• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.4 no.2
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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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• v.21 no.1
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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.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.488-495
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• 2022

Activated carbon (AC) and carbon molecular sieve (CMS) have attracted attention as porous materials for recovery and separation of greenhouse gases. The carbon molecular sieve having uniform pores is used for collecting and separating gases because it may selectively adsorb a specific gas. The size and uniformity of pores determine the performance of the CMS, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is widely used to coat the surface with a predetermined thickness in order to control the CMS's micropores. This CVD method can be used to control the size of pores in CMS manufacturing, but it must be optimized because of its various experimental variables. Therefore, in order to produce AC and CMS for gas adsorption and separation, this review focuses on various activation processes and pore control technologies by CVD and surface treatment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.226-226
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• 1998

Discovery of molecular chaperone has stimulate cell biologists and thus made it possible to re-examine the processes whereby proteins achieve and maintain their functional conformations within living cells. the term ‘Molecular chaperone’ was first coined to describe one particular protein involved in the assembly of nucleosomes, but the term has now been extended to describe the function of a wide variety of proteins that assist protein transport across membranes, folding of nascent polypeptide, the assembly and disassembly of oligomeric structures, and the recovery or removal of proteins damaged by various environmental stresses including heat shock. Progress of molecular chaperone research is still limited by the lack of 3-dimensional structural information and detailed interacts with taget proteins in the cell. However, several laboratories around the world are attempting to extend our knowledge on the functions of molecular chaperone, and such efforts seem justified to finally provide the answers to the most burning questions shortly.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.7 no.2
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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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• v.44 no.2
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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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• v.3 no.1
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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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• 1998.10a
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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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• 1998.10a
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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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• v.64 no.7
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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.