• Korean Journal of Animal Reproduction
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.285-297
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• 1995

The mammalian oviduct is a place where ontogeny of an animal begins. Nowadays, however, it is possilbe to manipulate a part of physiological events occurring in the oviduct so that fertilization of gametes and early embryonic development of zygotes could proceed outside oviductal environment. Rabbit zygotes readily develop to blastocysts in a conventional culture condition. Most of the mouse fertilized eggs do so when cultured under a specific environment, e.g., in a medium containing ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid. Similarly, a significant number of zygotes from rat, sheep, pig or cattle can develop to blastocysts if they are cultured in the presence of particular component which appear to be somewhat species-specific. Instead of changing the components of medium, somatic cells including oviductal epithelial cells, have widely been used to improve mammalian embryonic development in vitro. Many investigators have reported that mammalian zygotes, whether fertilized in vivo or in vitro, could develop to blastocysts when they were cultured on a monolayer of various kinds of somatic cells or even in a somatic cell-conditioned medium. While little is known about the nature of embryotrophic factor(s) produced in vitro by somatic cells, the existence fo oviduct-specific protein(s) has consistently been demonstrated in many laboratories. Some of these proteins are reported to be associated with oviductal eggs. However, the physiological role of these proteins has still to be determined. Recently we observed that the perivitelline space of mouse oocytes was fluorescently stained with various fluorochrome-protein conjugates following ovulation into the oviducts or upon their expossure to oviductal extracts. Furthermore, it was also found that cattle or pig oviductal fluid gave similar results when examined using mouse ghost ZP. These observations lead to suggest that mammalian oviduct induces changes of biochemical properties of oocytes. Further studies are needed to clarify the nature of oviductal factor(s) and the physiological meaning of the reaction.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.404-408
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• 2008

The genome of replication-competent BERV ${\gamma}4$ provirus, which is the most abundant ERV family in the bovine genome, was characterized in detail. The BERV ${\gamma}4$ genome showed that BERV ${\gamma}4$ harbors 8576 nucleotides and has the typical 5'-long terminal repeat (LTR)-gag-pro-pol-env-LTR-3' retroviral organization with a long leader region positioned before the gag open reading frame. Multiple sequences analysis showed that the nucleotide difference between 5' and 3' LTRs was 4.2% (mean value 0.042) in average, suggesting that the provirus formed at most 13.3 million years ago. Gag separated by a stop codon from pro-pol in the same reading frame, while env resides in another reading frame lacking of a functional surface domain. According to the current bovine genome sequence assembly, the full-length BERV ${\gamma}4$ provirus sequences were only found in the chromosomes 1, 2, 6, 10, 15, 23, 26, 28, X, and unassigned, although the partial sequences almost evenly distributed in the entire bovine genome. This is the first detailed study describing the genome structure of BERV ${\gamma}4$, the most abundant ERV family present in bovine genome. Combined with our recent reports on characterization of ERVs in bovine, this study will contribute to illuminate ERVs in the cattle of which no information was previously available.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.118-123
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• 2005

With the increasing availability of mammalian genome sequences it became possible to use large scale phylogenetic analysis in order to locate potentially functional regions. In this paper we describe a new probabilistic method for the characterization of phylogenetic conservation in mammalian DNA sequences. We have used this method for the analysis of Hox gene clusters, based on the alignment of 6 species, and we constructed a map of for indicating short and long conserved fragments and their positions with respect to the known locations of Hox genes and other elements, sometimes showing surprising layouts.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.197-204
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• 2011

Egg activation is a crucial step that initiates embryo development upon breaking the meiotic arrest. In mammalian, egg activation is accomplished by fusion with sperm, which induces the repeated intracellular $Ca^{2+}$- increases ($[Ca^{2+}]_i$ oscillation). Researches in mammals support the view of the $[Ca^{2+}]_i$ oscillation and egg activation is triggered by a protein factor from sperm that causes $[Ca^{2+}]_i$ release from endoplasmic reticulum, intracellular $[Ca^{2+}]_i$ store, by persistently activation of phosphoinositide pathway. It represents that the sperm factor generates production of inositol trisphosphate ($IP_3$). Recently a sperm specific form of phospholipase C zeta, referred to as PLCZ was identified. In this paper, we confer the evidence that PLCZ represent the sperm factor that induces $[Ca^{2+}]_i$ oscillation and egg activation and discuss the correlation of PLCZ and infertility.

• BMB Reports
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.424-430
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• 2016

Autophagy, an evolutionarily conserved cellular degradation pathway of the lysosome, is associated with many physiological and pathological processes. The hallmark of autophagy is the formation of the autophagosome that engulfs and degrades cytosolic components via its fusion with the lysosome, in either a selective or a non-selective manner. Autophagy is tightly regulated by proteins encoded by autophagy-related (atg) genes. Among these proteins, ATG8/LC3 is essential for autophagosome biogenesis/maturation and it also functions as an adaptor protein for selective autophagy. In mammalian cells, several homologs of yeast Atg8 such as MAP1LC3, GABARAP, and GABARAPL 1/2 have been identified. However, the biological relevance of this gene diversity in higher eukaryotes, and their specific roles, are largely unknown. In this review, we describe the mammalian ATG8/LC3 family and discuss recent advancements in understanding their roles in the autophagic process.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.3695-3700
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• 2012

Mammalian mediator (MED) is a multi-protein coactivator that has been identified by several research goups. The involvement of the MED complex subunit 19 (MED 19) in the metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma cell line (H1299), which expresses the MED 19 subunit, was here investigated. When MED 19 expression was decreased by RNA interference H1299 cells demonstrated reduced clone formation, arrest in the S phase of the cell cycle, and lowered metastatic capacity. Thus, MED 19 appears to play important roles in the biological behavior of non-small cell lung carcinoma cells. These findings may be important for the development of novel lung carcinoma treatments.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.103-108
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• 2005

2-Deoxyribonolactone (dL) arises as a major DNA damage induced by a variety of agents, involving free radical attack and oxidation of C1'-deoxyribose in DNA. We investigated whether dL lesions can be repaired in mammalian cells and the mechanisms underlying the role of DNA polymerase $\beta$ in processing of dL lesions. Pol $\beta$ appeared to be trapped by dL residues, resulting in stable DNA-protein cross-links. However, repair DNA synthesis at site-specific dL sites occurred effectively in cell-free extracts, but predominantly accompanied by long-patch base excision repair (BER) pathway. Reconstitution of long-patch BER demonstrated that FEN1 was capable of removing the displaced flap DNA containing a 5'-dL residue. Cellular repair of dL lesions was largely dependent on the DNA polymerase activity of Pol $\beta$. Our observations reveal repair mechanisms of dL and define how mammalian cells prevent cytotoxic effects of oxidative DNA lesions that may threaten the genetic integrity of DNA.

• BMB Reports
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.158-163
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• 2010

Calumenin is a multiple EF-hand $Ca^{2+}$-binding protein located in the endo/sarcoplasmic reticulum of mammalian hearts. Calumenin belongs to the CREC family of $Ca^{2+}$-binding proteins having multiple EF-hands. $Ca^{2+}$ homeostasis in the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) of mammalian hearts is maintained by RyR2, SERCA2 and other associated SR resident proteins. Evidence suggests that calumenin interacts with RyR2 and SERCA2, and therefore changes in the expression of calumenin could alter $Ca^{2+}$ cycling in mouse heart. In this review, current knowledge of the biochemical and functional roles of calumenin in mouse heart is described.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.62-65
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• 2002

We have previously shown that the addition of silkworm hemolymph to a culture medium increases the longevity of insect and mammalian cells by inhibiting apoptosis. This indicates that the component which inhibits apoptosis is contained in the silkworm hemolymph, The apoptosis-inhibiting component was isolated from silkwonn hemolymph and characterized in our previous study. A database search using the N-terminal amino acid sequence of this component as a template resulted in a 95% homology with a low molecular weight lipoprotein, the so called ’30K protein' of unknown function. In this study, the 30K protein gene was expressed in mammalian and insect cells to confirm the apoptosis-inhibiting effect. The overexpression of 30K protein in mammalian cell inhibited the staurosporin-induced apoptosis by the prevention of the activation of caspase 3. Using an Autographa californicanuclear polyhedrosis virus (AcNPV) system, the 30K protein was overexpressed also in insect cells. The expression of the 30K protein increased the longevity of baculovirus-infected insect cells by inhibiting apoptosis. These results suggest that the 30K protein is a novel anti-apoptotic protein.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.7-7
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• 2011

Graphene and graphene derivatives have attracted enormous attention from various research fields for applications in electronic devices, transparent electrodes, biosensors, drug delivery system and surface coatings. In the viewpoint of chemist, the chemical structure of graphene derivatives seems intriguing but detailed structures are being revealed only recently while engineering approaches for various applications are being executed very actively. In addition, cytotoxicity and mammalian cellular responses to graphene have not thoroughly investigated yet in spite of the importance in bio-applications and environment. In this talk, I'll introduce recent studies which report cytotoxicity and behaviors of mammalian cells when the cells are exposed to graphene (as well as some bio-applications of graphene), especially to get closer to answers to these questions, "how we understand and how/why we use graphene in biotechnology".