• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.411-416
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• 2009

Chitosan is derived from chitin by a process of controlled deacetylation. In the present study, we investigated the effects of chitosan on the production of cytokines such as interleukin-2 (IL-2), interferon-$\gamma$ (IFN-$\gamma$), interleukin-4 (IL-4), and interleukin-10 (IL-10) in mice. The culture supernatants of splenocytes exposed with chitosan alone or chitosan plus cell stimulants, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), concanavalin A (Con A), and phytohemagglutinin-P (PHA-P) were harvested to assay IL-2, IFN-$\gamma$, IL-4, and IL-10 production. IL-2, IFN-$\gamma$, and IL-4 from splenocytes exposed to chitosan showed a greater increase compared to the PBS control group. IL-2 and IFN-$\gamma$ levels in the culture supernatants from splenocytes exposed to LPS+chitosan were higher than those of the groups exposed to LPS alone. IL-4 and IL-10 levels in the culture supernatants from splenocytes exposed to LPS+chitosan were lower than those of the groups exposed to LPS only. These findings demonstrate that chitosan upregulates the immune responses by Th1 cytokines (IL-2 and IFN-$\gamma$) and downregulates those by Th2 cytokines (IL-4 and IL-10) in LPS-associated immunity. These results show the potential of its usefulness for balancing the Th1/Th2 immune response, if more research results were accumulated.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.574-580
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• 1992

Chitin was isolated from the residue of enzymatically hydrolyzed crab, Portunus trituberculatus, and further deacetylated by alkaline boiling to make chitosan. The physical properties of chitosan solution and its film forming properties were examined. The functional characteristics of chitosan film were compared to those of cellophane, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyethylene (PE) films. The proximate chemical composition of chitin obtained from crab residue was 6.95% nitrogen, 0.3% crude ash and 4.57% moisture and the product yield was 12.8% based on a dry material basis. The degree of deacetylation of chitosan was $79{\sim}92%$ and $70{\sim}86%$ as determined by IR spectroscopy, and $70{\sim}86%$ as determined by colloid titration method each respectively. The chitosan at 1% acetic acid solution showed distinct pseudoplastic flow behavior. The flow behavior index and consistency index were 0.8886, 0.2084 $MPa{\cdot}s^n$ for 0.4% solution and 0.8498, 0.6190 $MPa{\cdot}s^n$ for 0.8% solution, respectively. The chitosan film had the highest tensile strength $(888 kg/cm^2)$ and water permeability $(100\;g/m^2{\cdot}24\;hrs)$ among the tested films, but relatively low elongation property (49%). It showed the similar tear strength (90kg/cm) and light permeability (87.7%) to other films tested in spite of the relatively high haze value (12.5%). As the thickness of chitosan film increased from 0.025 to 0.050 mm, the tensile strength of film decreased distictively, and the degree of elongation, tear strength, and water permeability of film also decreased slightly. Whereas the light permeability of film did not change and the haziness of film slightly increased by the increase of film thickness.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.365-370
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• 1983

Cellooligosaccharides were prepared from microcrystalline cellulose by acetolysis, deacetylation, and chromatographic fractionation, to determine the optimum time of treatment with acetolysis mixture. The fractionation was accomplished by ethanol-water gradient elution on chromatographic column composed of stearic acid-treated mixture of charcoal and Celite. The amount of initial acetolysis product was increased with the reaction period, however, the acetylated mixture of longer reaction period appeared to contain the greater bulk of methanol-insoluble material. Better yields of most of oligosaccharides were obtained with 3-hr acetolysis. When the reaction time was extended to 4-hr, yields of shorter chain oligosaccharides increased at the expense of the The yields obtained with 3-hr acetclys is from 68.2g of Sigmacell Type 19 were : cellotriose, 1.36g(2.0%) ; -tetraose, 1.64g(2.4%) ; -pentaose, 1.16g(1.7%) ; -hexaose, 0.82g(1.2%) ; and -heptaose, 0.21g(0.3%).

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.1439-1447
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• 1998

Antimicrobial activity of chitosan and chitosan oligosaccharides on the microorganism related to Kimchi was investigated. 5 kinds of chitosan, which have different deacetylation degrees and molecular weights were prepared and its effect on the organoleptic characteristics, pH and titrable acidity of Kimchi in the storage time were examined. C-4 and C-5 chitosan (D.A.:$92{\sim}99%$, M.W.: $16,000{\sim}32,000)$ recorded high score in the texture and showed pH 4.9 and titrable acidity 0.35%, compared with control (pH 4.1, titrarable acidity 0.50 %) evaluated to optimal ripening time. The chitosan oligosaccharides containing relatively large amount of $pentamer{\sim}heptamer$ were chosen from C-4 chitosan hydrolyzates. Antimicrobial activity of C-4 and chitosan oligosaccharides against B. subtilis, B. cereus, Pse. fluorescens, E. coli, Lac. plantarum, Leu. mesenteroides, Lac. brevis, Ent. faecalis and 3 kinds of microflora from Kimchi were examined. The clear zone against microorganism were $9{\sim}20mm$ at 3.0% C-4 chitosan and $8{\sim}24mm$ at 5.0% chitosan oligosaccharides, and MIC of chitosan and chitosan oligosaccharides was shown $0.01{\sim}0.05%$ and $0.05{\sim}0.2%$, respectively. The antimicrobial effect of chitosan and chitosan oligosaccharides was also observed in 3 kinds of total microflora from Kimchi and was most strong in the microflora from the ripening stage of Kimchi, suggesting C-4 chitosan and chitosan oligosaccharides could be applicable to extending shelf-life of Kimchi.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.556-562
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• 2007

A total of 126 crossbred weanling pigs (average body weight of $6.3{\pm}0.3$ kg) were used to investigate the effect of chito-oligosaccharide (COS) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, pH of gastro-intestinal tract (GI), intestinal and fecal microflora of young piglets. Pigs were allocated to three dietary treatments based on body weight and gender in a single factorial arrangement. Treatments were control (No COS), T1 (0.2% COS during starter (6-13 kg) and 0.1% COS during grower (13-30 kg) phases, and T2 (0.4% COS during starter (6-13 kg) and 0.3% COS during grower (13-30 kg) phases, respectively. Each treatment had 3 replicates and 14 pigs were raised in each pen. COS is a low molecular weight water-soluble chitosan that can be obtained from chitin of the crab shell after deacetylation with concentrated sodium hydroxide at high temperature and then further decomposition by chitosanase enzyme in the presence of ascorbic acid. For the starter and grower periods, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) in average daily gain (ADG) and feed to gain ratio among treatments. However, during the overall period (6-30 kg), T2 showed better (p<0.05) feed to gain ratio than other treatments. A digestibility study was conducted at the end of grower phase which showed improvement (p<0.05) in DM and crude fat digestibility in T2 over the control. At 25 kg body weight, 6 pigs per treatment (2 per replicate) were sacrificed to determine the effect of diets on pH and microbial count at different sections of the GI tract. The pH of the cecal contents in pigs fed 0.1% COS was higher (p<0.05) than in the other treatments. Total anaerobic bacterial number increased from cecum to rectum in all treatments. The weekly total bacterial counts showed higher (p<0.05) in feces of pigs fed COS than that of untreated pigs at the $8^{th}$ week. The number of fecal E. coli in untreated pigs at $4^{th}$ wk was 7.35 log CFU/g compared to 6.71 and 6.54 log CFU/g in 0.1 and 0.3% COS-treated pigs, respectively. Similarly, at $8^{th}$ wk, fecal clostridium spp. were lower in pigs fed 0.3% COS (5.43 log CFU/g) than in untreated pigs (6.26 log CFU/g). In conclusion, these results indicated that chito-oligosaccharide could improve feed efficiency in young pigs and inhibited the growth of harmful bacteria.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.204-215
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• 1993

Epoxy-activated chitin was synthesized by the reaction of epichlorohydrin with chitin which was isolated from waste marine sources such as crab shell. Followed by the reaction of epoxy-activated chitin with hexamethylenediamine, the aminohexyl chitin was synthesized. The aminohexyl chitin was subsequently reacted with epichlorohydrin to prepare the epoxy-activated aminohexyl chitin. Finally, the tannin-immobilized chitin (Resin I) was synthsized by the reaction of tannin solution with epoxy-activated aminohexyl chitin. Using silane coupling agent, the tannin-immobilized chitosan(Resin II) was synthesized by the reaction of $\gamma$-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxy silane with chitosan which was prepared by the deacetylation of chitin. Upon the pH variation, adsorptivities of these immobilized tannins to the metal ions such as $Cu^{+2}$, $Ni^{+2}$, $Cr^{+6}$, $Co^{+2}$, $Ca^{+2}$, $Pb^{+2}$, $Ba^{+2}$, and $UO_2{^{+2}}$ ions were determined by batch method. The adsorptivity tendencies of these immobilized tannin to the most of metallic ions were increased with pH. Furthermore, the adsorptivities of Resin(I) and Resin(II) upon the variation of pH, contact time, amount of resin and concentration of metal ion were investigated. As a result, it was found that these immobilized tannin on both chitin and chitosan showed good adsorptivities for uranyl ion.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.71-77
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• 1994

This study was undertaken to investigate the physicochemical properties of chitosans produced from chitins which were prepared from shrimp shell under the 4 different conditions(HCl concentration : 1 N, 4 N and reaction temperature $0^{\circ}C,\;20^{\circ}C$). The effects of chitosan on the properties of Kakdugi during storage also were examined. Viscosity of chitosan was markedly different$(313.1{\sim}98.8\;cps)$ depending on the production conditon. Chitosan solution showed pseudoplastic property. The infrared(IR) spectrums of chitosans prepared under the conditions of this study were very simillar, and the degree of deacetylation of chitosan was relatively high$(92{\sim}96%)$ independent of the extraction conditions of chitin. As the storage period was extended, markedly lower pH and higher titratable acidity were resulted in all the groups. Throughout the storage period, pH and titratable acidity of kakdugies with chitosan were higher and lower, respectively than those of control. Viscosity of kakdugi juice was significantly different among the groups and as the storage period increased, the juice viscosity decreased. At the eighth day of storage, the juice of control group was more viscous than those of kakdugies containing chitosan. Throughout the storage period the numbers of total microorganisms and of microorgarnisms of Leuconostoc genus in control kakdugi tended to be higher and lower, respectively than those in kakdugies containing chitosan. The growth of Lac. plantarum was slightly lower in kakdugi containing chitosan C produced at low HCl concentration and high temperature compared to the others.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.356-360
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• 2000

In order to utilize the processing wastes of squid, chitosan was prepared by intermittent deacetylation treatment of ${\beta}-chitin$ richly contained in the pen of squid, and then their characteristics of chitosan and N-acetylchitosan film were studied. The acetylation time of N-acetylchitosan film-1 (N-ACE-1) manufactured from chitosan solution by treating with acetic anhydride was about 12 hrs. In SEM photomicrographs, the surface of chitosan film was regularly arranged netlike, and that of N-acetylchitosan film-2 (N-ACE-2) was rough like snowflake and larger than chitosan film. The chitosan film (thickness 0.02 mm, time 60 min) had the highest tensile strength ($1,240 kg/cm^2$) and elongation ($58.25{\%}$), N-ACP-1 (thickness 0.02 mm, time 60 min) had the highest water permeability ($539 g/m^2{\cdot}24 hrs$), oxygen permeability ($20,000 cm^3/m^2{\cdot}24 hrs{\cdot}atm$) and water uptake ($350{\%}$) among the tested films.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.7 s.87
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• pp.976-982
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to determine the modulating effects of histone deacetylase inhibitor, trichostatin A, on the differentiation of mouse C2C12 myoblasts. We demonstrated that trichostatin A induced morphological changes of C2C12 myoblasts into smooth muscles and significantly increased the gene expression of smooth muscle markers including smooth muscle ${\alpha}-actin$ and transgelin. These results were due to the change in the expression level of cell cycle regulators in trichostatin A-treated C2C12 cells. Real-time PCR data revealed that cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor, p21, mRNA expression was significantly increased in trichostatin A-treated C2C12 cells. However, trichostaDn A rapidly decreased cyclin Dl mRNA expression necessary for cell cycle progression in 24hr after treatment. In conclusion, the strong inhibitory effects of trichostatin A on histone deacetylation induced transdifferentiation of C2C12 myoblasts into smooth muscle cells and these results are partly due to the changes in the expression of cell cycle regulators such as p21 and cyclin D1.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.78-83
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• 2005

Recently, much attention has been focused on plant antioxidants, because they are expected to protect against oxidative damage, possibly preserving biological functions of cells. Antioxidant compounds were isolated from Angelica keiskei through extraction with 80% EtOH, and fractionations were carried out sequentially with n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol, and water. Two active compounds were isolated from ethyl acetate fraction by silica gel column chromatography, and were identified as isoquercitrin ($quercetin-3-O-{\beta}-D-glucose$) and hyperoside ($quercetin-3-O-{\beta}-D-glucose$). Isoquercitrin and hyperoside showed strong antioxidative potency, as revealed by evaluation of their ABTS, DPPH, OH, and $H_{2}O_{2}$ radical-scavenging activities, and ex vivo DNA damage-protecting effects.