• The Korea Journal of Herbology
• /
• v.38 no.5
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2023

Purpose : To compare the skin damage recovery efficacy of natural Angelicae Gigantis Radix extract (N-AGR) and cultivated A. Gigantis Radix extract (C-AGR). Through this, we confirmed whether the quality standards of herbal medicines recorded in the classic books make a difference in the experimental efficacy using epithelial cells. Methods : The quality standards of medicinal herbs in the classic books and the cultivation and processing conditions of two types of A. gigas were compared. After inducing oxidative stress with H₂O₂, cytoprotective property of N-AGR and C-AGR were evaluated through cell viability. Additionally, after wound formation of epithelial JB6 cells, N-AGR and C-AGR were treated to evaluate wound healing efficacy. Result : The natural A, gigas met the excellent quality standards of the classic books. N-AGR inhibited cell death by oxidative stress induced by H₂O₂, and was superior to C-AGR. Both N-AGR and C-AGR showed dose-dependent wound healing efficacy, but N-AGR was significantly superior to C-AGR. Conclusions : Through the oxidative stress of skin and skin wound healing efficacy experiments using epithelial cells, natural A. gigas showed superior efficacy compared to cultivated A. gigas.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.72-83
• /
• 2023

Background: Globally, spinal cord injury (SCI) results in a big burden, including 90% suffering permanent disability, and 60%-69% experiencing neuropathic pain. The main causes are oxidative stress, inflammation, and degeneration. The efficacy of the stem cell secretome is promising, but the role of human neural stem cell (HNSC)-secretome in neuropathic pain is unclear. This study evaluated how the mechanism of HNSC-secretome improves neuropathic pain and locomotor function in SCI rat models through antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-matrix degradation, and neurotrophic activities. Methods: A proper experimental study investigated 15 Rattus norvegicus divided into normal, control, and treatment groups (30 µL HNSC-secretome, intrathecal in the level of T10, three days post-traumatic SCI). Twenty-eight days post-injury, specimens were collected, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9, F2-Isoprostanes, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, transforming growth factor (TGF)-β, and brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) were analyzed. Locomotor recovery was evaluated via Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan scores. Neuropathic pain was evaluated using the Rat Grimace Scale. Results: The HNSC-secretome could improve locomotor recovery and neuropathic pain, decrease F2-Isoprostane (antioxidant), decrease MMP-9 and TNF-α (anti-inflammatory), as well as modulate TGF-β and BDNF (neurotrophic factor). Moreover, HNSC-secretomes maintain the extracellular matrix of SCI by reducing the matrix degradation effect of MMP-9 and increasing the collagen formation effect of TGF-β as a resistor of glial scar formation. Conclusions: The present study demonstrated the mechanism of HNSC-secretome in improving neuropathic pain and locomotor function in SCI through antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-matrix degradation, and neurotrophic activities.

• Korean Journal of Exercise Nutrition
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.115-122
• /
• 2009

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a common cause of stroke, and it occurs mainly in the striatum, thalamus, cerebellum, and pons. Physical exercise is known to ameliorate neurologic impairment induced by various brain insults. In the present study, the influence of pre-and post-conditioning of treadmill exercise on spatial learning ability, the lesion volume, and apoptotic neuronal cell death in the striatum following ICH in rats was investigated. ICH in the striatum was induced by injection of collagenase using strereotaxic instrument. The rats in the pre-exercise group were scheduled to run on a treadmill before ICH induction for 2 consecutive weeks. The rats in the post-exercise group were scheduled to run on a treadmill after ICH induction for 2 weeks. The rats in the pre-exercise and post-exercise group were scheduled to run on a preconditioning treadmill exercise 2 weeks before ICH induction until postconditioning treadmill exercise 2 weeks after ICH induction, except the day of surgery. For this study, radial arm maze task, Nissl staining, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay, and immunohistochemistry for caspase-3 were performed. Our date showed that treadmill exercise suppressed the ICH-induced apoptotic neuronal cell death and decreased lesion volume in the stratum. Treadmill exercise also alleviated the ICH-induced impairment of spatial learning ability. Preconditioning treadmill exercise before the ICH insult and postconditioning treadmill exercise after the ICH insult showed similar effectiveness on the recovery of ICH. In this study, however, preconditioning exercise before the ICH insult and postconditioning exercise after the ICH insult showed the most potent effectiveness on the recovery of ICH.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.11 no.5
• /
• pp.32-40
• /
• 2011

The tracking and analysis of cell activities in time-lapse sequences plays an important role in understanding complex biological processes such as the spread of the tumor, an invasion of the virus, the wound recovery and the cell division. For automatic tracking of cells, the tasks such as the cell detection at each frame, the investigation of the correspondence between cells in previous and current frames, the identification of the cell division and the recognition of new cells must be performed. This paper proposes an automatic cell tracking algorithm. In the first frame, the marker of each cell is extracted using the feature vector obtained by the analysis of cellular regions, and then the watershed algorithm is applied using the extracted markers to produce the cell segmentation. In subsequent frames, the segmentation results of the previous frame are incorporated in the segmentation process for the current frame. A combined criterion of geometric and intensity property of each cell region is used for the proper association between previous and current cells to obtain correct cell tracking. Simulation results show that the proposed method improves the tracking performance compared to the tracking method in Cellprofiler (the software package for automatic analysis of bioimages).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
• /
• v.11 no.1 s.34
• /
• pp.51-54
• /
• 2007

78-cell proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) stack with an effective electrode area of $295cm^{2}$ were investigated its operational characteristics and effects of CO poisoning. When power output, 5.4 kW, was released at current density of $325mA/cm^{2}$ for 6 hours, stablility of each cell was showed the small deviation of 2.3%. Carbon monoxide is a conventional contaminant in the fuel obtained from reforming processes with an important influence on the performance of the PEMFC. The studies of continuous injection of CO presented (5-20 ppm) with the time gave information about poisoning and recovery processes of the stack.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.497-501
• /
• 2011

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) performance degrade when sulfur dioxide is present in the fuel hydrogen gas, this is referred as $SO_2$ poisoning. This paper reveals $SO_2$ poisoning on PEMFC cathode part by measuring electrical performance of single cell under 1 ppm and 5 ppm on $SO_2$ gas operating. The security of $SO_2$ poisoning depended on $SO_2$ concentration under the best operating conditions($65^{\circ}C$ of cell temperature and 100% of relative humidity between anode and cathode). $SO_2$ adsorption occured on the surface of catalyst layer on membrane electrode assembly (MEA), In addition, MEA poisoning by $SO_2$ was cumulative but reversible. After poisoning within 5 ppm $SO_2$ for 1hr, the electrical performance of PEMFC was found to recover up to about 93% by cyclic voltametry scan.

• Journal of Drive and Control
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2012

Nowadays, various researches about eco-friendly vehicles such as hybrid electric vehicle, fuel cell vehicle and electric vehicle have been actively carried out. Since most of these green cars have electric motors, the regenerative energy technology can be used to improve the fuel economy and the energy efficiency of vehicles. The regenerative brake is an energy recovery mechanism which slows a vehicle by converting its kinetic energy into electric energy, which can be either used immediately or stored until needed. This technology plays a significant role in achieving the high energy usage. However, there are some technical problems for controlling the regenerative braking and the electro-hydraulic brake during switching at transient region. In this paper, the performance simulator for fuel-cell vehicle is developed and transient response characteristics of the regenerative braking system are analyzed in the various driving situations. And the hardware-in-the-loop simulation of electro-hydraulic brake is performed to validate the transient characteristics of the regenerative braking system for fuel-cell electric vehicle.

• Development and Reproduction
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.65-71
• /
• 2014

Cell cycle process is regulated by a number of protein kinases and among them, serine/threonine kinases carry phosphate group from ATP to substrates. The most important three kinase families are Cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk), Polo-like kinase (Plk), and Aurora kinase. Polo-like kinase family consists of 5 members (Plk1-Plk5) and they are involved in multiple functions in eukaryotic cell division. It regulates a variety of aspects such as, centrosome maturation, checkpoint recovery, spindle assembly, cytokinesis, apoptosis and many other features. Recently, it has been reported that Plks are related to tumor development and over-expressed in many kinds of tumor cells. When injected the anti-Plk antibody into human cells, the cells show aneuploidy, and if inhibit Plks, most of the mitotic cell division does not proceed properly. For that reasons, many inhibitors of Plk have been recently emerged as new target for remedy of the cancer therapeutic research. In this paper, we reviewed briefly the characteristics of Plk families and how Plks work in regulating cell cycles and cancer formation, and the possibilities of Plks as target for cancer therapy.

• Yonsei Medical Journal
• /
• v.59 no.9
• /
• pp.1015-1025
• /
• 2018

Kidney diseases including acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease are among the largest health issues worldwide. Dialysis and kidney transplantation can replace a significant portion of renal function, however these treatments still have limitations. To overcome these shortcomings, a variety of innovative efforts have been introduced, including cell-based therapies. During the past decades, advances have been made in the stem cell and developmental biology, and tissue engineering. As part of such efforts, studies on renal cell therapy and artificial kidney developments have been conducted, and multiple therapeutic interventions have shown promise in the pre-clinical and clinical settings. More recently, therapeutic cell-secreting secretomes have emerged as a potential alternative to cell-based approaches. This approach involves the use of renotropic factors, such as growth factors and cytokines, that are produced by cells and these factors have shown effectiveness in facilitating kidney function recovery. This review focuses on the renotropic functions of bioactive compounds that provide protective and regenerative effects for kidney tissue repair, based on the available data in the literature.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.44 no.6
• /
• pp.401-407
• /
• 2021

Infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is an ongoing pandemic disease. SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T-cell responses have been detected and characterized not only in COVID-19 patients and convalescents, but also unexposed individuals. Here, we review the phenotypes and functions of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells in COVID-19 patients and the relationships between SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses and COVID-19 severity. In addition, we describe the phenotypes and functions of SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T cells after recovery from COVID-19 and discuss the presence of SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells in unexposed individuals and SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses elicited by COVID-19 vaccines. A better understanding of T-cell responses is important for effective control of the current COVID-19 pandemic.