• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.42 no.12
• /
• pp.840-849
• /
• 2019

The spatiotemporal mitotic processes are controlled qualitatively by phosphorylation and qualitatively by ubiquitination. Although the SKP1-CUL1-F-box protein (SCF) complex and the anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) mainly mediate ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis of mitotic regulators, the E3 ligase for a large portion of mitotic proteins has yet to be identified. Here, we report c-Cbl as an E3 ligase that degrades DDA3, a protein involved in spindle dynamics. Depletion of c-Cbl led to increased DDA3 protein levels, resulting in increased recruitment of Kif2a to the mitotic spindle, a concomitant reduction in spindle formation, and chromosome alignment defects. Furthermore, c-Cbl depletion induced centrosome over-duplication and centriole amplification. Therefore, we concluded that c-Cbl controls spindle dynamics and centriole duplication through its E3 ligase activity against DDA3.

• Genomics & Informatics
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.142-148
• /
• 2005

The immune response-related genes have been suggested to be the most favorable genes for positive selection during evolution. Comparing the entire DNA sequence of chimpanzee chromosome 22 (PTR22) with human chromosome 21 (HSA21), we have identified 15 orthologs having indel in their coding sequences. Among them, interferon-${\alpha}$ receptor-1 gene (IFNAR1), an immuneresponse-related gene, is subjected to comparative genomic analysis. Chimpanzee IFNAR1 showed the same genomic structure as human IFNAR1 (11 exons and 10 introns) except the 3 bp insertion in exon 4. The sequence alignment of IFNAR1 coding sequence indicated that 'ISPP' amino acid sequence motif is highly conserved in chimpanzee and other animals including mouse and chicken. However, the human IFNAR1 shows that one proline residue is missing in the sequence motif. The homology modeling of the IFNAR1 structures suggests that the proline deletion in human IFNAR1 leads to the formation of the following ${\alpha}$-helix, whereas two sequential prolines in chimpanzee IFNAR1 inhibit it. As a result, human IFNAR1 may adopt a characteristic structure distinct from chimpanzee IFNAR1. This human specific trait could contribute to specific immune response in the most optimized manner for humans. Further molecular biological studies on the IFNAR1 will help us to gain insights into the molecular implication of species-specific host-pathogen interaction in primate evolution.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
• /
• v.22 no.2 s.73
• /
• pp.43-54
• /
• 2004

This study analyzes characteristics and applicability of genetic algorithms and genetic operators to optimize highway alignments. Genetic algorithms, one of artificial intelligence techniques, are fast and efficient search algorithms for generating, evaluation and finding optimal highway alignment alternatives. The performance of genetic algorithms as an optimal search tool highly depends on genetic operators that are designed as a problem-specific. This study adopts low mutation operators(uniform mutation operator, straight mutation operator, non-uniform mutation operator whole non-uniform mutation operator) to explore whole search spaces, and four crossover operators(simple crossover operator, two-point crossover operator, arithmetic crossover operator, heuristic crossover operator) to exploit food characteristics of the best chromosome in previous generations. A case study and a sensitivity analysis have shown that the eight problem-specific operators developed for optimizing highway alignments enhance the search performance of genetic algorithms, and find good solutions(highway alignment alternatives). It has been also found that a mixed and well-combined use of mutation and crossover operators is very important to balance between pre-matured solutions when employing more crossover operators and more computation time when adopting more mutation operators.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.607-615
• /
• 2021

Cytokines are protein mediators that possess the ability to assist cell-to-cell communication in immune system-related activities. In general, pathogen endotoxins activate the release of inflammatory mediators, and with time, there is an increase in the cytokine levels in the body. Interleukin (IL)-6 mediates the acute-phase inflammatory response, and elevated IL-6 levels have been reported in peritoneal fluids of women with pelvic inflammation and endometriosis, thereby associating it with oocyte quality and infertility. To overcome subfertility or infertility in humans and animals, the present study was done to examine the effect of recombinant IL-6 on porcine oocytes matured in vitro and subsequently to determine the fertilization rate and embryo development. Porcine oocytes were incubated with varying concentrations of IL-6 (0 - 2 ㎍·mL^-1) for 44 h followed by in vitro fertilization and culturing of the oocytes. The oocytes or embryos were fixed with 3.7% paraformaldehyde (PFA) and stained with fluorescence dyes, and the meiotic spindle, chromosome organization, fertilization status and embryo development were subsequently assessed under a fluorescence microscope. We observed induction of an abnormal meiotic spindle alignment in the oocytes incubated with IL-6 compared to the control oocytes incubated without IL-6. Moreover, significantly decreased fertilization rates and embryo development were observed for oocytes incubated with IL-6 (p < 0.05). Thus, an increased IL-6 level during oocyte maturation could be associated with fertilization failure due to an aberrant chromosomal alignment and a disruption of the cortical granules. Taken together, our results indicate that successful assisted reproduction can be achieved by controlling the levels of inflammatory cytokines.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2002.10a
• /
• pp.180-182
• /
• 2002

Substantial genomic diversity has been expected among clinical isolates of H. pylori. We have suggested that the two complete H. pylori genomes already sequenced may be insufficient for providing a discriminatory tool for typing clinical isolates as well as an insight into the genomic diversity, which enable to establish strategy for control of H. pylori infection. In this study, we determine the nucleotide sequence of the entire genome of Korean strain 51 and compare it with two reported genomic sequences to suggest validity for extensive genomic sequencing of H. pylori. The genome of H. pylori 51 consists of a circular chromosome with a size of 1,591,297 bp, which is corresponding to $95.4\%\;and\;96.8\%$ of the 26695 and J99 chromosome length, respectively. We predict that there are 1,454 open reading frames (ORFs) in 51, representing $91.4\%\;and\;97.2\%$ of the reported numbers of ORF of 26695 and J99, respectively. In contrast to 26695 and J99 that have 123 and 65 strain-specific genes, respectively, of the 1,454 genes, only 39 genes are unique to 51. Differences in genomic organization between 51 and each foreign strain were greater than between 2 foreign strains in pair wise entire sequence alignments by BLASTN. Particularly, the extent of genomic rearrangement observed between 51 and 26695 is higher than between 51 and J99. Multiple sequence alignment of orthologous genes among 3 strains showed that 51 is genetically closer to 26695 rather than J99. Phylogenetic analysis of nonsynonymous and synonymous mutation indicated J99 has the longest branch length in the unrooted phylogenetic tree, suggesting that J99 has higher mutation rate than the other 2 strains.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
• /
• v.52 no.4
• /
• pp.458-468
• /
• 2007

To tolerate environmentally adverse conditions such as cold, drought, and salinity, plants often synthesize and accumulate proline in cells as compatible osmolytes. ${\Delta}^1$-Pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase(P5CS) catalyzes the rate-limiting step of proline biosynthesis from glutamate. Two complete genes, MtP5CS1 and MtP5CS2, were isolated from the model legume Medicago truncatula by cDNA cloning and bacterial artificial chromosome library screening. Nucleotide sequence analysis showed that both genes consisted of 20 exons and 19 introns. Alignment of the predicted amino acid sequences revealed high similarities with P5CS proteins from other plant species. The two MtP5CS genes were expressed in response to high salt and low temperature treatments. Semi-quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction showed that MtP5CS1 was expressed earlier than MtP5CS2, indicating differential regulation of the two genes. To evaluate the reverse genetic effects of nucleotide changes on MtP5CS function, a Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes approach was taken. Three mutants each were isolated for MtP5CS1 and MtP5CS2, of which a P5CS2 nonsense mutant carrying a codon change from arginine to stop was expected to bring translation to premature termination. These provide a valuable genetic resource with which to determine the function of the P5CS genes in environmental stress responses of legume crops.

• Journal of the korean society of oceanography
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.163-170
• /
• 1997

Some CMP gathers acquired from shallow marine seismic reflection survey in offshore Korea do not show the hyperbolic trend of moveout. It originated from so-called swell effect of source and streamer, which are towed under rough sea surface during the data acquisition. The observed time deviations of NMO-corrected traces can be entirely ascribed to the swell effect. To correct these time deviations, a residual statics is introduced using Genetic Algorithms (GA) into the swell correction. A new class of global optimization methods known as GA has recently been developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence and has a resemblance with the genetic evolution of biological systems. The basic idea in using GA as an optimization method is to represent a population of possible solutions or models in a chromosome-type encoding and manipulate these encoded models through simulated reproduction, crossover and mutation. GA parameters used in this paper are as follows: population size Q=40, probability of multiple-point crossover P$_c$=0.6, linear relationship of mutation probability P$_m$ from 0.002 to 0.004, and gray code representation are adopted. The number of the model participating in tournament selection (nt) is 3, and the number of expected copies desired for the best population member in the scaling of fitness is 1.5. With above parameters, an optimization run was iterated for 101 generations. The combination of above parameters are found to be optimal for the convergence of the algorithm. The resulting reflection events in every NMO-corrected CMP gather show good alignment and enhanced quality stack section.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
• /
• v.52 no.2
• /
• pp.69-76
• /
• 2021

Cannabis sativa is an important industrial plant utilized to produce fiber, oil, and medicinal ingredients. A chemotype of cannabis is divided into "Drug type" with predominance of tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) and "Fiber type" with cannabidiolic acid (CBDA). To develop molecular markers for the discrimination of these two types, nucleotide sequences of THCA synthase and CBDA synthase as well as their pseudogenes were retrieved from the recently published cannabis genome in chromosome scale. Gene-specific SNPs were discovered by multiple alignment of these sequences, and 2 dominant marker sets from each gene were designed for selective amplification. Our markers successfully identified "Drug type" and "Fiber type" cannabis plants as well as forensic samples including processed materials. Our molecular markers will provide a fast and efficient system for molecular-based identification of the cannabis plant.

• Genomics & Informatics
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.19.1-19.15
• /
• 2022

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is an important food and feed crop which rich in mineral sources. The WUSCHEL-related homeobox (WOX) gene family plays important roles in plant development and identification of putative gene families, their structure, and potential functions is a primary step for not only understanding the genetic mechanisms behind various biological process but also for genetic improvement. A variety of computational tools, including MAFFT, HMMER, hidden Markov models, Pfam, SMART, MEGA, ProtTest, BLASTn, and BRAD, among others, were used. We identified 34 MsWOX genes based on a systematic analysis of the alfalfa plant genome spread in eight chromosomes. This is an expansion of the gene family which we attribute to observed chromosomal duplications. Sequence alignment analysis revealed 61 conserved proteins containing a homeodomain. Phylogenetic study sung reveal five evolutionary clades with 15 motif distributions. Gene structure analysis reveals various exon, intron, and untranslated structures which are consistent in genes from similar clades. Functional analysis prediction of promoter regions reveals various transcription binding sites containing key growth, development, and stress-responsive transcription factor families such as MYB, ERF, AP2, and NAC which are spread across the genes. Most of the genes are predicted to be in the nucleus. Also, there are duplication events in some genes which explain the expansion of the family. The present research provides a clue on the potential roles of MsWOX family genes that will be useful for further understanding their functional roles in alfalfa plants.

• Genomics & Informatics
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.35.1-35.12
• /
• 2023

The Bacillus cereus group, also known as B. cereus sensu lato (B. cereus s.l.), is composed of various Bacillus species, some of which can cause diarrheal or emetic food poisoning. Several emerging highly heat-resistant Bacillus species have been identified, these include B. thermoamylovorans, B. sporothermodurans, and B. cytotoxicus NVH 391-98. Herein, we performed whole genome analysis of two thermotolerant Bacillus sp. isolates, Bacillus sp. B48 and Bacillus sp. B140, from an omelet with acacia leaves and fried rice, respectively. Phylogenomic analysis suggested that Bacillus sp. B48 and Bacillus sp. B140 are closely related to B. cereus and B. thuringiensis, respectively. Whole genome alignment of Bacillus sp. B48, Bacillus sp. B140, mesophilic strain B. cereus ATCC14579, and thermophilic strain B. cytotoxicus NVH 391-98 using the Mauve program revealed the presence of numerous homologous regions including genes responsible for heat shock in the dnaK gene cluster. However, the presence of a DUF4253 domain-containing protein was observed only in the genome of B. cereus ATCC14579 while the intracellular protease PfpI family was present only in the chromosome of B. cytotoxicus NVH 391-98. In addition, prophage Clp protease-like proteins were found in the genomes of both Bacillus sp. B48 and Bacillus sp. B140 but not in the genome of B. cereus ATCC14579. The genomic profiles of Bacillus sp. isolates were identified by using whole genome analysis especially those relating to heat-responsive gene clusters. The findings presented in this study lay the foundations for subsequent studies to reveal further insights into the molecular mechanisms of Bacillus species in terms of heat resistance mechanisms.