• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.126-135
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• 2008

Malignant mesothelioma (MM) is a highly lethal neoplasm arising in pleura and the peritoneum and a rapid and accurate diagnosis is crucial for treatment of the disease. However, the sensitivity of cytological analysis using pleural or ascitic fluid is relatively low, yielding an accurate diagnosis in only $32{\sim}79%$ of cases. We tested the diagnostic value of epigenetic alterations in body fluid cytology as a supplement to conventional methods. Paraffin-embedded tissue blocks from 21 MM patients and associated body fluid cytology slides considered no evidence of malignancy were used to test for epigenetic alteration. Using methylation-specific PCR, we detected methylation of RASSF1A and p16 in 47.6% (10/21) of both surgically resected tumor samples, respectively. Body fluid samples of MM also showed abnormal methylation of RASSF1A and p16INK4a genes in 38.1% (8/21) and 33.3% (7/21) of cases. The concordance in the rates of RASSF1A and p16INK4a gene-methylation abnormalities determined from cytology samples and tissue samples were 61.9% (13/21) and 66.7% (14/21), respectively. Combining both genes increases the sensitivity of the test to 57.1 % (12 of 21) of cases. Our results suggest that testing for methylation abnormalities in selected individual genes or gene combinations has diagnostic value as an alternative or adjunct method to conventional cytological diagnosis.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.257-262
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• 2018

Avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) causes severe economic losses in the poultry farms, due to systemic infections leading to lethal colisepticemia. It causes a variety of diseases from air sac infection to systemic spread leading to septicemia. Secondary infection contains opportunistic infections due to immunosuppression disease. Collibacillosis causes the great problems in the poultry industry in Korea. Thus, it is necessary to identify and classify the characteristics of E. coli isolate of chicken origin to confirm the diversity of symptoms and whether they are transmitted among the farms. Fragment analysis is identify the difference in the number of Variable-Number Tandem-Repeats (VNTRs) for genotyping. VNTRs have repeating structure (Microsatellite, Short tandem repeats; STR, Simple sequence repeats; SSR) in the chromosome. This region can be used as a genetic marker because of its high mutation rate. And various lengths of the amplified DNA fragment cause the difference in the number of repetition of the DNA specific site. The number of repetition sequences indicates the separated size of fragments, so the each fragments can be distinguished by specific samples. The results of the sample show that there is no difference in six microsatellite loci (yjiD, aidB, molR_1, ftsZ, b1668, yibA). There are differences among the farms in relation of the number of repetitions of other six microsatellite loci (ycgW, yaiN, yiaB, mhpR, b0829, caiF). Four (ycgW, yiaB, b0829, caiF) of these six microsatellite loci show statistically significant differences (P<0.05). It means that the analysis using four microsatellite loci including ycgW, yiaB, b0829, and caiF can confirm among the farms. Five E. coli samples in one farm have same SSR repetition at all markers. But, there are significant differences from other farms at Four (ycgW, yiaB, b0829, caiF) microsatellite loci. These results emphasize again that the four microsatellite loci makes a difference in the amplified DNA fragments, enabling it to be used for E. coli genotyping.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.67-71
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• 2017

Foulbrood disease is infected by Paenibacillus larvae on larval stage of honeybee, and is lethal disease to result in population death. This disease was manifested in 2008 in Korea, is still suffered by the secondary damages. In this study, we are to examine diagnostic PCR approaches to manage the Foulbrood disease. PCR amplification of 16S rRNA is generally using for microbial infection, but the specificity is little poor for the correct diagnosis. Therefore, we are to identify specific genes expressed in Paenibacillus larvae, and perform PCR analysis. We selected five distinct genes from literature references. Those genes are commonly known as toxic genes for host infection, and include Toxin1, Toxin2A & 2B, SplA, CBP49, and SevA&SevB. PCR amplification for these genes is difficult to detect at the first time. So, we performed the second PCR using the first PCR product as a template. This approach using the nested PCR was very useful for detecting large marker genes. When Paenibacillus larvae was cultured in the medium containing plant extracts, PCR amplification of the identified genes is correlated with the microbial growth inhibition. Therefore, these results suggest that the identified genes might be useful to study diagnostic PCR markers for honeybee Foulbrood disease.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.331-337
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• 2009

Interleukin-13 (IL-13) has been proposed as a therapeutic target for bronchial asthma as it plays crucial roles in the pathogenesis of the disease. We developed an in vitro test system measuring transcriptional downregulatory activities on IL-13 as a primary screening method to select drug candidates from natural products. The promoter region of IL-13 (-2,048 to +1) was cloned into the upstream of a luciferase gene in the plasmid pGL4.14 containing the hygromycin resistance gene as a selection marker, generating pGL4.14-IL-13. The EL-4 thymoma and RBL-2H3 mast cells transiently expressing this plasmid highly produced the luciferase activities by responding to PI (PMA and ionomycin) stimulation up to 8-fold and 13-fold compared with the control, respectively, whereas cyclosporin A, a well-known antiasthmatic agent, significantly downregulated the activities. The BF1 clone of RBL-2H3 cells constitutively expressing pGL4.14-IL-13 was established by selecting surviving cells under a constant lethal dose of hygromycin treatment. The feasibility of this system was evaluated by measuring the downregulatory activities of 354 natural products on the IL-13 promoter using the BF1 clone. An extract from Morus bombycis (named TBRC 156) significantly inhibited PI-induced luciferase activities and IL-13 mRNA expression, but not the protein expression. Fisetin (named TBRC 353) inhibited not only PI-induced luciferase activities and mRNA expression, but also the IL-13 protein secretion, whereas myricetin (named TBRC 354) could not suppress the IL-13 expression at all. Our data indicated that this in vitro test system is able to discriminate the effects on IL-13 expression, and furthermore, that it might be suitable as a simple and time-saving primary screening system to select antiasthmatic agents by measuring transcriptional activities of the IL-13 promoter.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.325-334
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• 2018

Toxoplasma gondii is an apicomplexan zoonotic protozoan parasite that infects most species of warm-blooded animals, including humans. The heavy incidence and severe or lethal damage caused by T. gondii infection clearly indicate a need for the development of an effective vaccine. T. gondii GRA8 is a member of the dense granules protein family and is used as a marker of acute infection. In the present study, we evaluated the protective immunity induced by DNA vaccination based on a recombinant eukaryotic plasmid, pDsRed2-GRA8, against acute toxoplasmosis in mice. BALB/c mice were intramuscularly immunized with the pDsRed2-GRA8 plasmid and then challenged by infection with the highly virulent GFP-RH strain of T. gondii. The specific immune responses and protective efficacy against T. gondii of this vaccine were analyzed by measuring cytokine and serum antibody titers, splenocyte proliferation assays, and the survival times of mice after challenge. Our results showed that mice immunized with pDsRed2-GRA8 demonstrated specific humoral and cellular responses, induced higher IgG antibody titers with predominant IgG2a production; increased levels of IL-10, IL-12 (p70), $IFN-{\gamma}$, $TNF-{\alpha}$, and splenocyte proliferation; and prolonged survival times compared to those of control mice. The present study showed that DNA immunization with pDsRed2-GRA8 induced humoral and cellular immune responses, and all immunized mice showed greater Th1-type immune responses and longer survival times than those of control mice. These results indicated that T. gondii GRA8 DNA immunization induces a partial protective effect against acute toxoplasmosis.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.26.1-26.14
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• 2020

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a lethal cancer type that is associated with multiple gene mutations in somatic cells. Genetically engineered mouse is hardly applicable for developing a pancreatic cancer model, and the xenograft model poses a limitation in the reflection of early stage pancreatic cancer. Thus, in vivo somatic cell gene engineering with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats is drawing increasing attention for generating an animal model of pancreatic cancer. In this study, we selected Kras, Trp53, Ink4a, Smad4, and Brca2 as target genes, and applied Campylobacter jejuni Cas9 (CjCas9) and Streptococcus pyogens Cas9 (SpCas9) for developing pancreatic cancer using adeno associated virus (AAV) transduction. After confirming multifocal and diffuse transduction of AAV2, we generated SpCas9 overexpression mice, which exhibited high double-strand DNA breakage (DSB) in target genes and pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) lesions with two AAV transductions; however, wild-type (WT) mice with three AAV transductions did not develop PanIN. Furthermore, small-sized Cjcas9 was applied to WT mice with two AAV system, which, in addition, developed high extensive DSB and PanIN lesions. Histological changes and expression of cancer markers such as Ki67, cytokeratin, Mucin5a, alpha smooth muscle actin in duct and islet cells were observed. In addition, the study revealed several findings such as 1) multiple DSB potential of AAV-CjCas9, 2) peri-ductal lymphocyte infiltration, 3) multi-focal cancer marker expression, and 4) requirement of > 12 months for initiation of PanIN in AAV mediated targeting. In this study, we present a useful tool for in vivo cancer modeling that would be applicable for other disease models as well.

• Journal of fish pathology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.93-101
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• 1993

The RNAI mutation of Saccharomyces cerevisia is a recessive and temperature sensitive lethal mutation which interferes with the production of mRNA, rRNA, and tRNA. However, the precise role of RNAI gene have not been revealed until yet. We have cloned rna1-1 mutant gene from rna1-1 mutant yeast strain(R49 ; trpl, ura3-52, rna1-1). The 3.4kb BglII fragment of wild type RNAI clone(81-2-6) contains whole RNAI gene. The genomic southern blotting with BglII digested R49 genomic DNA as a probe shows the unique and identical band with wild type 3.4kb BglII fragment. Therefore, We prepared partial BglII genomic library(3~4kb BglII fragments) into BamH I site of pUC19. The rna 1-1 mutant clone was screened with Digoxigenin(DIG)-lableled probe by high density colony hybridization. The 5'-flanking region of rna1-1 gene was sequenced by dideoxy chain termination method. The 5'-flanking sequence of RNAI gene contains three TATA-like sequence ; TAATA, TATA and TTTTAA at position of -67, -45, and -36 from first ATG codon respectively. The 5'-flanking region of wild type RNA I gene from ATG codon to -103nt was deleted with Bal31 exonuclease digestion, generating $pUC{\Delta}$/RNA I. After constructing $pYEP{\Delta}RNA$ I (consists of -103nt deleting RNA I gene, URA3 gene, $2{\mu}m$ rep. origin), pYEPrna1-1(consists of Xba I fragment of pUCrna1-1. URA3 gene, $2{\mu}m$ rep. origin), and pYEPRNAI. each plasmid was transformed into host strain(trpl, ura3-52, rna1-1) by electroporation, respectively. Yeast transformant carrying $pYEP{\Delta}RNA$ I did not complement the thermal sensitivity of rna1-1 gene. It means that TATA-like sequences in 5'-flanking region is not TATA sequence for transcribing RNAI gene and there may be other essential sequence in upstream region for the transcription of RNAI gene.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.74-81
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• 2008

Background: Fascin is an actin-bundling protein that induces membrane protrusions and it increases cell motility in various transformed cells. Esophageal cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies, and it exhibits extensive local invasion or frequent regional lymph node metastasis even after curative surgery. We investigate the expression of fascin by performing immunohistochemistry to evaluate the clinical characteristics and prognostic significance of its expression in esophageal cancer patients. Material and Method: Immunochemistry for fascin was performed on 76 tumor samples from 76 patients who underwent esophageal cancer operations. The expression levels of fascin in the 76 esophageal cancer tissues were compared with those in the corresponding normal esophageal epithelium. The fascin-positive samples were defined as those showing more than 75% of fascin-positive cells. Result: Overall, a fascin positive expression was detected in 39 (51.3%) out of the total 76 cases. The tumors with positive fascin expression tended to more frequently show a higher stage (p=0.030), and a higher T-factor (p=0.031). The prognosis of the fascin negative group was significantly better than that of the fascin positive group (p=0.004). Multivariate analysis revealed that lymphovascular invasion and the fascin expression were independent prognostic factors. Conclusion: Fascin was expressed in 513% of the esophageal cancer tissues and a positive expression of fascin was associated with more advanced tumor progression and recurrence. Our study suggests that the fascin expression may be an independent prognostic factor for an unfavorable clinical course few those patients suffering with esophageal cancer.