• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 2007

Objectives: Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene polymorphism has been reported to be associated with depression and therapeutic outcome in depression. The purpose of this study was to determine whether ACE gene polymorphism is associated with seasonal variation in mood and behavior in a young Korean college student sample. Methods: 297 young Korean medical students were recruited in this study. All subjects were free of major medical and psychiatric problems. They were genotyped for the ACE gene polymorphism and evaluated the seasonal variation in mood and behavior by the Seasonality Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). Results: Global Seasonality Score (GSS) of SPAQ between three genotypes were not different. However, comparison of the group that showed seasonality of mood and behavior during winter with the group that did not showed seasonality indicated significant difference in genotype distribution ($x^2=6.79$, p=0.034). The D allele non-carrier (ll genotype) frequency was significantly higher in winter seasonality group than non-seasonality group ($x^2=6.59$, p=0.010；odds ratio [OR]=2.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.20-4.28). Conclusion: These results suggest that the ACE gene polymorphism is related to winter-type seasonality in a Korean population.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.186-194
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• 2017

A brain-enriched secreting signal peptide, NELL2, has been suggested to play multiple roles in the development, survival, and activity of neurons in mammal. We investigated here a possible involvement of central NELL2 in regulating feeding behavior and metabolism. In situ hybridization and an immunohistochemical approach were used to determine expression of NELL2 as well as its colocalization with proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) in the rat hypothalamus. To investigate the effect of NELL2 on feeding behavior, 2 nmole of antisense NELL2 oligodeoxynucleotide was administered into the lateral ventricle of adult male rat brains for 6 consecutive days, and changes in daily body weight, food, and water intake were monitored. Metabolic state-dependent NELL2 expression in the hypothalamus was tested in vivo using a fasting model. NELL2 was noticeably expressed in the hypothalamic nuclei controlling feeding behavior. Furthermore, all arcuatic POMC and NPY positive neurons produced NELL2. The NELL2 gene expression in the hypothalamus was up-regulated by fasting. However, NELL2 did not affect POMC and NPY gene expression in the hypothalamus. A blockade of NELL2 production in the hypothalamus led to a reduction in daily food intake, followed by a loss in body weight without a change in daily water intake in normal diet condition. NELL2 did not affect short-term hunger dependent appetite behavior. Our data suggests that hypothalamic NELL2 is associated with appetite behavior, and thus central NELL2 could be a new therapeutic target for obesity.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.13-26
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• 2000

It is really hard for the material factors to basically improve quality of life, since it is the only partial means of the survival and activity of life. Development of Eigen Shin-Tou-Jil(Proper Body·Earth materials), therefore, must be concentrated on providing man with essential meaning of life, not with simply economic advantage. Eigen Shin-Tou-Jil(Proper Body·Earth materials) which is formed through long passage of time in the original environments that include the climate and nature features of a special region, the representative examples are like Korea Bong-sam(a kind of genseng) of Yellow Earth etc. Unfolding the Eigen Shin-Tou-Jil(Proper Body·Earth materials) by the Algorithm of Human-ware means the development for manifesting individual eigen motives and traits as subject of behavior(Gene-ware). It is because all plants, animals, inanimate objects, including Human, have evolved with their own values in the ecosystem. It was reported that a Baeksong(white pine tree), grown well up in TongEeDong, Seoul, Korea had rarely grown up during the period suppressed by Japan. By the developments of Bio-Engineering, we also found that 40% of gene base sequence of C. Elegance(a kind of worm) is identical to that of characteristic Human. In this reason, through considering common characteristics between Human and Nature, the developments of Eigen Shin-Tou-Jil(Proper Body·Earth materials) must begin with epoch for manifesting and understanding individual's Eigen motives and traits as subject of behavior(Gene-ware)

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.361-367
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• 2000

Cocaine functions as indirect dopamine and serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5HT) agonists and induces genomic and behavioral alterations in the striatum. Previously we demonstrated that ritanserin, a 5HT2/1C receptor antagonist, is not responsible for cocaine-induced behavioral alterations and zif268 mRNA gene expression in the striatum (see the previous paper in this issue). In this study, it was hypothesized that dopamine and 5HT2/1C receptors are required for cocaine-induced behavioral alterations and c-fos and zif268 mRNA expression. This hypothesis was addressed by infusing amperozide which antagonizes both 5HT2/1C and dopamine receptors and was analyzed using the quantitative in situ hybridization histochemistry in vivo. Systemic injection of amperozide (5 mg/kg, s.c.) significantly blocked increase in behavior, c-fos and zif268 mRNA expression induced by 15 mg/kg cocaine, i.p., in the dorsal striatum. These data suggest that dopamine and 5HT2/1C receptors are necessary for cocaine-induced behavioral alterations and immediate early gene expression in the dorsal striatum.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.598-600
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• 2001

DNA chip technology enables us to monitor thousands of gene expressions per sample simultaneously. Typically, DNA microarray data has at least several thousands of variables (genes) wish relatively smal1 number of samples. Thus feature (gene) selection by dimensionality reduction is necessary for efficient data analysis. In this paper we employ the partial least squares (PLS) method for gene selection and the principal component analysis (PCA) method for classification. The useful behavior of the PLS is verified by computer simulations.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.397-408
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• 2009

The development of microarray technology makes possible to analyse many thousands of genes simultaneously. While it is important to test each gene whether it shows changes in expression associated with a phenotype, human diseases are thought to occur through the interactions of multiple genes within a same functional cafe-gory. Recent research interests aims to directly test the behavior of sets of functionally related genes, instead of focusing on single genes. Gene set enrichment analysis(GSEA), significance analysis of microarray to gene-set analysis(SAM-GS) and parametric analysis of gene set enrichment(PAGE) have been applied widely as a tool for gene-set analyses. We describe their problems and propose an alternative method using a parametric analysis by adopting normal score transformation of gene expression values. Performance of the newly derived method is compared with previous methods on three real microarray datasets.

• Proceedings of the KSAR Conference
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• 2001.03a
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• pp.48-48
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• 2001

A new neurological mutant has been found in the ICR outbred strain mouse. Affected mice display profound deafness and a head-tossing and bidirectional circling behavior, showing an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance. It was, therefore, named cir/Kr with the gene symbol cir. The auditory tests identified clearly the hearing loss of the cir mice when compared to wild type mice. Pathological studies confirmed the developmental defects in the middle ear, cochlea, cochlear nerve, and semicircular canal areas, which were correlated to the abnormal behavior observed in the cir mice. Thus, cir mice may be useful as a model for studying inner ear abnormalities and deafness. We have constructed a genetic linkage map by positioning 14 microsatellite markers across the (cir) region and intraspecific backcross between cir and C57BL/6J mice. The cir mouse harbors an autosomal recessive mutation on mouse chromosome 9. The cir gene was mapped to a region between D9Mit116 and D9Mit38 Estimated distances between cir and D9Mit116, and between cir and D9Mit38 are 0.7 and 0.2 cM, respectively. The gene in order was defines : centromere-D9Mit182-D9Mit51/D9Mit79/D9Mit310-D9Mit212/D9Mit184-D9Mit116-cir-D9Mit38-D9Mit20-D9Mit243-D9Mit16-D9Mit55/D9Mit125-D9Mit281. The mouse map location of the cir locus appears to be in a region homologous to human 3q21. Our present date suggest that the nearest flanking marker D9Mit38 provides a useful anchor for the isolation of the cir gene in a yeast artificial chromosome contig.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.26-36
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• 2010

Objectives : It is well-known that Korean people show distinctive drinking behaviors depending on the gene polymorphisms of alcohol metabolizing enzymes. This study examined the gene polymorphisms of ALDH2 and ADH1B and their combination on the drinking behaviors of Korean young adults. Methods : Through a follow-up survey performed for a cohort consisting of 551 university freshmen for six years, the authors attempted to identify genetic factors affecting drinking behaviors. In 2000, drinking behaviors and scores of CAGE questionnaires were assessed and ALDH2 gene polymorphism was determined with PCR-RFLP. In 2006(n= 150), AUDIT-K was assessed in addition to the above and gene polymorphism of ADH1B was determined through SNaPshot$^{TM}$ method. Results : While ALDH2*2 allele was associated with increased degree of drinking in 2000 and 2006. When both enzymes were active, the possibility to be classified into the risk group for alcohol dependence such as AUDIT-K(>12), and CAGE(>2) was high. Conclusion : The ALDH2 genotype had a significant effect on drinking behavior and degree of drinking during early adulthood. However, the combination of the active form of ADH1B and the active form of ALDH2 can be risk factor for problem drinking.

• BMB Reports
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.441-447
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• 2006

Abuse of drugs can elicit compulsive drug seeking behaviors upon repeated administration, and ultimately leads to the phenomenon of addiction. We developed a procedure for the standardization of microarray gene expression data of rat brain in drug addiction and stored them in a single integrated database system, focusing on more effective data processing and interpretation. Another characteristic of the present database is that it has a systematic flexibility for statistical analysis and linking with other databases. Basically, we adopt an intelligent SQL querying system, as the foundation of our DB, in order to set up an interactive module which can automatically read the raw gene expression data in the standardized format. We maximize the usability of this DB, helping users study significant gene expression and identify biological function of the genes through integrated up-to-date gene information such as GO annotation and metabolic pathway. For collecting the latest information of selected gene from the database, we also set up the local BLAST search engine and non-redundant sequence database updated by NCBI server on a daily basis. We find that the present database is a useful query interface and data-mining tool, specifically for finding out the genes related to drug addiction. We apply this system to the identification and characterization of methamphetamine-induced genes' behavior in rat brain.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.267-276
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• 2014

Exposures to lead (Pb) are associated with neurological problems including psychiatric disorders and impaired learning and memory. Pb can be absorbed by iron transporters, which are up-regulated in hereditary hemochromatosis, an iron overload disorder in which increased iron deposition in various parenchymal organs promote metal-induced oxidative damage. While dysfunction in HFE (High Fe) gene is the major cause of hemochromatosis, the transport and toxicity of Pb in Hfe-related hemochromatosis are largely unknown. To elucidate the relationship between HFE gene dysfunction and Pb absorption, H67D knock-in Hfe-mutant and wild-type mice were given drinking water containing Pb 1.6 mg/ml ad libitum for 6 weeks and examined for behavioral phenotypes using the nestlet-shredding and marble-burying tests. Latency to nestlet-shredding in Pb-treated wild-type mice was prolonged compared with non-exposed wild-types (p < 0.001), whereas Pb exposure did not alter shredding latency in Hfe-mutant mice. In the marble-burying test, Hfe-mutant mice showed an increased number of marbles buried compared with wild-type mice (p = 0.002), indicating more repetitive behavior upon Hfe mutation. Importantly, Pb-exposed wild-type mice buried more marbles than non-exposed wild-types, whereas the number of marbles buried by Hfe-mutant mice did not change whether or not exposed to Pb. These results suggest that Hfe mutation could normalize Pb-induced behavioral alteration. To explore the mechanism of repetitive behavior caused by Pb, western blot analysis was conducted for proteins involved in brain dopamine metabolism. The levels of tyrosine hydroxylase and dopamine transporter increased upon Pb exposure in both genotypes, whereas Hfe-mutant mice displayed down-regulation of the dopamine transporter and dopamine D1 receptor with D2 receptor elevated. Taken together, our data support the idea that both Pb exposure and Hfe mutation increase repetitive behavior in mice and further suggest that these behavioral changes could be associated with altered dopaminergic neurotransmission, providing a therapeutic basis for psychiatric disorders caused by Pb toxicity.