• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.327-332
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• 2008

To determine structure and activities of microbial communities in a food wastewater treatment system, biofilm of RABC (rotating activated Bacillus contactor) and samples of aeration tanks were analyzed. Heterotrophic bacterial concentrations were similar between biofilm and stage 1 aeration tank and decreased 2-log at stage 3 aeration tank as dissolved oxygen decreased, however portions of Bacillus groups were increased at stage 3 aeration tank. It was revealed by quantitative and qualitative analysis of metabolic fingerprinting patterns of Biolog GN2 plate that RABC represented much higher activities and a different microbial community structure compared to aeration tanks. Metabolic fingerprinting showed the carbon sources that isolated Bacillus groups could or could not use, were used similarly meaning that not only Bacillus groups but also other microbial groups would contribute to the treatment of wastewater.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.349-355
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• 2009

Metabolic fingerprinting of microbial communities was investigated with Biolog GN2 plates using samples of biofilm and aeration tanks from an RABC (rotating activated Bacillus contactor) system - an advanced wastewater treatment system for the food wastewater of pig slaughterhouses. Aerobic and anaerobic results revealed the following four aspects. First, simple matching and pairs t-test of daily variation showed more defined qualitative and quantitative relatedness of active microbial communities than that of mere optical densities. Second, metabolic potentials were higher in biofilm than in aeration tanks (p<0.01), meaning higher activity of biofilm. Third, two aeration tanks showed the highest similarity (78%) and similar metabolic power (p=0.287). However, actively used carbon sources were different among samples, signifying change of active communities at each wastewater treatment step. Finally, aerobic and anaerobic metabolic fingerprinting patterns were different for the same samples representing activities of microaerophilic and/or anaerobic communities. These results suggest that daily variation and anaerobic incubation would help in the comparison of metabolic fingerprintings.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.76.1-76.1
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• 2008

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.2320-2324
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• 2012

A novel approach for metabolite extraction and fingerprinting was introduced based upon the nano-baskets and emulsion liquid membrane-nuclear magnetic resonance (ELM-NMR) technique. The objective of this method is optimizing the fingerprints, minimizing the metabolic variation from analysis, increasing the likelihood differences, and obtaining the maximum extraction yield. Low molecular weight metabolites in rat serum were recovered by ELMs using 12 nano-baskets of calixarene, as both emulsifier and carrier. The yields of ELMs were optimized by the method of one-at-a-time. According to NMR data, the maximum metabolic variation was achieved using scaffold 4 (4 wt %), n-decane membrane, stirring rate of 300 rpm, treat and phase ratios of 0.3 and 0.8, respectively. The results revealed that some calixarenes tend to extract non-specific macromolecules; and repeatability of fingerprints for 7-mediated ELM was maximum and for 3-mediated ELM was minimum. The yield of extractions was obtained to be higher for n-decane and lower for carbon tetrachloride. Among different membranes, the fingerprints by chlorinated liquid membranes were more repeatable than using toluene or n-decane.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.34-42
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• 2014

Soy and fermented soy are popular and recognized as a health food among Koreans. Since soy proteins are known to be protease resistant, even to pepsin and pancreatin, it is hypothesized that soy proteins may interact with the intestinal tract and trigger certain physiological reactions. To test this hypothesis, mice were fed diets supplemented with soy, Chunkukjang, or casein. The differentially expressed proteins were analyzed using 2-D gels and identified by peptide mass fingerprinting using mass spectrometry. The majority of the differentially expressed proteins could be functionally grouped into metabolic enzymes and calcium-binding proteins. The differential protein expression by the soy-fed groups was also verified based on a representative protein, tropomyosin, using a Western blotting analysis. In addition, the soy-fed groups exhibited a taller villi structure. Therefore, this study suggests that soy proteins can be an effective nutrient and physiological stimulant for the intestines.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.11-15
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• 2007

Metabolomics is an emerging technology which makes it possible to evaluate change of biological system in response to the physiological, environmental alterations. It has advantages in the simplicity and sensitivity to analyze metabolites since the researcher can use cutting edge instrument, such as mass spectrometry and simple sample preparation method compared to genomics or proteomics. Nowadays this technology has been tried in pharmaceutical area to investigate toxicity and efficacy of drug candidates and drugs in preclinical test. The metabolomic applications on the pharmaceutics for early prediction on toxicity and efficacy are described in this presentation. The multivariate analysis to get metabolic fingerprinting and its relations with the physiological changes are investigated with several drugs. Feasibility of metabolomic application for pharmaceutical area would be suggested from those researches.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.559-568
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• 2017

Metabolomics has been used as a powerful tool for the analysis and quality assessment of the natural product (NP)-derived medicines. It is increasingly being used in the quality control and standardization of NP-derived medicines because they are composed of hundreds of natural compounds. The most common techniques that are used in metabolomics consist of NMR, GC-MS, and LC-MS in combination with multivariate statistical analyses including principal components analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). Currently, the quality control of the NP-derived medicines is usually conducted using HPLC and is specified by one or two indicators. To create a superior quality control framework and avoid adulterated drugs, it is necessary to be able to determine and establish standards based on multiple ingredients using metabolic profiling and fingerprinting. Therefore, the application of various analytical tools in the quality control of NP-derived medicines forms the major part of this review. $Veregen^{(R)}$ (Medigene AG, Planegg/Martinsried, Germany), which is the first botanical prescription drug approved by US Food and Drug Administration, is reviewed as an example that will hopefully provide future directions and perspectives on metabolomics technologies available for the quality control of NP-derived medicines.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.257-264
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• 2015

To determine whether metabolite fingerprinting for whole cell extracts based on Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy can be used to discriminate and compare metabolic equivalence, standard medicinal parts from four medicinal plants (Cynanchum wilfordii Hemsley, Atractylodes japonica Koidz, Polygonum multiflorum Thunberg and Astragalus membranaceus Bunge) and their in vitro-produced adventitious roots were analyzed by FT-IR spectroscopy. The principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) from the FT-IR spectral data showed that the whole metabolic pattern from Cynanchum wilfordii was highly similar to Astragalus membranaceus. However, Atractylodes japonica and Polygonum multiflorum showed significantly different metabolic patterns. Furthermore, adventitious roots from Cynanchum wilfordii and Astragalus membranaceus also showed similar metabolic patterns compared to their standard medicinal parts. These results clearly show that mass proliferation of adventitious roots may be applied to aquire novel supply of standard medicinal parts from medicinal plants. However, the whole metabolic pattern from adventitious roots of Atractylodes japonica and Polygonum multiflorum were not similar to their standard medicinal parts. Furthermore, FT-IR spectroscopy combined with multivariate analyses established in this study may be applied as an alternative tool to discriminate the whole metabolic equivalence from several standard medicinal parts. Thus, we suggest that these metabolic discrimination systems may be applied for metabolic standardization of herbal medicinal resources.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.12-24
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• 2010

Plant metabolomics is a research field for identifying all of the metabolites found in a certain plant cell, tissue, organ, or whole plant in a given time and conditions and for studying changes in metabolic profiling as time goes or conditions change. Metabolomics is one of the most recently developed omics for holistic approach to biology and is a kind of systems biology. Metabolomics or metabolite fingerprinting techniques usually involves collecting spectra of crude solvent extracts without purification and separation of pure compounds or not in standardized conditions. Therefore, that requires a high degree of reproducibility, which can be achieved by using a standardized method for sample preparation and data acquisition and analysis. In plant biology, metabolomics is applied for various research fields including rapid discrimination between plant species, cultivar and GM plants, metabolic evaluation of commercial food stocks and medicinal herbs, understanding various physiological, stress responses, and determination of gene functions. Recently, plant metabolomics is applied for characterization of gene function often in combination with transcriptomics by analyzing tagged mutants of the model plants of Arabidopsis and rice. The use of plant metabolomics combined by transcriptomics in functional genomics will be the challenge for the coming year. This review paper attempted to introduce current status and prospects of plant metabolomics research.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2015

This study aimed to establish a rapid system for discriminating the cultivation origins and cultivars of dry persimmons, using metabolite fingerprinting by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy combined with multivariate analysis. Whole-cell extracts from the sepals of four Korean cultivars and two different Chinese dry persimmons were subjected to FT-IR spectroscopy. Principle component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) of the FT-IR spectral data successfully discriminated six dry persimmons into two groups depending on their cultivation origins. Principal component loading values showed that the 1750-1420 and $1190-950cm^{-1}$ regions of the FT-IR spectra were significantly important for the discrimination of cultivation origins. The accuracy of prediction of the cultivation origins and cultivars by PLS regression was 100% (p<0.01) and 85.9% (p<0.05), respectively. These results clearly show that metabolic fingerprinting of FT-IR spectra can be applied for rapid discrimination of the cultivation origins and cultivars of commercial dry persimmons.