• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
• /
• 제45권1호
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2014

Ginsenoside Rg3 (G-Rg3) is one of protopanaxadiol ginsenosides characteristic of red ginseng, steamed and dried ginseng (Panax ginseng), which has recently attracted much attention for its antitumor properties in vitro and in vivo animal models. Experimental studies have demonstrated that it could promote cancer cell apoptosis, inhibit cancer cell growth, the apoptosis of cancer cells, adhesion, invasion and metastasis, and also prevent an angiogenetic formation in prostate, breast, ovarian, colorectal, gastric, liver and lung cancer etc. It has shown the antitumor activities by modulation of diverse signaling pathways, including regulation of cell proliferation mediators (CDKs and cyclins), growth factors (vascular endothelial growth factor), tumor suppressors (p53 and p21), cell death mediators (caspases, Bcl-2, Bax), inflammatory response molecules ($NF-{\kappa}B$ and COX-2), protein kinases (JNK, Akt, and AMP-activated protein kinase) and Wnt/${\beta}$-catenin signaling. In addition, the combination of Rg3 and chemotherapeutic agents have synergistically enhanced therapeutic efficacy and reduced antagonistically side effects. Furthermore, it can reverse the multidrug resistance of cancer cells, prolong the survival duration and improve life quality of cancer patients. Taken together, accumulating evidences could provide the potential of G-Rg3 in the treatment of cancers and the feasibility of further randomized placebo controlled clinical trials.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• 제12권3호
• /
• pp.102-113
• /
• 2012

The effort to generate new values in this age of digital technology characterized by rapid changes in information and knowledge demands transformations not only in the sociocultural and educational spheres but also specifically in the field of arts and culture education. One of the greatest transformations is emphasis on integration and consilience among different fields which has impacted the field of arts and culture, giving birth to the practice of arts and culture education. Digital technology actively utilizes in lots of subjects, which, also becomes a challenging factor for the field of arts and culture education. In this context, this study theoretically considered to approach music technology to use for the field of arts and culture education. Utilization of music technology takes interdisciplinary approaches combining various subjects in the field of arts and culture education. Considering the current circumstances in which there is a lack of teaching and learning methodologies which reflect the unique, specialized nature and the intrinsic originality of the field of arts and culture education. It is deemed that by accumulating more case studies applying music technology in practice to a wider variety of targets and situations. Music technology will serve the role of an important a learning tool for the arts and culture education field.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• 제16권12호
• /
• pp.235-246
• /
• 2011

We are living in the era of globalization, convergence of multi technologies and dual service system especially in the cultural, social, political, economical and technical aspects. These waves are making us go beyond Information Society and urge to enter the Smart Society. In the past, we have focused only on creating, proceeding and accumulating vast amount of information. Where as today, we are hoping to be provided with more intellectual, cheep, and converged form with the help of stored information without any space and time constraints. In this thesis, with consideration of the knowledge based society service integration paradigm, we will first look at the concept of Smart Service with various case studies, proposition strategy implementation on Smart Platform by analysing the service the implementing aspect, looking at the roles of each related divisions, and measuring the secure elements etc.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• 제12권1호
• /
• pp.112-124
• /
• 2012

The remarkable development of digital technologies and the success of 3D stereoscopic films have led to started drawing attention to stereoscopic images. The stereoscopic images have not become a passing fad in the present time unlike in the past, but have constantly showed their potentials. Unfortunately, the domestic stereoscopic images market is faced with difficulties, such as lack of the capital strength and of insufficient production infrastructure, and the production of 3D from 2D. As a result, it is not easy to produce creative stereoscopic animation contents. Therefore, in Korea, more efforts should be made in accumulating a plenty of data on production techniques. In order to make film production reflecting stereoscopy and effective stereoscopic implementation, which are necessary to produce high-quality stereoscopic contents, this thesis gave an explanation about a production technique studied on the basis of 3D graphic. Stereoscopic images are definitely one of the most promising image contents in the 21st digital contents industry. For the reason, in order to produce stereoscopic animation contents with high quality, fundamental studies on the stereoscopic images should be performed in a constant and cautions way.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
• /
• 제8권1호
• /
• pp.3-10
• /
• 2014

The rapid increase in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome, which is associated with a state of elevated systemic oxidative stress and inflammation, is expected to cause future increases in the prevalence of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids and sugars produces reactive carbonyl species, which, due to their electrophilic nature, react with the nucleophilic sites of certain amino acids. This leads to formation of protein adducts such as advanced glycoxidation/lipoxidation end products (AGEs/ALEs), resulting in cellular dysfunction. Therefore, an effective reactive carbonyl species and AGEs/ALEs sequestering agent may be able to prevent such cellular dysfunction. There is accumulating evidence that histidine containing dipeptides such as carnosine (${\beta}$-alanyl-L-histidine) and anserine (${\beta}$-alanyl-methyl-L-histidine) detoxify cytotoxic reactive carbonyls by forming unreactive adducts and are able to reverse glycated protein. In this review, 1) reaction mechanism of oxidative stress and certain chronic diseases, 2) interrelation between oxidative stress and inflammation, 3) effective reactive carbonyl species and AGEs/ALEs sequestering actions of histidine-dipeptides and their metabolism, 4) effects of carnosinase encoding gene on the effectiveness of histidine-dipeptides, and 5) protective effects of histidine-dipeptides against progression of metabolic syndrome are discussed. Overall, this review highlights the potential beneficial effects of histidine-dipeptides against metabolic syndrome. Randomized controlled human studies may provide essential information regarding whether histidine-dipeptides attenuate metabolic syndrome in humans.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• 제1권1호
• /
• pp.13-18
• /
• 1973

For the production of Nucleic acid derivatives by microorganisms, adenineless mutants were induced from Bacillus subtilis with the mutagens, ultraviolet rays and diethylsulfate. And total strains of 62 adenineless mutants were isolated. These mutants were found to have an ability of accumulating u. v. absorbing substances in the culture broth. They were analyzed to be hypoxanthine, uracil, and other unknown compound by means of two dimensional thin layer chromatography, u. v. absorption spectra, and I. R. absorption spectrum. Mutant BS-137 was screened out to accumulate hypoxanthine, which was isolated from the culture broth through activated carbon column and recrystallize from cold water. The effect of the medium compositions on hypoxanthine accumulation were examined for the mutant BS-137. Glucose appeared to be the best carbon source, but molasses could be substitute for it, NaNO$_3$ and yeast extract were especially good sources of nitrogen.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• 제21권3호
• /
• pp.196-203
• /
• 2013

Recent accumulating studies have reported that hypoxic preconditioning during ex vivo expansion enhanced the self-renewal or differentiation of various stem cells and provide an important strategy for the adequate modulation of oxygen in culture conditions, which might increase the functional bioactivity of these cells for cardiac regeneration. In this study, we proposed a novel priming protocol to increase the functional bioactivity of cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) for the treatment of cardiac regeneration. Firstly, patient-derived c-$kit^+$ CPCs isolated from the atrium of human hearts by enzymatic digestion and secondly, pivotal target molecules identified their differentiation into specific cell lineages. We observed that hCPCs, in response to hypoxia, strongly activated ERK phosphorylation in ex vivo culture conditioning. Interestingly, pre-treatment with an ERK inhibitor, U0126, significantly enhanced cellular proliferation and tubular formation capacities of CPCs. Furthermore, we observed that hCPCs efficiently maintained the expression of the c-kit, a typical stem cell marker of CPCs, under both hypoxic conditioning and ERK inhibition. We also show that hCPCs, after preconditioning of both hypoxic and ERK inhibition, are capable of differentiating into smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and cardiomyocytes (CMs), but not endothelial cells (ECs), as demonstrated by the strong expression of ${\alpha}$-SMA, Nkx2.5, and cTnT, respectively. From our results, we conclude that the functional bioactivity of patient-derived hCPCs and their ability to differentiate into SMCs and CMs can be efficiently increased under specifically defined culture conditions such as short-term hypoxic preconditioning and ERK inhibition.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 한국진공학회 2011년도 제41회 하계 정기 학술대회 초록집
• /
• pp.337-337
• /
• 2011

Application of plasma technology on microbial sterilization has been frequently studied. In spite of accumulating number of studies, many have been focused on bacteria. Reports on eukaryotic yeasts and filamentous fungi are limited. In addition, mechanism of plasma effect still needs to be clarified. In this study, we analyzed the effect of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma on the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae using DBD-type device. When yeast cells were exposed to plasma (at 2 mm distance) and then cultured on YPD-agar plate, number of cells survived (shown as colony) were reduced proportionally to exposure time. More than 50% reduction in number of colonies were observed after twice exposure of 5min. each. Colonies much smaller than those of control (no plasma exposure) were appeared after twice exposure of 5 min. each. It seems that small colonies are resulted from delayed cell growth due to the damage caused by plasma treatment. Microscopic analysis demonstrates that yeast cells treated with plasma for 5 min. twice have more rough and shrinked shape compared to oval shape with smooth surface of control.

• Toxicological Research
• /
• 제33권4호
• /
• pp.305-313
• /
• 2017

Accumulating epidemiological evidence indicates that exposure to fine air pollution particles (APPs) is associated with a variety of adverse health effects. However, the exact physiochemical properties and biological toxicities of fine APPs are still not well characterized. We collected four types of fine particle (FP) (diesel exhaust particles [DEPs], natural organic combustion [NOC] ash, synthetic organic combustion [SOC] ash, and yellow sand dust [YSD]) and investigated their physicochemical properties and in vitro biological toxicity. DEPs were almost entirely composed of ultrafine particles (UFPs), while the NOC, SOC, and YSD particles were a mixture of UFPs and FPs. The main elements in the DEPs, NOC ash, SOC ash, and YSD were black carbon, silicon, black carbon, and silicon, respectively. DEPs exhibited dose-dependent mutagenicity even at a low dose in Salmonella typhimurium TA 98 and 100 strains in an Ames test for genotoxicity. However, NOC, SOC, and YSD particles did not show any mutagenicity at high doses. The neutral red uptake assay to test cell viability revealed that DEPs showed dose-dependent potent cytotoxicity even at a low concentration. The toxicity of DEPs was relatively higher than that of NOC, SOC, and YSD particles. Therefore, these results indicate that among the four FPs, DEPs showed the highest in vitro biological toxicity. Additional comprehensive research studies such as chemical analysis and in vivo acute and chronic inhalation toxicity tests are necessary to determine and clarify the effects of this air contaminant on human health.

• BMB Reports
• /
• 제51권12호
• /
• pp.630-635
• /
• 2018

C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 2 (CXCL2) is a small secreted protein that exhibits a structure similar to the proangiogenic subgroup of the CXC chemokine family. Recently, accumulating evidence suggests that chemokines play a pivotal role in cancer progression and carcinogenesis. We examined the expression levels of 7 types of $ELR^+$ CXCLs messenger RNA (mRNA) in 264 clinical samples. We found that CXCL2 expression was stably down-regulated in 94% of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) specimens compared with paired adjacent normal liver tissues and some HCC cell lines. Moreover, CXCL2 overexpression profoundly attenuated HCC cell proliferation and growth and induced apoptosis in vitro. In animal studies, we found that overexpressing CXCL2 by lentivirus also apparently inhibited the size and weight of subcutaneous tumours in nude mice. Furthermore, we demonstrated that CXCL2 induced HCC cell apoptosis via both nuclear and mitochondrial apoptosis pathways. Our results indicate that CXCL2 negatively regulates the cell cycle in HCC cells via the ERK1/2 signalling pathway. These results provide new insights into HCC and may ultimately lead to the discovery of innovative therapeutic approaches of HCC.