• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권8호
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• pp.2801-2808
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• 2022

The synergistic effect of ZrC nanoparticle pining and Re solution in W matrix on the thermal stability of tungsten was studied by investigating the evolution of the microstructure, hardness and tensile properties after annealing in a temperature range of 1000-1700 ℃. The results of metallography, electron backscatter diffraction pattern and Vickers micro-hardness indicate that the rolled W-1wt%Re-0.5 wt% ZrC alloy has a higher recrystallization temperature (1600 ℃-1700 ℃) than that of the rolled pure W (1200 ℃), W-0.5 wt%ZrC (1300 ℃), W-0.5 wt%HfC (1400-1500 ℃) and W-K-3wt%Re alloy fabricated by the same technology. The molecular dynamics simulation results indicated that solution Re atoms in W matrix can slow down the self-diffusion of W atoms and form dragging effect to delay the growth of W grain, moreover, the diffusion coefficient decrease with increasing Re content. In addition, the ZrC nanoparticles can pin the grain boundaries and dislocations effectively, preventing the recrystallization. Therefore, synergistic effect of solid solution Re element and dispersed ZrC nanoparticles significantly increase recrystallization temperature.

• BMB Reports
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• 제55권2호
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• pp.104-109
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• 2022

Skeletal myogenesis is essential to keep muscle mass and integrity, and impaired myogenesis is closely related to the etiology of muscle wasting. Recently, miR-141-3p has been shown to be induced under various conditions associated with muscle wasting, such as aging, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial dysfunction. However, the functional significance and mechanism of miR-141-3p in myogenic differentiation have not been explored to date. In this study, we investigated the roles of miR-141-3p on CFL2 expression, proliferation, and myogenic differentiation in C2C12 myoblasts. MiR-141-3p appeared to target the 3'UTR of CFL2 directly and suppressed the expression of CFL2, an essential factor for actin filament (F-actin) dynamics. Transfection of miR-141-3p mimic in myoblasts increased F-actin formation and augmented nuclear Yes-associated protein (YAP), a key component of mechanotransduction. Furthermore, miR-141-3p mimic increased myoblast proliferation and promoted cell cycle progression throughout the S and G2/M phases. Consequently, miR-141-3p mimic led to significant suppressions of myogenic factors expression, such as MyoD, MyoG, and MyHC, and hindered the myogenic differentiation of myoblasts. Thus, this study reveals the crucial role of miR-141-3p in myogenic differentiation via CFL2-YAP-mediated mechanotransduction and provides implications of miRNA-mediated myogenic regulation in skeletal muscle homeostasis.

• 한국자기공명학회논문지
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• 제26권1호
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• pp.1-9
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• 2022

There are two distinct approaches to improving the quality of protein NMR structures during refinement: all-atom force fields and accumulated knowledge-assisted methods that include Rosetta. Mao et al. reported that, for 40 proteins, Rosetta increased the accuracies of their NMR-determined structures with respect to the X-ray crystal structures (Mao et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 136, 1893 (2014)). In this study, we calculated 32 structures of those studied by Mao et al. using all-atom force field and implicit solvent model, and we compared the results with those obtained from Rosetta. For a single protein, using only the experimental NOE-derived distances and backbone torsion angle restraints, 20 of the lowest energy structures were extracted as an ensemble from 100 generated structures. Restrained simulated annealing by molecular dynamics simulation searched conformational spaces with a total time step of 1-ns. The use of GPU-accelerated AMBER code allowed the calculations to be completed in hours using a single GPU computer-even for proteins larger than 20 kDa. Remarkably, statistical analyses indicated that the structures determined in this way showed overall higher accuracies to their X-ray structures compared to those refined by Rosetta (p-value < 0.01). Our data demonstrate the capability of sophisticated atomistic force fields in refining NMR structures, particularly when they are coupled with the latest GPU-based calculations. The straightforwardness of the protocol allows its use to be extended to all NMR structures.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제45권11호
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• pp.820-832
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• 2022

As a potential candidate to generate an everlasting cell source to treat various diseases, embryonic stem cells are regarded as a promising therapeutic tool in the regenerative medicine field. Cohesin, a multi-functional complex that controls various cellular activities, plays roles not only in organizing chromosome dynamics but also in controlling transcriptional activities related to self-renewal and differentiation of stem cells. Here, we report a novel role of the α-kleisin subunits of cohesin (RAD21 and REC8) in the maintenance of the balance between these two stem-cell processes. By knocking down REC8, RAD21, or the non-kleisin cohesin subunit SMC3 in mouse embryonic stem cells, we show that reduction in cohesin level impairs their self-renewal. Interestingly, the transcriptomic analysis revealed that knocking down each cohesin subunit enables the differentiation of embryonic stem cells into specific lineages. Specifically, embryonic stem cells in which cohesin subunit RAD21 were knocked down differentiated into cells expressing neural alongside germline lineage markers. Thus, we conclude that cohesin appears to control the fate determination of embryonic stem cells.

• Mycobiology
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• 제50권5호
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• pp.326-344
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• 2022

The fungal-like family Saprolegniaceae (Oomycota), also called "water mold," includes mostly aquatic saprophytes as well as notorious aquatic animal pathogens. Most studies on Saprolegniaceae have been biased toward pathogenic species that are important to aquaculture rather than saprotrophic species, despite the latter's crucial roles in carbon cycling of freshwater ecosystems. Few attempts have been made to study the diversity and ecology of Saprolegniaceae; thus, their ecological role is not well-known. During a survey of oomycetes between 2016 and 2021, we investigated the diversity and distribution of culturable Saprolegniaceae species in freshwater ecosystems of Korea. In the present study, members of Saprolegniaceae were isolated and identified at species level based on their cultural, morphological, and molecular phylogenetic analyses. Furthermore, substrate preference and seasonal dynamics for each were examined. Most of the species were previously reported as animal pathogens; however, in the present study, they were often isolated from other freshwater substrates, such as plant debris, algae, water, and soil sediment. The relative abundance of Saprolegniaceae was higher in the cold to cool season than that in the warm to hot season of Korea. This study enhances our understanding of the diversity and ecological attributes of Saprolegniaceae in freshwater ecosystems.

• Composites Research
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• 제22권3호
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• pp.9-17
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• 2009

본 논문에서는 분자동력학 방법을 이용하여 Ag 필름/Cu기판에 대한 나노인덴테이션 특성을 파악하였다. 필름의 강성과 경도는 필름의 두께에 관계되어있으며, 임계범위 내에서, 그래인 크기가 증기하면 강성과 경도도 증가하는 것을 확인하였다. 5nm 두께 이하의 Ag필름/Cu기판의 강성과 경도는 벌크 Ag의 경우에 비해 낮은 값을 나타내었다. 특히 4nm 두께 이하의 Ag필름/Cu기판의 인덴테이션에 있어서, 전위 집적과 불일치 전위사이의 상호작용에 의해 계면상에서 꽃모양의 전위 루프가 발생 하였다. 이는 인덴테이션 하중과 변위 커브에서 하중이 저하되는 것과 관계있는 것으로 사료되고 있다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권6호
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• pp.2298-2304
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• 2023

Titanium alloys are expected to become one of the candidate materials for nuclear-powered spacecraft due to their excellent overall performance. Nevertheless, atomistic mechanisms of the defect accumulation and evolution of the materials due to long-term exposure to irradiation remain scarcely understood by far. Here we investigate the heavy irradiation damage in a-titanium with a dose as high as 4.0 canonical displacements per atom (cDPA) using atomistic simulations of Frenkel pair accumulation. Results show that the content of surviving defects increases sharply before 0.04 cDPA and then decreases slowly to stabilize, exhibiting a strong correlation with the system energy. Under the current simulation conditions, the defect clustering fraction may be not directly dependent on the irradiation dose. Compared to vacancies, interstitials are more likely to form clusters, which may further cause the formation of 1/3<1210> interstitial-type dislocation loops extended along the (1010) plane. This study provides an important insight into the understanding of the irradiation damage behaviors for titanium.

• 한국건축시공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국건축시공학회 2023년도 봄 학술논문 발표대회
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• pp.255-256
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• 2023

The development of corrosion inhibitors with outstanding performance is a never-ending and complex process engaged in by researchers, engineers and practitioners. Computational assessment of organic corrosion inhibitors performance is a crucial step towards the design of new task-pecific materials. Herein, electronic features, adsorption characteristics and bonding mechanisms of two pyridine oximes, namely 2-pyridylaldoxime (2POH) and 3-pyridylaldoxime (3POH) with the iron surface were investigated using molecular dynamics (MD), and self-consistent-charge density-unctional tight-binding (SCC-DFTB) simulations. SCC-DFTB simulations revealed that 3POH molecule can form covalent bonds with iron atoms in its neutral and protonated states, while 2POH molecule can only bond with iron through its protonated form, resulting in interaction energies of -2.534, -2.007, -1.897, and -0.007 eV for 3POH, 3POH+, 2POH+, and 2POH, respectively. Projected density of states (PDOSs) analysis of pyridines-Fe(110) interactions indicated that pyridine molecules chemically adsorbed on the iron surface.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제21권3호
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• pp.41.1-41.11
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• 2023

The Dengue virus M protein is a 75 amino acid polypeptide with two helical transmembranes (TM). The TM domain oligomerizes to form an ion channel, facilitating viral release from the host cells. The M protein has a critical role in the virus entry and life cycle, making it a potent drug target. The oligomerization of the monomeric protein was studied using ab initio modeling and molecular dynamics simulation in an implicit membrane environment. The representative structures obtained showed pentamer as the most stable oligomeric state, resembling an ion channel. Glutamic acid, threonine, serine, tryptophan, alanine, isoleucine form the pore-lining residues of the pentameric channel, conferring an overall negative charge to the channel with approximate length of 51.9 Å. Residue interaction analysis for M protein shows that Ala94, Leu95, Ser112, Glu124, and Phe155 are the central hub residues representing the physicochemical interactions between domains. The virtual screening with 165 different ion channel inhibitors from the ion channel library shows monovalent ion channel blockers, namely lumacaftor, glipizide, gliquidone, glisoxepide, and azelnidipine to be the inhibitors with high docking scores. Understanding the three-dimensional structure of M protein will help design therapeutics and vaccines for Dengue infection.

• 한국작물학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국작물학회 2023년도 춘계학술대회
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• pp.157-157
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• 2023

Pre-harvest sprouting (PHS) in rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the main problems associated with seed dormancy. PHS causes yield loss and reduction of grain quality under unpredictable humid conditions at the ripening stage, thus affecting the economic value of the rice crop. To resolve this issue, it is important to understand the molecular mechanism underlying seed dormancy in rice. Recent studies have shown that seed dormancy is affected by a large number of genes associated with plant hormones. However, the effect of heat stress on seed dormancy and plant hormones is not well understood. In this study, we compared the PHS rate as well as the transcriptome and small RNAome of the seed embryo and endosperm of two different accessions of rice, PHS-susceptible rice (low dormancy) and PHS-resistant rice (high dormancy) under three different maturation stages. We identified and verified the candidate genes associated with seed dormancy and heat stress-related responses in rice using quantitative real-time PCR. We newly discovered hormone-related genes, heat shock protein-related genes, and miRNAs potentially involved in PHS. These findings provide a foundation for understanding the dynamics of transcriptome and small RNAome of hormone- and heat stress-related genes, which affect PHS during seed maturation.