor tissue of the virus-infected mice resulted from reactions that were generated only with the targeted hTERT RNA. This study implies the in vivo target specificity of the trans-splicing group I intron and hence suggests that RNA replacement via a trans-splicing reaction by the group I intron is a potent anti-cancer genetic approach.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.43 no.1 s.133
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• pp.15-18
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• 2005

The diagnosis of human hydatidosis is primarily made using radiological and serological methods. Radiological methods are generally of low specificity and serological methods lack sensitivity, especially for pulmonary disease. In this study the capabilities of a new rapid test, the hydatid antigen dot immunobinding assay (HA-DIA), which was developed for the diagnosis of pulmonary hydatidosis, were studied and compared with another immunodiagnostic method, indirect hemagglutination (IHA). The study subjects included 18 patients, 9 women, 9 men; range 7 to 63 years; mean 30 years, with surgically proven pulmonary hydatidosis, a control group comprised of 14 patients; viral respiratory infections (1), cirrhosis (2), connective tissue disease (2), taeniasis (3), and 6 healthy donors. We found that the HA-DIA test had a sensitivity of $67\%$ and specificity of $100\%$, and that the IHA test had a sensitivity of $50\%$ and specificity of $100\%$. We conclude that HA-DIA is a simple, rapid, low cost assay that does not require instrumentation and has a higher sensitivity than IHA for the diagnosis of pulmonary hydatidosis.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.13-19
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• 2002

To elucidate the regulatory mechanism for expression of sialyl-glycoconjugates and their biological functions, ninetheen sialyltransferase cDNAs including eleven by our group or co-works have been cloned and characterized so far. The cloned sialyltransferases are classified into four families according to the carbohydrate linkages they synthesize: ${\alpha}2,3-sialyltransferase$ (ST3Gal I-VI), ${\alpha}$ 2,6-sialyltransferase (ST6Gal I), GalNAc ${\alpha}$ 2,6-sialyltransferase (ST6GalNAc I-VI), and ${\alpha}2,8-sialyltransferase$ (ST8Sia I-VI). Each of the sialyltransferase genes is differentially expressed in a tissue-, cell type-, and stage-specific manner. These enzymes differ in their substrate specificity and various biochemical parameters. However, enzymatic analysis conducted in vitro with recombinant enzyme revealed that one linkage can be synthesized by multiple enzymes. We present here an overview of structure and function of sialyltransferases performed by our group and co-works. Genomic structures and transcriptional regulation of two kinds of human sialyltransferase gene are also presented.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.57-78
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• 2023

Understanding the chemical composition of the brain helps researchers comprehend various neurological processes effectively. Understanding of the fundamental pathological processes that underpin many neurodegenerative disorders has recently advanced thanks to the advent of innovative bioanalytical techniques that allow high sensitivity and specificity with chemical imaging at high resolution in tissues and cells. Mass spectrometry imaging [MSI] has become more common in biomedical research to map the spatial distribution of biomolecules in situ. The technique enables complete and untargeted delineation of the in-situ distribution characteristics of proteins, metabolites, lipids, and peptides. MSI's superior molecular specificity gives it a significant edge over traditional histochemical methods. Recent years have seen a significant increase in MSI, which is capable of simultaneously mapping the distribution of thousands of biomolecules in the tissue specimen at a high resolution and is otherwise beyond the scope of other molecular imaging techniques. This review aims to acquaint the reader with the MSI experimental workflow, significant recent advancements, and implementations of MSI techniques in visualizing the anatomical distribution of neurochemicals in the human brain in relation to various neurogenerative diseases.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.20-31
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• 2022

Purpose: To assess conventional MRI features associated with residual soft-tissue sarcomas following unplanned excision (UPE), and to compare the diagnostic performance of conventional MRI only with that of MRI including diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for residual tumors after UPE. Materials and Methods: We included 103 consecutive patients who had received UPE of a soft-tissue sarcoma with wide excision of the tumor bed between December 2013 and December 2019 and who also underwent conventional MRI and DWI in this retrospective study. The presence of focal enhancement, soft-tissue edema, fascial enhancement, fluid collections, and hematoma on MRI including DWI was reviewed by two musculoskeletal radiologists. We used classification and regression tree (CART) analysis to identify the most significant MRI features. We compared the diagnostic performances of conventional MRI and added DWI using the McNemar test. Results: Residual tumors were present in 69 (66.9%) of 103 patients, whereas no tumors were found in 34 (33.1%) patients. CART showed focal enhancement to be the most significant predictor of residual tumors and correctly predicted residual tumors in 81.6% (84/103) and 78.6% (81/103) of patients for Reader 1 and Reader 2, respectively. Compared with conventional MRI only, the addition of DWI for Reader 1 improved specificity (32.8% vs. 56%, 33.3% vs. 63.0%, P < 0.05), decreased sensitivity (96.8% vs. 84.1%, 98.7% vs. 76.7%, P < 0.05), without a difference in diagnostic accuracy (76.7% vs. 74.8%, 72.9% vs. 71.4%) in total and in subgroups. For Reader 2, diagnostic performance was not significantly different between the sets of MRI (P > 0.05). Conclusion: After UPE of a soft-tissue sarcoma, the presence or absence of a focal enhancement was the most significant MRI finding predicting residual tumors. MRI provided good diagnostic accuracy for detecting residual tumors, and the addition of DWI to conventional MRI may increase specificity.