• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.545-549
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• 1997

Effects of swainsonine (SW;8${\alpha}$, ${\beta}$-indolizidine-${\alpha}$, $2{\alpha}$8-triol from Locoweed) on the humoral immune responses of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) wer studied in ICR mice. Mice were divided into 4 groups (10 mice/group), and LPS was given to each mouse 1 hr after i.p. injection with 3.7 mg/kg of swainsonine, by i.p. injection twice a week for 14 days at a dose of 2 mg/kg. Humoral immune responses were evaluated by hemagglutination (HA) titer and splenic plaque forming cells (PFC). The results of this study were summarized as follows: Mice administrated each of LPS and SW showed significant enhancement of the weight ratios of spleen to body, HA titer, 2-mercaptoethanol-resistant HA(MER-HA) titer and PFC compared with those in controls. However, the LPS plus SW treatment decreased HA titer, MER-HA titer and PFC corresponding to humoral immunity, as compared with those in the mice treated with LPS alone. These findings indicated that LPS significantly enhanced humoral immune responses, but their enhancement effects were lowered somewhat by SW.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.67-78
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• 2019

Methylation of HBV cccDNA has been detected in vivo and in vitro; however, the mechanism and its effects on HBV replication remain unclear. HBx derived from a 1.2-mer HBV replicon upregulated protein levels and enzyme activities of DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1), 3a, and 3b, resulting in methylation of the negative regulatory region (NRE) in cccDNA, while none of these effects were observed with an HBx-null mutant. The HBx-positive HBV cccDNA expressed higher levels of HBc and produced about 4-fold higher levels of HBV particles than those from the HBx-null counterpart. For these effects, HBx interrupted the action of NRE binding protein via methylation of the C-1619 within NRE, resulting in activation of the core promoter. Treatment with 5-Aza-2′dC or DNMT1 knock-down drastically impaired the ability of HBx to activate the core promoter and stimulate HBV replication in 1.2-mer HBV replicon and in vitro infection systems, indicating the positive role of HBx-mediated cccDNA methylation in HBV replication.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.254-259
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• 2004

Rapid detection of foodbome pathogens is becoming increasingly important. The requirement for faster, more reliable tests has lead to the development of a wide range of rapid methods. Among these methods, the use of systems based on nucleic acid based detection has been increasing since they offer advantages of reduction in test time and more reliable detection or identification. Random Amplification Polymorphic DNA(RAPD) method has been used to fingerprint foodbome microorganisms; Listeria monocytogenes. In this study, 10-mer primer OPG-13(5'-CTCTCCGCCA-3') was used to generate RAPD-PCR for detection of pathogenic L. monocytogenes of Listeria spp. Among 20 primers tested, OPG-13 showed on acceptable result for the differentiation of a pathogenic Listeria from non-pathogenic microorganisms. Pathogenic Listeria, L. monocytogenes(ATCC 15313, 19111, 19112, 19113) showed two bands for 700 bp and 1,500 bp while non-pathogenic bacteria, L. ivanovii, L. grayi, L. murrayi, L. innocua, L. welshimeri, and L. seeligeri had only one band sizing from 2,000 to 2,300 bp. This RAPD method proved to be a valuable to gain important information on sources of pathogenic bacteria in food industry.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.330-338
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• 2002

Spontaneous speech is ungrammatical as well as serious phonological variations, which make recognition extremely difficult, compared with read speech. In this paper, for conversational speech recognition, we analyze the transcriptions of the real conversational speech, and then classify the characteristics of conversational speech in the speech recognition aspect. Reflecting these features, we obtain the baseline system for conversational speech recognition. The classification consists of long duration of silence, disfluencies and phonological variations; each of them is classified with similar features. To deal with these characteristics, first, we update silence model and append a filled pause model, a garbage model; second, we append multiple phonetic transcriptions to lexicon for most frequent phonological variations. In our experiments, our baseline morpheme error rate (WER) is 31.65%; we obtain MER reductions such as 2.08% for silence and garbage model, 0.73% for filled pause model, and 0.73% for phonological variations. Finally, we obtain 27.92% MER for conversational speech recognition, which will be used as a baseline for further study.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.264-269
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• 2012

Recently, we reported that the synthetic Coprisin analog peptide 9-mer dimer CopA3 (consisted of all-L amino acid sequence) was designed based on a defensin-like peptide, Coprisin isolated from Copris tripartitus. The 9-mer dimer CopA3 (L-CopA3) had antibacterial activity and induced apoptosis in human leukemia cells via a caspase-independent pathway. In this study, all of amino acid sequences of L-CopA3 were modified to all D-form amino acids (DCopA3) to develop a more effective antimicrobial peptide. We investigated whether D-CopA3 had antimicrobial activities against pathogenic microorganisms and pro-apoptotic effects in human leukemia cells (U937, Jurkat, and AML-2). The synthetic peptide D-CopA3 had antimicrobial activities against various pathogenic bacteria and yeast fungus with MIC values in the 4~64 ${\mu}M$ range. Moreover, D-CopA3 caused cell growth inhibition, and increased the chromosomal DNA fragmentation and the expression of inflammatory cytokines, TNF-${\alpha}$ and IL1-${\beta}$, transcripts in human leukemia cells. The all-D amino acid peptide DCopA3 proved as effective as the L-CopA3 reported previously. These results provide the basis for developing D-CopA3 as a new antibiotic peptide.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2015

A new cecropin-like antimicrobial peptide (Px-CLP) gene was isolated from the immunechallenged larvae of the swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus, by employing annealing control primer (ACP)-based GeneFishing PCR. The full-length cDNA of Px-CLP is 310 nucleotides encoding a 70 amino acid precursor that contains a putative 22-residue signal peptide, a 4-residue propeptide, a presumed 37-residue mature peptide, and an uncommon 7-residue acidic pro-region at the C-terminus. The deduced amino acid sequence of Px-CLP showed significant identities with other Lepidopteran cecropin D type peptides. RT-PCR revealed that the Px-CLP transcript was detected at significant level after injection with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The peptides with or without C-terminal acidic sequence region were synthesized on-solid phage and submitted to antibacterial activity assay. The synthetic 37-mer peptide (Px-CLPa), which removed C-terminal acidic sequence region, was showed exclusively antibacterial activity against E. coli ML35; meanwhile, a 44-mer peptide (Px-CLPb) with C-terminal acidic peptide region was not active. This result suggests that Px-CLP is produced as a larger precursor containing a C-terminal pro-region that is subsequently removed by C-terminal modification.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.26 no.9
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• pp.535-547
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• 2023

Sea cucumbers (Holothuria scabra), also known as beche-de-mer, are highly valued as a luxurious food item and have been utilized as a traditional tonic food in various Asian countries for centuries. The body walls of sea cucumbers are the main edible part, which are primarily composed of glycosaminoglycan (GAG). The rehydration of dried sea cucumber is a crucial step prior to further processing. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of ultrasound-assisted rehydration (UAR) on the quality of dried sea cucumbers. The experiment used four different rehydration methods, including conventional methods at 27℃ (KV27℃) and 15℃ (KV15℃), as well as a combination of ultrasound at 27℃ with conventional at 15℃ (UAR27 + KV15℃) and ultrasound at 15℃ with conventional at 15℃ (UAR15 + KV15℃). Results indicated that the rehydration rate (RR) was significantly affected by both the rehydration method and the temperature used (p < 0.05). UAR27 + KV15℃ was identified as the most effective method in terms of rehydration behavior and quality characteristics of dried sea cucumber, with a RR of 0.58 ± 0.53 gH₂O/hour and reduced rehydration time of up to 28 hours. Moreover, the UAR27 + KV15℃ method demonstrated superior rehydration potential, nutritional value (proximate composition and sulfate content), color, lower energy, and microstructure properties compared to the other methods. The sulfate content and yield of sulfated GAGs were determined to be 89.4 mg/g and 52.8 ㎍/g, respectively. Confirmation of the absorption band of the sulfate group showed the presence of 3-N-acetyl galactosamine at a wavelength of 1,269 cm^-1 and C-O-S at 860 cm^-1. The sea cucumbers treated with UAR exhibited a GAG content approximately 2.9 times higher than those rehydrated with the conventional method. Eventually, the combination of UAR at 27℃ with conventional at 15℃ methods can significantly accelerate the rehydration of sea cucumber without negatively affecting its physical quality properties.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.131-135
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• 2008

A cDNA encoding a defensin-like peptide (Protaetiamycine) from the larvae of a beetle, Protaetia brevitarsis was cloned. The DNAs encoded the deduced propeptide of 79 amino acid residues with the predicted molecular weight of 8.4 kDa and PI of 8.24. Overall amino acid sequence of this protein has 39% similarity to that of Rhodnius prolixus defensin, 43% similarity to that of Acalolepta luxuriosa defensin, and 72% similarity to that of Oryctes rhinoceros defensin, suggesting that this gene is an insect defensin. In an attempt to apply the anti-bacterial peptide to the development of therapeutic agents, a 12-mer peptide amidated at its C-terminus, ACAAHCLAIGRG-$NH_2$ (Ala55-Lys66-$NH_2$, 12Pbn) was synthesized. This peptide showed some antifungal activity against Candida albicans. To increase antifungal activity, six 9-mer peptides were synthesized by modifying amino acid sequences of 12Pbn fragment. Among these peptides, 9Pbm3-9Pbm6 exhibited strong activity compared with Cecropin B and mellitin.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.229.2-229
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• 2005

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.157-163
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• 2002

To identify RNA motifs interacting with $tRNA^{Val}$, a SELEX(Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) was applied. Random DNA library which contains a region of ran-domized 48-mer oligonucleotide flanked by conserved sequ ence primers was transcribed into RNA pool using T7 RNA polymerase and RNA aptamers were selected with $tRNA^{Val}$ -immobilized affinity column through 14 rounds of SELEX. Some of the resulting aptamers contained a consensus sequence similar to the sequence in the loop regions of three rRNAs; C43GAAC47 sequence of 5S rRNA, G1491AAGU1495, G1379UUCC1383 sequence of 16S rRNA and C1064UUAG1068, G2110UGUA2114, C2480GACGG2485, A2600CAGU2604 sequence of 23S rRNA. These results suggest that $tRNA^{Val}$ can interact with 5S rRNA, 16S rRNA and 23S rRNA with variety in ribosome.