• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.116-119
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• 2015

Globotriaosylsphingosine (lyso-Gb3) is considered as one of the biological marker for Fabry disease. To date, a reliable biomarker that reflects disease severity and progression has not been discovered to guide the management of Fabry disease. A new method included a simple protein precipitation with acetonitrile in 100 μL of plasma following analyte separation on an Phenomenex Kintex- C18 column using a gradient elution (0.1% formic acid in 5-90% acetonitrile). Total run time was within 12 min including sample preparation and MS/MS analysis. The limit of detection and limit of quantitation were 1 ng/mL and 2 ng/mL, respectively. The calibration curve was linear over the concentration range of 2.0-200.0 ng/mL (r² = 0.9999). Inter-day accuracy and precision at 7 level were 93.4-100.7% with RSD of 0.55-5.97%. Absolute recovery was 97.6-98.6%. The method was applied to human and mice plasma, proved the suitability for quantification of lyso-Gb3 for screening, diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of Fabry disease patients.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Inherited Metabolic disease
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.37-42
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• 2013

Gaucher disease is a lysosomal storage disease caused by deficiency of glucocerebrosidase (GBA). This condition is characterized by accumulation of glucocerebrosidase in liver, spleen, lung, skeletal system, and central nervous system. Gaucher disease is the prototype of disease in which efficacy of enzyme replacement therapy has been established. However, because recombinant enzyme is not able to enter the central nervous system, its efficacy is limited to the non-neurological manifestations of Gaucher disease. Importantly, approximately a half of Korean patients with Gaucher disease suffer from neurological manifestations. In addition, Korean Gaucher disease patients exhibit distinct mutation spectrum from those in other populations. Common mutations in Korean patients with Gaucher disease are also associated with neurological phenotype. Therefore, therapeutic strategies tailored to Korean patients were necessary. Interestingly, a chemical chaperone, ambroxol, has been known to increase residual enzymatic activities of the select mutant GBAs encoded by mutations prevalent in Korean patients. One promising aspect of this drug is that it can cross blood-brain barrier, and enhance the enzyme activity in the brain. In vitro study suggested this chemical chaperone as one of new therapeutic agents in Gaucher disease, and a well-designed human trial is required to confirm its efficacy.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.43 no.10
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• pp.880-888
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• 2020

Inherited peripheral neuropathy is a heterogeneous group of peripheral neurodegenerative disorders including Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Many peripheral neuropathies often accompany impaired axonal construction and function. To study the molecular and cellular basis of axon-defective peripheral neuropathy, we explore the possibility of using Caenorhabditis elegans, a powerful nematode model equipped with a variety of genetics and imaging tools. In search of potential candidates of C. elegans peripheral neuropathy models, we monitored the movement and the body posture patterns of 26 C. elegans strains with disruption of genes associated with various peripheral neuropathies and compiled a database of their phenotypes. Our assay showed that movement features of the worms with mutations in HSPB1, MFN2, DYNC1H1, and KIF1B human homologues are significantly different from the control strain, suggesting they are viable candidates for C. elegans peripheral neuropathy models.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.71-77
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• 2009

Adenoviral vector(AdV) has been the most widely used viral vector for delivering an exogenous therapeutic gene to human. As of this date, more clinical trials utilize recombinant AdV to treat cancer and monogenic inherited disease as well as vaccine applications. However, the number of clinical trials had dropped markedly following the tragic death of a patient ongoing an AdV therapy for the treatment of an ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency(OTCD). This review is an attempt to provide the information on toxicity generated by AdVmediated gene transfer. It would serve as a sobering reality to researchers and clinicians exploring the use of AdV, as to the complications involved in human application.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Inherited Metabolic disease
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.141-147
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• 2016

Hypophosphatasia is caused by the mutations in ALPL, which encodes tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase (TNSALP). It can be inherited either in an autosomal dominant or recessive manner. Clinically, hypophophosphatasia is characterized by skeletal findings similar to those in rickets or osteomalacia, but serum alkaline phosphatase levels are decreased in the affected patients. Hypophosphatasia can be classified into six clinical forms according to age at diagnosis and severity of symptoms: perinatal lethal, infantile, childhood, adult, odontohypophosphatasia, and perinatal benign. As being a very rare disease, only one case has been reported in Korean population. Here we describe a case with perinatal benign hypophosphatasia with recessive ALPL mutations. Bowing of lower legs was detected in prenatal period and low serum alkaline phosphatase level was noted after birth. During the follow-up evaluation for 4.5 years, bone mineralization and legs bowing were improved but the growth retardation was persistent. As the recombinant bone-targeted human TNSALP became available, the clinical improvement of the affected patients is expected including the case described here with this treatment. More efforts are needed to identify the cases affected by hypophosphatasia.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Inherited Metabolic disease
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.138-146
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• 2015

Purpose: If early diagnosis is not made, patients with metabolic disorders as homocystinemia rapidly progress to physical defect or mental retardation resulted in storage of the toxic material into the brain. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an analytical method for a rapid screening and/or correct confirmation diagnosis. Methods: The standard solution of sulfur amino acids spiked plasma was subjected to protein precipitation with methanol, and then consecutively derivatized with trimethylsilyl (TMS) and trifluoroacyl (TFA) and determined by GC-MS. The formation of TMS derivative of the hydroxyl and TFA derivative of amino functional group was performed by BSTFA and MBTFA, respectively. Selective ion monitoring (SIM) mode was used for quantification with selected specific ions. Results: A calibration curve on standard spiked pooled plasma showed a linear relationship with correlation coefficient of 0.9936-0.9992 for all compounds over the range of 0.1-300 ng. The precision and accuracy were within S.D. of 1-15% and RSD of 1-15% for intra-day assay at 2 ng/mL, 15 ng/mL and 30 ng/mL. LOD and LOQ was 0.4 ng/mL and 4 ng/mL respectively. Conclusion: A rapid analytical method was developed to quantify sulfur amino acids and methyl malonic acid, after two-step derivatization procedure with good sensitivity and specificity on human plasma. Advantages of a new method are simplicity and rapidity. The method could be useful for routine analysis, diagnosis of homocysteinemia.

• Proceedings of the Zoological Society Korea Conference
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• 1999.10b
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• pp.31-31
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• 1999

Characterization of mutant mice has been utilized as an animal model for the study of human inherited diseases. In addition to the pathogenesis stduy using the mutant mice, the mice have been used for the identification of the genes causing the phenotypes. Functional cloning and positional cloning are two approaches, depending on the phenotypes of the mutant mice. Though it takes a long time positional cloning has been well used to identify the gene of which function can not be presumed from the mouse phenotype. Recently by the advance of the molecular tools and the human genome project close to 10,000 genetic markers are developed to make the procedure faster. We obtained a new mutant mouse, sims, spontaneously arose and the affected mouse has a mild tremor and seizure was observed. Homozygote in either sex is sterile since uterus growth in female and seminal vesicle in male are not induced for the growth in puberty, implying the abnormal hormonal regulation during puberty. Supporting this, there is no detectable testosterone in the serum of the mutant male and the brain of the mutant is 30% heavier than littermate. To identify the location of the mutated gene, intraspecies cross to CAST/Ei was carried out and the 37 affected mice was analyzed for the linkage. The gene was mapped on chromosome 18, 20 cM from the centromere. More than 500 F2 progenies have been analyzed for the linkage and the locus becomes narrow within 3cM between Egrl and Fgf gene.f gene.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Inherited Metabolic disease
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.59-66
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• 2010

Enzyme replacement of therapy (ERT) is one of the most promising therapeutic strategies for the treatment of lysosomal storage disorders. ERT is available in three types of Mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS): for MPS I (Aludrazyme$^{(R)}$), MPS II (Elaprase$^{(R)}$) and MPS VI (Naglazyme$^{(R)}$) patients who are over 5 years old. But recently, early diagnosis can be done by expert clinicians and even in prenatal case. We describe the case of ERT under 5 years old MPS patients. Up to June, 2010 in Samsung Medical Center, there are 6patients who were diagnosed as MPS and started ERT under 5 years old. 3 patients were MPS I, 3 patients were MPS II. 2 patient who was diagnosed as MPS I was female and others were male. Their age at diagnosis were 4 to 37month-old (4, 13, 16, 25, 27, 37 month-old) and they are now 9 to 60 month-old (9, 39, 32, 81, 60 month-old). The youngest patient was started ERT at 4 month-old and others were started at their 13 to 49 month-old (13, 29, 27, 28, 49 month-old). First manifested symptoms of patients were macrocephaly, kyphosis and coarse face appearance. Especially, in 2 of them, one was MPS I and the other was MPS II had elder brother with same disease. And the youngest one was diagnosed by the iduronate-2-sulfatase (IDS) gene analysis from chorionic villi sampling. His mother knew that she was a heterozygous carrier of IDS gene mutation because her younger brother died from MPS II. All of them confirmed as MPS by the enzyme assay in leukocytes and fibroblast skin culture. We started ERT with ${\alpha}$-L-iduronidase(Aldurazyme$^{(R)}$) to MPS I and did recombinant human iduronate-2-sulfatase (Elaprase$^{(R)}$) to MPS II patients as recommended dose as over 5 years old. But for MPS II patient who was 4 month old, we started ERT by recombinant human IDS (Elaprase$^{(R)}$) with reduced dose 0.1 mg/kg and increased dose every 2 weeks by 0.1mg/kg up to 0.5mg/kg IV infusion. During ERT, all patients had no adverse effects and the excretion of GAGs were decreased. We have evaluated other clinical symptoms such as liver/ spleen volume, heart function and neurologic evaluation. We describe a successful ERT to MPS I and MPS II patient under 5 years old without any adverse event. It indicates that ERT in young children are well tolerated and that it has several effects which may confer clinical benefits with long-term therapy.

• Interdisciplinary Bio Central
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.16.1-16.8
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• 2011

Defects in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cause many human diseases and are critical factors that contribute to aging. The mechanisms of maternally-inherited mtDNA mutations are well studied. However, the role of acquired mutations during the aging process is still poorly understood. The most plausible mechanism is that increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) may affect the opening of mitochondrial voltage dependent anion channel (VDAC) and thus results in damage to mtDNA. This review focuses on recent trends in mtDNA research and the mutations that appear to be associated with increased ROS.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.125-130
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• 1999

Congenital myotonia is a hereditary disorder of the skeletal muscle. The most characteristic features of the disease are myotonia and variable muscular hypertrophy. Molecular biologic investigations have revealed that mutations in the gene of the human skeletal muscle chloride ion channel protein are a cause of the disease. The Becker's type congenial myotonia is clinically similar to the autosomal dominantly inherited congenital myotonia (Thomsen's disease). Both disorders are characterized electrophysiologically by increased excitability of muscle fibers. reflected in clinical myotonia. In general, Becker's type congenital myotonia is more severe than Thomsen's disease in muscular hypertrophy and weakness. The authors recently experienced a 25-year-old female patient who has no family-related disease history and who has conspicuous muscular hypertrophy and the stiffness with muscles which occurred from the age of 3 or 4. Clinically she showed the authors a percussion myotonia. On electrophysiological study, exercise and repetitive stimulation of the abductor digiti quinti muscle disclosed a decline in the compound muscle action potential. Biopsy of biceps muscle revealed enlargement of muscle fibers with marked nuclear internalization. After the oral taking the Mexiletine, the patient showed a favorable turn a little with her stiffness of muscles. So we authors are reporting one case of Becker's type congenital myotonia with review of literatures.