• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.257-263
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• 1999

Identification of the genes responsible for the recovery of virulence in brain-passaged Acanthamoeba culbertsoni was attempted via mRNA differential display polymerase chain reaction (mRNA DD-PCR) analysis. In order to identify the regulatory changes in transcription of the virulence related genes by the brain passages, mRNA DD-PCR was performed which enabled the display of differentially transcribed mRNAs after the brain passages. Through mRNA DD-PCR analysis. 96 brain-passaged amoeba specific amplicons were observed and were screened to identify the amplicons that failed to amplify in the non-brain-passaged amoeba mRNAs. Out of the 96 brain-passaged amoeba specific amplicons, 12 turned out to be amplified only from the brain-passaged amoeba mRNAs by DNA slot blot hybridization. The clone, A289C, amplified with an arbitrary primer of UBC ＃289 and the oligo dT$_{11}$-C primer, revealed the highest homology (49.8％) to the amino acid sequences of UPD-galactose lipid transferase of Erwinia amylovora, which is known to act as an important virulence factor. The deduced amino acid sequences of an insert DNA in clone A289C were also revealed to be similar to cpsD, which is the essential gene for the expression of type III capsule in group B streptococcus. Upregulated expression of clone A289C was verified by RNA slot blot hybridization. Similar hydrophobicity values were also observed between A289C (at residues 47-66) and the AmsG gene of E. amylovora (at residues 286-305: transmembrane domains). This result suggested that the insert of clone A289C might play the same function as galactosyl transferase controlled by the AmsG gene in E. amylovora.a.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.69-74
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• 2001

Purpose: $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO is a radiopharmaceutical for imaging cerebral blood flow. HMPAO (RR, SS)-4.8-diaza-3,6,6,9-tetramethylundecan-2,10- dione bisoxime) has three stereoismers such as, meso-. d-, and l-HMPAO. Techentium complexes of meso-HMPAO and d,l-HMPAO are known to have different in vivo brain uptakes. In this study, enantiomers of HMPAO (d-HMPAO and l-HMPAO) were separated from d,l-HMPAO. These enantiomers were labeled with $^{99m}Tc$ and the biodistribution studies were performed in mice. Materials and Methods: An intermediate imine product was produced from 2,3-butanedione monooxime and 2,2-dimethyl-1,3-propanediamine (54% yield) and was reduced into a mixture of three isomers (35% yield). The meso-isomer was separated from d,l-mixture by repeated fractional crystallization (11 % yield). The d- and l-enantiomers were subsequently separated by co-crystallization with optical isomers of tartaric acid (25% and 5% yield. respectively). Each enantiomeric HMPAO was labeled with $^{99m}Tc$ by reacting with $SnCI_2{\cdot}2H_2O\;and\;^{99m}Tc$-pertechnetate. Biodistribution study was performed 1 hr after tail vein injection to ICR mice. Results: Radiochemical purities of each compound were over 80%. In biodistribution study. the brain uptakes of d,l- d- and l-form were 1.34, 1.12 and 1.67% ID/g, respectively. In case of l-lsomer the brain uptake was higher (1.5 fold) than d-isomer. Conclusion: We successfully purified each enantiomeric HMPAO. In biodistribution study of stereoismers of $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO in mice, l-HMPAO may show better brain image than d,l-HMPAO which was supplied in a commercial kit.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.448-452
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• 2000

Phospholipase D(PLD) is the enzyme catalyzing the hydrolysis of the terminal phosphcester bond of phospholipid head group to produce phosphatidic acid and the corresponding base. The effect of spermine on the PLD activity of rat brain mitochondrial preparation was investigated. Spermine, in the presence of oleic acid, activates the rat brain mitochondrial PLD, whose effect was further enhanced by the presence of divalent cation, $Ca^{2+}$, $Mg^{2+}$, and $Ba^{2+}$. Among the various monoamines tested, only histamine at the high concentration was effective in activation the PLD. Polylysine increased the PLD activity, particularly, the longer chain of the molecule activated the PLD more effectively. There was no significant difference in the substrate specificity for the PLD activity between phosphatidylcholine(PC) and phoshpatidylethanolamine (PE). This substrate specifitiy is different from the PE specificity reported for the intestinal mitochondrial PLD.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.191-202
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• 1996

This study was aimed to charily the change of NADPH-diaphorase(NADPH-d) and neuropeptide Y(NPY) associated with aging of the rots. To verily the effect of aging of NPY and NADPH-d-positive neurons in the brain stem, the neurons were stained by the immunohistochemical and histochemical method. In the aged group, the number of NADPH-d-positive neurons was significantly decreased in substantia nigra lateralis, supragenual nucleus, raphe magnus nucleus and raphe obscurus nucleus as compared with control group. The number of NADPH-d-positive neurons was not significantly decreased in superior colliculus, interpeduncular nucleus, central gray. dorsal raphe nucleus, retrorubral nucleus, pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus, laterodorsal tegmental nucleus, pontine reticular nucleus, prepositus hypoglossal nucleus and nucleus solitarius of the aged rats. The NADPH-d and NPY-positive neurons were found in the interpeduncular nucleus, central gray, substantia nigra lateralis, laterodorsal tegmental nucleus, nucleus solitarius, raphe magnus nucleus, raphe obscurus nucleus of the control and aged groups. The coexistence of NADPH-d and NPY in the some cell was not found in the brain stem of both groups.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.82-89
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• 2010

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine distribution patterns of TOAST subtypes of ischemic stroke patients admitted to oriental hospitals and to get a better understanding of present conditions in oriental medicine by comparing with the Korea stroke registry (KSR), the largest and representative data. Methods: Clinical data were collected from acute ischemic stoke patients. MRI studies including vascular images were performed in all cases. TOAST criteria were used to determine subtypes of ischemic stroke patients. According to the duration from disease onset to hospital admission time, patients were assigned to 3 groups (Group I0 to 3 d, Group II4 to 7 d, Group III8 to 28 d) and the distribution of TOAST subtypes were compared among these three groups. Results: We collected 514 sets of clinical data from 10 oriental hospitals between May 2007 and September 2009. Small vessel occlusion (SVO) subtype was the most common (57.62%), followed by large artery atherosclerosis (LAA, 29.98%). Compared with TOAST distribution of KSR, the proportion of ischemic stroke patients with SVO subtype was higher than that of KSR. On the other hand the proportion of patients with stroke of undetermined etiology (SUE) was lower. Distributions of SVO, LAA and cardioembolism (CE) in group were I 66.4%, 23.8% and 8.9%, respectively; those in group IIIwere 51.03%, 34.71% and 11.57%, respectively. Conclusions: In oriental hospitals, the proportion of ischemic stroke patients diagnosed as SVO type was higher than that of KSR. At early stage (from onset to 2 d) proportion of SVO was very high, however after 7 days from onset it decreased with concomitant increases in proportions of LAA and CE. These phenomena may be due to the facts that 1) at early stage emergency treatments are limited in oriental hospitals, 2) after early stage many patients prefer oriental treatments, including rehabilitation.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.9
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• pp.157-164
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the relationship between the brain dominant thinking type and empathy ability of nursing students. The subjects of this study were a total of 90 students enrolled in the 3rd year of the nursing department, who were subjected to Herrmann's BDI as a brain dominant thinking type test. The empathy test was conducted using the Interpersonal Response Index(IRI) adapted by Park(2004). For data analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and multivariate analysis were performed. As a result of the analysis, the dominant brain thinking type of nursing students was in quadrant C the most. And there was a statistically significant positive relationship between the brain dominance type and empathy in the C quadrant(r=.38) and D quadrant(r=.54). The overall empathy ability was highest in the D quadrant, and there was a statistically significant difference in the overall empathy ability according to the brain dominant thinking type(F=4.95, p<.01). Based on the results of this study, it is intended to be used in theoretical and practical education for nurse nurturing to improve empathy ability of nursing students.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.15-24
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• 2012

Classification of human thought is an emerging research field that may allow us to understand human brain functions and further develop advanced brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. In the present study, we introduce a new approach to classify various mental states from noninvasive electrophysiological recordings of human brain activity. We utilized the full spatial and spectral information contained in the electroencephalography (EEG) signals recorded while a subject is performing a specific mental task. For this, the EEG data were converted into a 2D spatiospectral pattern map, of which each element was filled with 1, 0, and -1 reflecting the degrees of event-related synchronization (ERS) and event-related desynchronization (ERD). We evaluated the similarity between a current (input) 2D pattern map and the template pattern maps (database), by taking the inner-product of pattern matrices. Then, the current 2D pattern map was assigned to a class that demonstrated the highest similarity value. For the verification of our approach, eight participants took part in the present study; their EEG data were recorded while they performed four different cognitive imagery tasks. Consistent ERS/ERD patterns were observed more frequently between trials in the same class than those in different classes, indicating that these spatiospectral pattern maps could be used to classify different mental states. The classification accuracy was evaluated for each participant from both the proposed approach and a conventional mental state classification method based on the inter-hemispheric spectral power asymmetry, using the leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV). An average accuracy of 68.13% (${\pm}9.64%$) was attained for the proposed method; whereas an average accuracy of 57% (${\pm}5.68%$) was attained for the conventional method (significance was assessed by the one-tail paired $t$-test, $p$ < 0.01), showing that the proposed simple classification approach might be one of the promising methods in discriminating various mental states.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.76-84
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• 2020

Background: Determination of inter-method differences between clinically available volumetry methods are essential for the clinical application of brain volumetry in a wider context. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the inter-method reliability and differences between the Siemens morphometry (SM) software and the NeuroQuant (NQ) software. Materials and Methods: MR images of 86 subjects with subjective or objective cognitive impairment were included in this retrospective study. For this study, 3D T1 volume images were obtained in all subjects using a 3T MR scanner (Skyra 3T, Siemens). Volumetric analysis of the 3D T1 volume images was performed using SM and NQ. To analyze the inter-method difference, correlation, and reliability, we used the paired t-test, Bland-Altman plot, Pearson's correlation coefficient, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and effect size (ES) using the MedCalc and SPSS software. Results: SM and NQ showed excellent reliability for cortical gray matter, cerebral white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid; and good reliability for intracranial volume, whole brain volume, both thalami, and both hippocampi. In contrast, poor reliability was observed for both basal ganglia including the caudate nucleus, putamen, and pallidum. Paired comparison revealed that while the mean volume of the right hippocampus was not different between the two software, the mean difference in the left hippocampus volume between the two methods was 0.17 ml (P < 0.001). The other brain regions showed significant differences in terms of measured volumes between the two software. Conclusion: SM and NQ provided good-to-excellent reliability in evaluating most brain structures, except for the basal ganglia in patients with cognitive impairment. Researchers and clinicians should be aware of the potential differences in the measured volumes when using these two different software interchangeably.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.903-913
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• 2011

Vibrio parahaemolyticus, which causes gastroenteritis, wound infection, and septicemia, has two sets of type III secretion systems (TTSS), TTSS1 and TTSS2. A TTSS1-deficient vcrD1 mutant of V. parahaemolyticus showed an attenuated cytotoxicity against HEp-2 cells, and a significant reduction in mouse lethality, which were both restored by complementation with the intact vcrD1 gene. V. parahaemolyticus also triggered phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) including p38 and ERK1/2 in HEp-2 cells. The ability to activate p38 and ERK1/2 was significantly affected in a TTSS1-deficient vcrD1 mutant. Experiments using MAPK inhibitors showed that p38 and ERK1/2 MAPKs are involved in V. parahaemolyticus-induced death of HEp-2 cells. In addition, caspase-3 and caspase-9 were processed into active forms in V. parahaemolyticus-exposed HEp-2 cells, but activation of caspases was not essential for V. parahaemolyticus-induced death of HEp-2 cells, as shown by both annexin V staining and lactate dehydrogenase release assays. We conclude that secreted protein(s) of TTSS1 play an important role in activation of p38 and ERK1/2 in HEp-2 cells that eventually leads to cell death via a caspase-independent mechanism.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1995 no.05
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• pp.233-234
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• 1995

Tri-planar interpolation of the orthogonal digital brain Atlas is proposed to achieve a higher resolution of a volume-metric atlas. With these expanded dataset, the brain mapping will be accomplished with fewer registration errors.