• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.474-480
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• 2018

Most angiogenesis assays are performed using endothelial cells. However, blood vessels are composed of two cell types: endothelial cells and pericytes. Thus, co-culture of two vascular cells should be employed to evaluate angiogenic properties. Here, we developed an in vitro 3-dimensional angiogenesis assay system using spheroids formed by two human vascular precursors: endothelial colony forming cells (ECFCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). ECFCs, MSCs, or ECFCs+MSCs were cultured to form spheroids. Sprout formation from each spheroid was observed for 24 h by real-time cell recorder. Sprout number and length were higher in ECFC+MSC spheroids than ECFC-only spheroids. No sprouts were observed in MSC-only spheroids. Sprout formation by ECFC spheroids was increased by treatment with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or combination of VEGF and fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2). Interestingly, there was no further increase in sprout formation by ECFC+MSC spheroids in response to VEGF or VEGF+FGF-2, suggesting that MSCs stimulate sprout formation by ECFCs. Immuno-fluorescent labeling technique revealed that MSCs surrounded ECFC-mediated sprout structures. We tested vatalanib, VEGF inhibitor, using ECFC and ECFC+MSC spheroids. Vatalanib significantly inhibited sprout formation in both spheroids. Of note, the $IC_{50}$ of vatalanib in ECFC+MSC spheroids at 24 h was $4.0{\pm}0.40{\mu}M$, which are more correlated with the data of previous animal studies when compared with ECFC spheroids ($0.2{\pm}0.03{\mu}M$). These results suggest that ECFC+MSC spheroids generate physiologically relevant sprout structures composed of two types of vascular cells, and will be an effective pre-clinical in vitro assay model to evaluate pro- or anti-angiogenic property.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.153-160
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• 2006

Human colon cancer is the second most fatal disease among a variety of cancers to cause cancer death in U.S.A. and its incidence rate is currently increased in Korea. Recently, many studies have been being progressed on the efficacy of diverse combination treatments. But results of these studies in vitro were not similar those in vivo. This study compared the anticancer reactions between each use of arsenic trioxide and taxol against human colon cancer HT-29 cell line and combined use of two drugs. And these results compared with the results of HT-29 spheroid cells having similar characteristics to the solid tumor in vivo. The spheroid of HT-29 cells was formed by using a multicellular spheroid system and the result was observed through electron microscopy. In vitro cytotoxicity of each use of arsenic trioxide and taxol was evaluated in HT-29 monolayer cells. The $IC_{50}$ value for arsenic trioxide was to be $33{\mu}M$ and taxol was to be 18nM. The result treated with the combination of taxol and arsenic trioxide decreased the cytotoxicity on the HT-29 monolayer cells. The spheroid cells represented higher resistance against drugs than the monolayer cells. I demonstrated DNA fragmentation after incubation with concentrations more than $10{\mu}M$ arsenic trioxide and 100nM taxol for 48h, on the monolayer cells. But the results of HT-29 cell line treated with the combination of taxol and arsenic trioxide was the same as the outcome of control samples that were not treated with any drug. And I don't demonstrated DNA fragmentation on the spheroid cells. These results suggest that apoptosis was not induced in the use of the combination can be thought as that arsenic trioxide might work as an antagonist to inhibit a taxol mechanism to induce apoptosis. And the spheroid cells represented higher resistance against drugs than the monolayer cells.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.149-156
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• 1989

Multicellular tumor spheroids of HeLa cells have been grown in a static culture system. Samples of spheroids were exposed for 2 h to graded concentration of cis-platinum and its analogue, carboplatin, and then response assayed by survival of clonogenic cells. The purpose of present experiment is to clarify the effectiveness of these platinum compounds and to evaluate intrinsic radiosensitivity of cells using spheroids of HeLa cells as an experimental in vitro model. Variations of the drug sensitivity of monolayers as well as spheroids were also evaluated in cell-survival curves. In cis-platinum concentration-survival curve, there was a large shoulder extending as far as $Cq=3.4{\mu}M$, after which there was exponential decrease in survival curve having a Co Value of $1.2{\mu}M$ in spheroids. While the Co for the spheroids was essentially no significant change, but Cq value was larger than that of monolayers. This suggest that the effect of cis-platinum is greater En the monolayer with actively proliferaing cells than hypoxic one. In the carboplatin concentration-survival curves, the Co value of spheroids was $15.0{\mu}M$ and the ratio with the Co from monolayer cell $(32.5{\mu}M)$ was 0.40, thus indicating that the spheroids had a greater sensitivity to carboplatin than monolayers. Therefore, the effect of carboplatin is mainly on the deeper layers of spheroids acting as hypoxic cell sensitizer. The enhanced effect was obtained for monolayer cells using combined X-ray and carboplatin treatment 2 hours before irradiation. The result shown in isobologram analysis for the level of surviving fraction at 0.01 indicated that the effect of two agents was trusty supra-additive. From this experimental data, carboplatin has excited much recent interest as one of the most promising, since it is almost without nephrotoxicity and causes less gastrointestinal toxicity than cis-platinum. Interaction between carboplatin and radiation might play an important role for more effective local tumor control.

• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.82-87
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• 2014

Commonly known as the button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus is one of the most widely cultivated mushroom species of edible fungi. In the breeding of new button mushroom, Seolwon was developed by crossing two homokaryons. Because of the predominantly pseudohomothallic life cycle, only a small percentage of homokaryotic meiospores are produced, which do not fruit. Homokaryotic cultures derived from these types of single spores produce a vegetative mycelium that contain a variable number of genetically identical nuclei per cell. After crossing two homokaryons, hybrids were cultivated on a small scale and on a commercial scale at a farm. The spawn was made by a commercial spawn producer and the spawned compost by a commercial compost producer. Mycelial growth of Seolwon on CDA was better at $25^{\circ}C$ when it was compared with that of Seolgang. The mature cap shape of new strain Seolwon is oblate spheroid and the immature cap shape is round to oblate spheroid. The cap diameter was 39.7 mm on average. In comparison with white strain Seolgang, the strain had a yield that was 11% higher. It produced fruiting bodies which had a higher weight on average per fruiting body and were 9.7% firmer with a good shelf life. Days of fruiting body were 1-2 days later than those of Seolgang. The physical characteristics such as springiness, chewiness, adhesiveness, gumminess were better than that of Seolgang.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 1994.04a
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• pp.129-130
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• 1994

The science of toxicology is the understanding of the mechanisms by which exogenous agents produce deleterious effects in biological systems. The actions of chemicals such as drugs are ultimately exerted at the cellular and gene levels. Over the past decade. several in vitro alternative methods such as cultured cells for assessing the toxicity of various xenobiotics have been proposed to reduce the use of animals. In this workshop three advanced methods will be presented. These methods are novel important models for toxicologic studies. Dr. Tabuchis group has establishcd two immortalized gastric surface mucosa cell lines from the pminary cultore of gastric fundic mucosal cells of adult transgenic mice harboring a temperature sensitive simian virus 40 large T-anugen gene. As the immortalized cell lines of various tissues possess unique characteristics to maintain their normal functions for several months, these cell lines are extremely useful for not only toxicity testing but also pharmacological screening in new drug development. Professor Funatsu have studied the formation of spherical multicelluar aggregates of adult rat hepatocytes(spheroid) having tissue like structure. The sphcroid shown thre is a prototype module of an artificial liver support system. Thus, the urea synthesis activity of the artificial liver was maintained at least to days in 100％ rat blood plasma. Dr. Takezawa and his coworkers have developed a novel culture system of multicellular spheroids considered 〃organoids〃 by utilizing a thermo-responsive polymer as a substratum of anchorage dependent cells. His final goal is to reconstitute the organoids of various normal organs, e.g., liver, skin etc. and also abnormal deseased organs such as tumor.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.735-739
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• 2002

Large quantities of porcine hepatocyte aggregates with various degrees of aggregation (DA) could be obtained by controlling the suspension periods (0,9,24, and 48 h), and by entrapping the hepatocyte aggregates in model materials of encapsulation such as Ca-alginate and type-I collagen gels. The effects of DA on liver-specific functions of hepatocytes were evaluated in order to obtain optimum DA for the cell source of bioartificial liver (BAL) systems. Irregular rugged aggregates (size $75 \pm 28$ $\mu\textrm{m}$) farmed by 24 h of suspension culturing showed peak viability and hepatic functions such as ammonia removal and albumin secretion in the two types of entrapment systems, thus offering themselves as a stable cell source of a BAL system for hepatic functions and scale-up.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.197-203
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• 2020

Mesenchymal stem cells in the dental pulp exhibit a tendency for differentiation into various dental lineages and hold great potential as a major conduit for regenerative treatment in dentistry. Although they can be readily isolated from teeth, the exact characteristics of these stem cells have not been fully understood so far. When compared to two-dimensional (2D) cultures, three-dimensional (3D) cultures have the advantage of enriching the stem cell population. Hence, 3D-organoid culture and 3D-sphere culture were applied to dental pulp cells in the current study. Although the establishment of the organoid culture proved unsuccessful, the 3D-sphere culture readily initiated the stable generation of cell aggregates, which continued to grow and could be passaged to the second round. Interestingly, a significant increase in SOX2 expression was detected in the 3D-spheroid culture compared to the 2D culture. These results indicate the enrichment of the stemness-high population in the 3D-sphere culture. Thus, 3D-sphere culture may act as a link between the conventional and 3D-organoid cultures and aid in understanding the characteristics of dental pulp stem cells.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.1313-1319
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• 2016

Cancer is a complex disease heterogeneously composed of various types of cells including cancer stem-like cells responsible for relapse and chemoresistance in the tumor microenvironment. The conventional two-dimensional cell culture-based platform has critical limitations for representing the heterogeneity of cancer cells in the three-dimensional tumor niche in vivo. To overcome this insufficiency, three-dimensional cell culture methods in a scaffold-dependent or -free physical environment have been developed. In this study, we improved and simplified the HCT-8 colon cancer cell-based spheroid culture protocol and evaluated the relationship between cancer stemness and responses of chemosensitivity to 5- Fluorouracil (5-FU), a representative anticancer agent against colon cancer. Supplementation with defined growth factors in the medium and the culture dish of the regular surface with low attachment were required for the formation of constant-sized spheroids containing $CD44^+$ and $CD133^+$ colon cancer stem cells. The chemo-sensitivities of $CD44^+$ cancer stem cells in the spheroids were much lower than those of $CD44^-$ non-stem-like cancer cells, indicating that the chemoresistance to 5-FU is due to the stemness of colon cancer cells. Taken together, the inflammation and oncogenic gut environment-sensitive HCT-8 cell-based colon cancer spheroid culture and comparative evaluation using the simplified model would be an efficient and applicable way to estimate colon cancer stemness and pharmaceutical response to anticancer drugs in the realistic tumor niche.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.493-502
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• 2020

Apigenin, a naturally occurring flavonoid, is known to exhibit significant anticancer activity. This study was designed to determine the effects of apigenin on two malignant mesothelioma cell lines, MSTO-211H and H2452, and to explore the underlying mechanism(s). Apigenin significantly inhibited cell viability with a concomitant increase in intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and caused the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm), and ATP depletion, resulting in apoptosis and necroptosis in monolayer cell culture. Apigenin upregulated DNA damage response proteins, including the DNA double strand break marker phospho (p)-histone H2A.X. and caused a transition delay at the G₂/M phase of cell cycle. Western blot analysis showed that apigenin treatment upregulated protein levels of cleaved caspase-3, cleaved PARP, p-MLKL, and p-RIP3 along with an increased Bax/Bcl-2 ratio. ATP supplementation restored cell viability and levels of DNA damage-, apoptosisand necroptosis-related proteins that apigenin caused. In addition, N-acetylcysteine reduced ROS production and improved ΔΨm loss and cell death that were caused by apigenin. In a 3D spheroid culture model, ROS-dependent necroptosis was found to be a mechanism involved in the anti-cancer activity of apigenin against malignant mesothelioma cells. Taken together, our findings suggest that apigenin can induce ROS-dependent necroptotic cell death due to ATP depletion through mitochondrial dysfunction. This study provides us a possible mechanism underlying why apigenin could be used as a therapeutic candidate for treating malignant mesothelioma.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.476-484
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• 2024

Although two-dimensional (2D) monolayer cell culture models are still widely used as the optimal models for anticancer activity research, three-dimensional (3D) multicellular tumor spheroid (3D MTS) models that can better approximate the tumor environment can offer an alternative to bridge the gap between in vitro and animal model studies. Isoalantolactone is among the sesquiterpene lactones found in medicinal plants, including the roots of Elecampane (Inula helenium L.), and is known to have various pharmacological activities, including anticancer activity. In this study, we investigated whether the anticancer activity of isoalantolactone observed in 2D models could be reproduced in a 3D MTS model derived from human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) Hep3B cells. According to our results, isoalantolactone inhibited the formation of MTSs in a manner dependent on the treatment concentration, which was accompanied by an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. In particular, as isoalantolactone treatment and the culture time increased, the area of proliferating cells was replaced by cells in which apoptosis was induced. Additionally, in MTSs, isoalantolactone increased the expression of death-receptor-related proteins and the activity of caspase-3, and it decreased the expression of the Bax/Bcl-2 expression ratio and total poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. However, when the production of ROS was artificially blocked, all these changes caused by isoalantolactone were attenuated and the cell survival rate of MTS cells was restored. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that the induction of apoptosis in Hep3B cell-derived MTSs by isoalantolactone is achieved through the activation of extrinsic and intrinsic pathways and is ROS-dependent.