• BMB Reports
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• v.45 no.8
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• pp.452-457
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• 2012

Diketoreductase (DKR) from Acinetobacter baylyi contains two tryptophan residues at positions 149 and 222. Trp-149 and Trp-222 are located along the entry path of substrate into active site and at the dimer interface of DKR, respectively. Single and double substitutions of these positions were generated to probe the roles of tryptophan residues. After replacing Trp with Ala and Phe, biochemical and biophysical characteristics of the mutants were thoroughly investigated. Enzyme activity and substrate binding affinity of W149A and W149F were remarkably decreased, suggesting that Trp-149 regulates the position of substrate at the binding site. Meanwhile, enzyme activity of W222F was increased by 1.7-fold while W222A was completely inactive. In addition to lower thermostability of Trp-222 mutants, molecular modeling of the mutants revealed that Trp-222 is vital to protein folding and dimerization of the enzyme.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.472-480
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• 2010

Mechanically deformed cartilage undergoes a temperature dependent phase transformation resulting in reshaping of cartilage. Laser-assisted cartilage reshaping (LCR) is recently introduced to recreate the underlying cartilage framework in structures such as ear, larynx, trachea, and nose. However, this procedure has not been fully supported by confirmed efficacy because of the lack of scientific research and its safety issues. The purpose of this study is to evaluate current laser sources to determine optimal laser wavelength for LCR using mathematical simulations and investigate optical, thermo-mechanical, and backscattering properties of cartilage after laser irradiation. The results showed that 1444 nm wavelength was effective for reshaping of cartilage with minimal thermal damage in the surrounded tissues by monte carlo simulations. Analysis of bend angle changes, thermo-mechanical characteristics, and backscattered properties may be useful to better identify the biophysical transformation responsible for stress relaxation in cartilage and develop an optical feedback control methodologies.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.1
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• pp.402-405
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• 2006

Radiometric calibration of optical image data is necessary to convert raw digital number (DN) value of each pixel into a physically meaningful measurement (radiance). To extract rather quantitative information regarding biophysical characteristics of the earth surface materials, radiometric calibration is often essential procedure. A sensor detects the radiation of sunlight interacted atmospheric constituents. Therefore, the amount of the energy reaching at the sensor is quite different from the initial amount reflected from the surface. To achieve the target reflectance after atmospheric correct, an initial step is to convert DN value to at-sensor radiance. A linear model, the simplest radiometric model, is applied to averaged spectral radiance for this conversion. This study purposes to analyze the sensitivity of several factors affecting on radiance for carrying out absolute radiometric calibration of panchromatic images from KOMPSAT2 launched at July, 2006. MODTRAN is used to calculate radiance at sensor and reflectance of target is measured by a portable spectro-radiometer at the same time the satellite is passing the target for the radiometric calibration. As using different contents of materials composing of atmosphere, the differences of radiance are investigated. Because the spectral sensitivity of panchromatic images of KOMPSAT2 ranges from 500 to 900 nm, the materials causing scattering in visible range are mainly considered to analyze the sensitivity. According to the verified sensitivity, direct measurement can be recommenced for absolute radiometric calibration.

• Journal of fish pathology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.71-80
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• 2001

The purpose of this study was to investigate the microbiological characteristics and the distributions of the bacteria causing streptococcicosis occurred in marine fish farm, Korea. Many kinds of cultures fishes suffered from the disease accompanied with typical symptoms, including darkening of the skin, exophthalmia, petechiae inside of the opercula and distended abdomen. The isolates from the diseased fishes were compared with Lactococcus garvieae by biochmical, biophysical and serological methods and polymerase chain reaction(PCR) assay. We isolated 35 strains of the geuns Streptococcus from the diseased olive flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus, yellow tail, Seriola quinqueradiata and Korean rockfish, Sebastes schlegeli. 15 strains out of the isolates were identified to L. garvieae and the others were not because of their different biochemical and biophysical charateristics. Seven strains of the isolates were agglutinated by rabbit serum raised against L. garvieae $KG^+$ phenotypic cells(ATCC49156)as a reference strain. Twenty-one strains of the isolates identified to L. garvieae since they were formed the expected band through performing PCR assay using specific primers, pLG-1(5'-CATAACAATGAGATCGC-3') and pLG-2(5'-GCACCCCGCGGTTG-3'). In the present study, it showed that L. garvieae was a dominant strain causing streptococcicosis in the tested area due to occurrence of 21 strains as L. garvieae out of all the isolates, 9 atrains as Streptococcus sp. and 5 strains as Enterococcus sp.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1517-1522
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• 2007

Gap junction channels formed by two adjacent cells allow the passage of small molecules up to ${\sim}\;1\;kDa$ between them. Hemichannel (connexon or half of gap junction) also behaves as a membrane channel like sodium or potassium channels in a single cell membrane. Among 26 types of connexin (Cx), $Cx32^*43E1$ (a chimera in which the first extracellular loop of Cx32 has been replaced with that of Cx43), Cx38, Cx46, and Cx50 form functional hemichannels as well as gap junction channels. Although it is known that Xenopus oocytes express endogenous connexin 38 (Cx38), its biophysical characteristics at single channel level are poorly understood. In this study, we performed single channel recordings from single Xenopus oocytes to acquire the biophysical properties of Cx38 including voltage-dependent gating and permeation (conductance and selectivity). The voltage-dependent fast and slow gatings of Cx38 hemichannel are distinct. Fast gating events occur at positive potentials and their open probabilities are low. In contrast, slow gatings dominate at negative potentials with high open probabilites. Based on hi-ionic experiments, Cx38 hemichannel is anion-selective. It will be interesting to test whether charged amino acid residues in the amino terminus of Cx38 are responsible for voltage gatings and permeation.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.215-230
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• 2005

To analyze physical and ecological characteristics of sand streams, Cheongmi, Yanghwa and Bokha streams on the similar environment were Lnvestigated and estimated. According to the estimation results of physical structures, ecological properties of the Cheogmi and Yanghwa streams were classified as 'fair to good', and the Bokha stream was classified as 'fair'; commonly, the representing streams were comparatively active on meandering and accumulation; on the other hand, erosion was less active. As a result of the study for flora on this 3 streams, $Phaiaris\;arundinacfa\rightarrowPhragmites\;japonica\rightarrowPhragmites\;communis\rightarrowSalix\;koreensis\rightarrowFraxinus\;rhynchophylla\rightarrowRobinia\;pseudo-acacia-Acer$ ginnala communities were developed in order of being closest to the water shore. In case of benthic macroinvertebrates, Ephemera striga ta Eaton and Cajopteryx atrata Selys, usually inhabited in the uncontaminated water, were investigated as common species. Besides, Limnodrilus gotoi Hatai and Family Chironomidae sp. 1 were the common dominant benthic macroinvertebrates.

• Journal of fish pathology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.105-112
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• 1994

A new bacterial infection occurred among the cultured Korean catfish, Silurus asotus, in Chunbuk prefecture, Korea, 1993. This disease produced about 30% mortality in the fish for 4 months. The diseased fish was swimming listless at the water surface with head up and tail down, sometimes spinnig in circles. The most outstanding clinical sign was ulceration on the skull and at the base of the pectoral fins. The causative organism was isolated from the brain, kidney, spleen and liver of diseased fish, and identified as Edwardsiella icaluri by the biochemical and biophysical characteristics. After intraperitoneal innoculaton of the isolate, the pathogenicity was proved positive for Korean catfish, S. asotus, and channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, but negative for carp, Cyprinus carpio.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.87-103
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• 2008

Despite its high level of symbolic and ecological values, BaigDooDaeGahn, about 684km long stretch of mountains in the eastern part of Korean peninsular, has been widely destroyed and barely recovered. While Korean government enacted a special law in 2005 to protect these areas and designated about 2,658 $km^2$ as the protection zone in 2007, there were a number of sites inside that had been disturbed by mining, illegal crop cultivations, stone quarry, development of resort facilities, construction of roads, and other human activities. To restore these damaged areas in a sustainable manner, the integrative system to categorize damaged areas for participatory restoration by local residents was suggested by this study. The most distinguished feature of the proposed system was to integrate the existing restoration approach focusing on biophysical conditions into the sustainability-building approach to reactivate socio-economic conditions of local society, called 'restoration of eco-cultural community'. As an entry stage to design the new restoration system including processes and procedures, the damaged areas had to be re-categorized by two characteristics, their physical conditions in terms of possibility of public participatory restoration and the readiness of local society required for pursuing endogenous development. More detailed considerations regarding these two characteristics and three different categories has been suggested and discussed.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.271-278
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• 2020

Glycerol dehydrogenase (GlyDH) catalyzes the oxidation of glycerol to dihydroxyacetone (DHA), which is the first step in the glycerol metabolism pathway. GlyDH has attracted great interest for its potential industrial applications, since DHA is a precursor for the synthesis of many commercially valuable chemicals and various drugs. In this study, GlyDH from Klebsiella pneumoniae (KpGlyDH) was overexpressed in E. coli and purified to homogeneity for biochemical and molecular characterization. KpGlyDH exhibits an exclusive preference for NAD⁺ over NADP⁺. The enzymatic activity of KpGlyDH is maximal at pH 8.6 and pH 10.0. Of the three common polyol substrates, KpGlyDH showed the highest k_cat/K_m value for glycerol, which is three times higher than for racemic 2,3-butanediol and 32 times higher than for ethylene glycol. The k_cat value for glycerol oxidation is notably high at 87.1 ± 11.3 sec^-1. KpGlyDH was shown to exist in an equilibrium between two different oligomeric states, octamer and hexadecamer, by size-exclusion chromatography analysis. KpGlyDH is structurally thermostable, with a T_m of 83.4℃, in thermal denaturation experiment using circular dichroism spectroscopy. The biochemical and biophysical characteristics of KpGlyDH revealed in this study should provide the basis for future research on its glycerol metabolism and possible use in industrial applications.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.831-843
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• 2010

Purpose: In this study cardiovascular health status and health behavior of Korean women based on their household income were explored. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, 91 women residing in the community were recruited to complete survey questionnaires and biophysical tests including blood pressure (BP), body mass index (BMI), body fat rate, waist circumference (WC), and blood chemistry tests. Results: Compared to non-low income women (NLIW), low income women (LIW) were more likely to be older, less educated, and jobless, and further more LIW were postmenopause and reported having been diagnosed with hypertension or hypercholesterolemia. Significant differences were found in systolic BP, triglyceride level, BMI, body fat rate, and WC between the groups. Two fifths of the LIW had indications for metabolic syndrome. Their 10-yr risk estimate of myocardioal infarction or coronary death demonstrated a higher probability than that of NLIW. Although these significant differences were due to age gap between the groups, advanced age is known to be one of the key characteristics of LIW as well as a non-modifiable risk factor. Conclusion: Effective community programs for vulnerable women at risk of cardiovascular disease should be based on strategies targeting unhealthy behaviors and modifiable risk factors.