• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• 제4권2호
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• pp.94-99
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• 2004

Background: We previously reported that ginsan, a polysaccharide extracted from Panax ginseng had an immunostimulatory activity such as mitogenic activity, activation of macrophages and killer cells, and production of a variety of cytokines which resulted in antitumor and antiseptic effects. We further purified $\alpha$-(1$\longrightarrow$6)-glucan and $\beta$-(2$\longrightarrow$6)-fructan from the ginsan with size exclusion and ion-exchange column chromatography successively. In this study, we performed the structure-based activity of ginsan by comparison with known polysacchrides such as $\beta$-glucan, curdlan, laminarin, levan, dextran, lentinan and OK-432. Methods: To investigate the immunostimulatory activity of several polysaccharide compounds, we investigated the stimulation of lymphocytes proliferation, the generation of activated killer cells and the secretion of nitrites from activated macrophages. Results: Of polysaccharides tested, curdlan and ginsan stimulated lymphocyte proliferation, suggesting that the molecular weight and composition of polysaccharide are dependent on the mitogenic activity. The production of nitric oxide was significantly increased in curdlan, levan, ginsan and its fraction, indicating that fructan has also capacity to activate macrophages and may devote to kill pathogens. In addition, the activation of macrophages was seemed to be independent of molecular weight of polysaccharide. The generation of AK cells was exhibited in order of curdlan, OK-432> F1, ginsan, F3> levan> etc. The AK activity may be dependent on molecular weight and composition of polysaccharides. Conclusion: Unfortunately, purified polysaccharide from ginsan were less active on immunostimulatory activity than mixed compounds of polysaccharides. From the viewpoint of structure and activity relationships, we found several characteristic features.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.47-54
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• 2005

Identification of host genes involved in disease progresses and/or defense responses is one of the most critical steps leading to the elucidation of disease resistance mechanisms in plants. Soybean mosaic virus (SMV) is one of the most prevalent pathogen of soybean (Glycine max). Although the soybeans are placed one of many important crops, relatively little is known about defense mechanism. In order to obtain host genes involved in SMV disease progress and host defense especially for virus resistance, two different cloning strategies (DD RT-PCR and Subtractive hybridization) were employed to identify pathogenesis- and defenserelated genes (PRs and DRs) from susceptible (Geumjeong 1) and resistant (Geumjeong 2) cultivars against SMV strain G7H. Using these approaches, we obtained 570 genes that expressed differentially during SMV infection processes. Based upon sequence analyses, differentially expressed host genes were classified into five groups, i.e. metabolism, genetic information processing, environmental information processing, cellular processes and unclassified group. A total of 11 differentially expressed genes including protein kinase, transcription factor, other potential signaling components and resistant-like gene involved in host defense response were selected to further characterize and determine expression profiles of each selected gene. Functional characterization of these genes will likely facilitate the elucidation of defense signal transduction and biological function in SMV-infected soybean plants.

• 공업화학
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• 제33권5호
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• pp.488-495
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• 2022

온실가스의 회수 및 분리를 위한 다공성 물질로 활성탄소와 탄소분자체가 주목을 받아왔다. 균일한 기공을 가지는 탄소분자체는 특정 가스를 선택적으로 흡착할 수 있기 때문에 가스의 포집 및 분리에 사용되고 있다. 탄소분자체의 성능은 세공의 크기 및 균일성에 따라 좌우되는데, 이러한 탄소분자체의 미세 기공 제어를 위하여 표면을 일정한 두께로 코팅할 수 있는 화학기상증착법이 널리 사용 되고 있다. 이 화학기상증착법은 탄소분자체 제조 시 기공의 크기를 제어하는데 사용될 수 있으나, 그 실험 변수가 다양하기 때문에 이에 대한 최적화가 필요하다. 따라서, 본 총설에서는 가스 흡착 및 분리공정용 활성탄소와 탄소분자체를 제조하기 위하여 여러 가지 활성화 공정, 화학기상증착법과 표면처리 등에 의한 기공 제어 기술들을 중심으로 다루고자 한다.

• 생명과학회지
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.226-226
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• 1998

Molecular chaperone의 발견은 생명과학자들에게 살아있는 세포 내에서 어떻게 생체활성단백질이 만들어지고 유지되는지에 대한 자극과 함께 그것을 증명하기 위한 실험동기를 부여하였다. 초기에는 Molecular chaperone이 nucleosomes의 assembly에 관여하는 단백질을 설명하기 위하여 사용되었으나, 지금은 기본적인 세포생리기능의 하나인 단백질의 folding과 assembly를 돕는 assistant protein으로 주로 사용된다. 단백질합성 뿐만 아니라 단백질수송, oligomeric structure의 assembly와 disassembly, heat shock을 포함한 각종 내, 외부스트래스에 의해서 변성된 단백질의 세로내분화와 회복에도 Molecular chaperone이 관여하고 있다. 그러나 아직까지는 Molecular chaperone들의 3차구조와 그들간의 상호작용에 관한 정보가 부족하여 크게 진전되지 못하고 있지만, 많은 연구자에 의한 정보축적으로 인하여 빠른 시일 내에 Molecular chaperone에 세포내역할이 분명하게밝혀질 것이다.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.122-130
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• 2009

A systems biology approach for the identification of perturbed molecular functions is required to understand the complex progressive disease such as breast cancer. In this study, we analyze the microarray data with Gene Ontology terms of molecular functions to select perturbed molecular functional modules in breast cancer tissues based on the definition of Gene ontology Functional Code. The Gene Ontology is three structured vocabularies describing genes and its products in terms of their associated biological processes, cellular components and molecular functions. The Gene Ontology is hierarchically classified as a directed acyclic graph. However, it is difficult to visualize Gene Ontology as a directed tree since a Gene Ontology term may have more than one parent by providing multiple paths from the root. Therefore, we applied the definition of Gene Ontology codes by defining one or more GO code(s) to each GO term to visualize the hierarchical classification of GO terms as a network. The selected molecular functions could be considered as perturbed molecular functional modules that putatively contributes to the progression of disease. We evaluated the method by analyzing microarray dataset of breast cancer tissues; i.e., normal and invasive breast cancer tissues. Based on the integration approach, we selected several interesting perturbed molecular functions that are implicated in the progression of breast cancers. Moreover, these selected molecular functions include several known breast cancer-related genes. It is concluded from this study that the present strategy is capable of selecting perturbed molecular functions that putatively play roles in the progression of diseases and provides an improved interpretability of GO terms based on the definition of Gene Ontology codes.

• BMB Reports
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.96-101
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• 2011

Calcineurin is a serine/threonine protein phosphatase controlled by $Ca^{2+}$ and calmodulin that has been implicated in various signaling pathways. Previously, we reported that calcineurin regulates coelomocyte endocytosis in Caenorhabditis elegans. So far, simple and powerful in vivo approaches have been developed to study various endocytic processes in C. elegans. Using these in vivo assays, we further analyzed the endocytic phenotypes of calcineurin mutants. We observed that the calcineurin mutants were defective in apical endocytosis in the intestine as well as synaptic vesicle recycling in the nerve cord. However, we found that calcineurin mutants displayed normal receptor-mediated endocytosis in oocytes. Therefore, our results suggest that calcineurin may regulate specific sets of endocytic processes in nematode.

• Rapid Communication in Photoscience
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• 제3권1호
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• pp.1-15
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• 2014

We summarize recent studies on photoinduced electron- and energy-transfer processes of various supramolecules including imide group(s) as a component. Recently, imides have been employed in various functional molecular systems, because of their excellent photophysical and electron accepting properties. Our research group also employed imides in various supramolecular systems such as donor-acceptor dyads, quantum dots, DNA, and so on. First, we summarize fundamental properties of imides such as photophysical and electrochemical properties. Then, photoinduced processes of imides in the supramolecular systems are described to show their applicability in the various fields.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 제어로봇시스템학회 1998년도 제13차 학술회의논문집
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• pp.501-506
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• 1998

A mathematical model is developed to describe the relationship between the manipulated variables (e.g. jacket inlet temperature and feed flow rate) and the important qualities (e.g conversion and weight average molecular weight (Mw)) in a continuous polymerization reactor. The subspace-based identification method for Wiener model is used to retrieve from the discrete sample data the accurate information about both the structure and initial parameter estimates for iterative parameter optimization methods. The comparison of the output of the identified Wiener model with the outputs of a non-linear plant model shows a fairly satisfactory degree of accordance.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 제어로봇시스템학회 1998년도 제13차 학술회의논문집
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• pp.468-473
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• 1998

A mathematical model was developed for a continuous re-actor in which free radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) occurred. Elementary reactions considered in this study were initiation, propagation, termination, and chain transfers to monomer and solvent. The reactor model took into account the density change of the reactor contents and the gel effect. A control system was designed for a continuous reactor using extended Kalman filter (EKF) based non-linear model predictive controller (NLMPC) to control the conversion and the weight average molecular weight of the polymer product. Control input variables were the jacket inlet temperature and the feed flow rate. For the purpose of validation of the control strategy, on-line digital control experiments were conducted with densitometer and viscometer for the measurement of the polymer properties. Despite the com-plex and nonlinear features of the polymerization reaction system, the EKF based NLMPC performed quite satisfactorily for the property control of the continuous polymerization reactor.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• 제64권7호
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• pp.355-363
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• 2021

Background: Nephrotic syndrome (NS) is a common renal disorder in children attributed to podocyte injury. However, children with the same diagnosis have markedly variable treatment responses, clinical courses, and outcomes, suggesting molecular heterogeneity. Purpose: This study aimed to explore the molecular responses of podocytes to nephrotic plasma to identify specific genes and signaling pathways differentiating various clinical NS groups as well as biological processes that drive injury in normal podocytes. Methods: Transcriptome profiles from immortalized human podocyte cell line exposed to the plasma of 8 subjects (steroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome [SSNS], n=4; steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome [SRNS], n=2; and healthy adult individuals [control], n=2) were generated using microarray analysis. Results: Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of global gene expression data was broadly correlated with the clinical classification of NS. Differential gene expression (DGE) analysis of diseased groups (SSNS or SRNS) versus healthy controls identified 105 genes (58 up-regulated, 47 down-regulated) in SSNS and 139 genes (78 up-regulated, 61 down-regulated) in SRNS with 55 common to SSNS and SRNS, while the rest were unique (50 in SSNS, 84 genes in SRNS). Pathway analysis of the significant (P≤0.05, -1≤ log2 FC ≥1) differentially expressed genes identified the transforming growth factor-β and Janus kinase-signal transducer and activator of transcription pathways to be involved in both SSNS and SRNS. DGE analysis of SSNS versus SRNS identified 2,350 genes with values of P≤0.05, and a heatmap of corresponding expression values of these genes in each subject showed clear differences in SSNS and SRNS. Conclusion: Our study observations indicate that, although podocyte injury follows similar pathways in different clinical subgroups, the pathways are modulated differently as evidenced by the heatmap. Such transcriptome profiling with a larger cohort can stratify patients into intrinsic subtypes and provide insight into the molecular mechanisms of podocyte injury.