• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.259-265
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• 2017

This study aimed to investigate the analgesic effect of substance P (SP) in an animal model of neuropathic pain. An experimental model of neuropathic pain, the chronic constriction injury (CCI) model, was established using ICR mice. An intravenous (i.v.) injection of SP (1 nmole/kg) was administered to the mice to examine the analgesic effects of systemic SP on neuropathic pain. Behavioral testing and immunostaining was performed following treatment of the CCI model with SP. SP attenuated mechanical allodynia in a time-dependent manner, beginning at 1 h following administration, peaking at 1 day post-injection, and decaying by 3 days post-injection. The second injection of SP also increased the threshold of mechanical allodynia, with the effects peaking on day 1 and decaying by day 3. A reduction in phospho-ERK and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) accompanied the attenuation of mechanical allodynia. We have shown for the first time that i.v. administration of substance P attenuated mechanical allodynia in the maintenance phase of neuropathic pain using von Frey's test, and simultaneously reduced levels of phospho-ERK and GFAP, which are representative biochemical markers of neuropathic pain. Importantly, glial cells in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord (L4-L5) of SP-treated CCI mice, expressed the anti-inflammatory cytokine, IL-10, which was not seen in vehicle saline-treated mice. Thus, i.v. administration of substance P may be beneficial for improving the treatment of patients with neuropathic pain, since it decreases the activity of nociceptive factors and increases the expression of anti-nociceptive factors.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.739-746
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• 2017

As alternatives to antibiotics in livestocks, probiotics have been used, although most of them in the form of liquid or semisolid formulations, which show low cell viability after oral administration. Therefore, suitable dry dosage forms should be developed for livestocks to protect probiotics against the low pH in the stomach such that the products have higher probiotics survivability. Here, in order to develop a dry dosage forms of probiotics for poultry, we used hydroxypropyl methylcellulose phthalate 55 (HPMCP 55) as a tablet-forming matrix to develop probiotics in a tablet form for poultry. Here, we made three different kinds of probiotics-loaded tablet under different compression forces and investigated their characteristics based on their survivability, morphology, disintegration time, and kinetics in simulated gastrointestinal fluid. The results indicated that the probiotics formulated in the tablets displayed higher survival rates in acidic gastric conditions than probiotics in solution. Rapid release of the probiotics from the tablets occurred in simulated intestinal fluid because of fast swelling of the tablets in neutral pH. As a matrix of tablet, HPMCP 55 provided good viability of probiotics after 6 months under refrigeration. Moreover, after oral administration of probiotics-loaded tablets to chicken, more viable probiotics were observed, than with solution type, through several digestive areas of chicken by the tablets.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.461-470
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• 2001

The Shihung mine was restored in the early 90's after abandonment for 20 yews since 1973. Although disposed mine tailings were removed and the site was replaced by an incineration plant, still some residual mine tailings remain in the places including the old mine tailing ditposal area and the adjacent agricultural area. These residual mine tailings are prone to impose an adverse impact on the soil and groundwater and needs investigation for the potential contamination. Mine tailing samples were collected from the old tailing disposal area and the iii paddy. The porewater from the mine tailing were extracted and analysed to investigate chemical changes along the reaction path. Batch leaching tests were also carried out in the laboratory to find any supporting evidence found in the field analysis. Evidence of elemental leaching was confirmed both by the mine tailing and the porewater chemistry in them. The element concentrations of Cu, Cd, Pb, Zn in the porewater exceed the standard for drinking water of Korean government and US EPA. Leaching of heavy metals from the mine tailing seem to be responsible for the contamination. In batch leaching test. heavy metals were either continuous1y released or declined rapidly. Combining the information with porewater variation with depths and the geochemical meodeling results, most of elements are controlled by dissolution and/or precipitation processes, with some solubility controlling solid phases (Cu, Pb, Fe and Zn). Batch leaching test conducted at fixed pH 4 showed much higher releases for the heavy metals up to 400 times (Zn) and this area is becoming more vulnerable to soil and groundwater pollution as precipitation pH shifts to acidic condition.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.20-47
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• 2002

Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) maps for human stomach tissue proteins have been prepared by displaying the protein components of the tissue by 2-DE and identifying them using mass spectrometry. This will enable us to present an overview of the proteins expressed In human stomach tissues and lays the basis for subsequent comparative proteome analysis studies with gastric diseases such as gastric cancer. In this study, 2-DE maps of soluble fraction proteins were prepared on two gel images with partially overlapping pH ranges of 4-7 and 6-9. On the gels covering pH 4-7 and pH 6-9, about 900 and 600 protein spots were detected on silver staining, respectively. For protein identification, proteins spots on micropreparative gels stained by colloidal Coomassie Brilliant Blue G-250 were excised, digested in-gel with trypsln, and analyzed by peptide mass fingerprinting with delayed extraction-matrix assisted laser dosorption/ionization-mass spectrometry (DE-MALDI-MS). In all, 243 protein spots (168 spots in acidic map and 75 spots in basic map) corresponding to 136 different proteins were identified. Besides these principal maps, maps of lower resolution, i.e. overview maps (displayed on pH 3-10 gels) for total homogenate and soluble fraction, are also presented with some identifications mapped on them. Based on the 2-DE maps presented in this study, a 2-DE database for human stomach tissue proteome has been constructed and available at http://proteome.gsnu.ac.kr/DB/2DPAGE/Stomach/. The 2-DE maps and the database resulting from this study will serve important resources for subsequent proteomic studies for analyzing the normal protein variability in healthy tissues and specific protein variations in diseased tissues.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.765-769
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• 2002

Improvement of hygienic quality of powdered raw grains and vegetables by fermentation was investigated. Luc-tobacillus sp. isolated from kimchi was used as a starter. The cell counts of coliform group and SS enteric bacteria on the SS agar plate in raw grains and vegetables were 2.3$\times$103 cfu/mL and 8.6$\times$10$^3$ cfu/mL, respectively. The starlet, Lactobacillu sp., reached 10$^{7}$ cfu/mL after 48 hr in fermentation. At that time, the coliform group and enteric bacteria on the SS agar plate were gradually inactivated and eliminated after 60 hr of fermentation. During the fermentation process, pH of the suspension was lowered and acidity increased. Antimicrobial activity of the acidic supernatant of fermented raw grains and vegetal]les against the E. coli sp. and Salmonella sp. was higher than that of lactic acid solution or neutralized supernatant. Therefore, it was considered that antimicrobial effect of the fermented raw grains and vegetal]les might be accelerated by tile synergic effect of acid and bacteriocin, and liquid fermentation of powdered raw grains and vegetables will be effective for inactivation of hygienic microorganisms.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.143-147
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• 1999

The present paper describes the solvent extraction behaviors and the mutual separation of Am and Eu by sulphur bearing Cyanex 301 acidic extractant in sodium nitrate solutions. Original Cyanex 301 was not able to separate the Am and Eu because of their similar extraction behaviors. The saponification of commercial Cyanex 301 was performed by small amounts of 8 M NaOH solutions and saponified Cyanex 301 was able to separate of Am from Eu with high selectivity in sodium nitrate aqueous solution. The separation factors ($SF_{Am/Eu}$) were increased with saponified ratio of commercial Cyanex 301, pH of sodium nitrate solution and initial concentration of Eu. To obtain the homogeneous saponified Cyanex 301, heterogeneous saponified Cyanex 301 was treated with addition of octyl alcohol or filtration. The observed $SF_{Am/Eu}$ was 32.3 for the former and 930 for the latter. Finally, the stripping behaviors of Am and Eu were similar and stripping yields showed 96.1% for the 1 M $NaNO_3$(pH=1.3) and 99% for the mixture solution of 0.05 M DTPA and 1.5 M lactic acid.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2434-2438
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• 2011

Ghana is the country that produces world's biggest production of Cacao. Cacao is the main ingredient of chocolate, which has been widely used in a variety of food as its anti-oxidantal effect is well known to public. Moreover, Ghana-produced Cacao is known to have a bigger amount of polyphenol compared to the ones produced elsewhere, and as they are not processed with alkali Ghana-produced Cacoa is slightly acidic as it is. This project aimed at analysing this natural Ghana Cacao's polyphenol composition, developed cosmetic mask using it and don skin irritation tests in order to study skin improvement effect. As a result, it was found that Ghana-produced Cacao contains approximately 3.6% of tannin, showing 5.6 pH. From the result of the first skin irritation test, the result of experiment of the cometic masks which contain 15% of Ghana cacao powder showed that the irritation was not shown. After 120 minutes, in the experiment of skin improvement effect, it was proved to have skin improvement effect, appearing 20% increase in skin moisture, -17% decrease in skin moisture evaporation, convergence of 5.3pH, 24% increase in skin elasticity.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.331-338
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• 2006

Coal combustion fly ash, which has a high available Si content and alkaline pH, was selected as a potential source of soil amendment in this study. Two field experiments were carried out to evaluate the possibility of heavy metal accumulation in silt loam (Pyeongtaeg series) and loamy sand (Nagdong series) of rice (Oryza sativa) paddy soils to which 0, 40, 80, and $120Mg\;ha^{-1}$ of fly ash were added. Rice yields increased significantly with fly ash application and the highest rice yields were achieved following the addition of around $90Mg\;ha^{-1}$ fly ash. Fly ash increased the soil pH but did not increase heavy metal uptakes of rice and heavy metal concentration in soils, due to very low concentration of heavy metals in the selected fly ash. Labile fraction of heavy metals (exchangeable + acidic fraction) was scarcely contained and most of them were stable and unavailable form (oxidizable and residual fraction). In conclusion fly ash could be a good supplement to an inorganic soil amendments without heavy metal contamination in paddy soils.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.971-976
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• 1999

Exo-polygalacturonase (EPG) from Rhizopus sp. was applied to the extraction of pectin from pear pomace because EPG produces pectin by solubilizing protopectin. The content of total galacturonic acid in water-alcohol insoluble pectin (WAIP) was determined as 34.6%. Pear pomace was solubilized by using EPG, with regarding reaction pH, temperature, time and ratio of enzyme to substrate in order to find optimum condition. While the yield by an acidic treatment was 6.2%, the maximum yield by an enzymatic treatment was 23.4% under the extraction condition of pH 7.8, $60^{\circ}C$, 36 hr and 1/10 of enzyme/substrate. At this condition, the purity and methoxyl content of enzyme-extracted pectin were, respectively, 34.7% and 0.7%, while those of acid-extracted pectin were, respectively, 71.1% and 5.0%. Meanwhile, the average molecular weight of pectin extracted by the enzymatic method was $2.5{\times}10^{3}$ while that of acid-solubilized pectin was $8.4{\times}10^{3}$.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.216-221
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• 2017

Diesel engines have the highest brake thermal efficiency among internal combustion engines. Therefore, they are utilized in medium and large transportation vehicles requiring large amounts of power such as heavy trucks, ships, power generation systems, etc. However, diesel engines have a disadvantage of generating large quantities of nitrogen oxides during the combustion process. Therefore, the authors tried to reduce the amount of nitrogen oxides in marine diesel engines using a wet-type exhaust gas cleaning system utilizing the undivided electrolyzed seawater method. In this method, electrolyzed seawater in injected into the harmful gas discharge from the diesel engine using real seawater. The authors investigated the reduction of NO and NOx from the pH value, available chlorine concentration, and the temperature of electrolyzed seawater. The results of this experiment indicated that when the electrolyzed seawater is acidic, the NO oxidation rate in the oxidation tower is higher than that when the electrolyzed seawater has a neutral pH. Likewise, the NO oxidation rate increased with the increase in concentration of chlorine. Further, it was confirmed that the electrolyzed seawater temperature had no effect on the NO oxidation rate. Thus, the NOx exhaust emission value produced by the diesel engine was reduced by means of electrolyzed seawater treatment.