• BMB Reports
• /
• v.51 no.5
• /
• pp.242-248
• /
• 2018

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) show great promise for replacing current stem cell therapies in the field of regenerative medicine. However, the original method for cellular reprogramming, involving four exogenous transcription factors, is characterized by low efficiency. Here, we focused on using epigenetic modifications to enhance the reprogramming efficiency. We hypothesized that there would be a new reprogramming factor involved in DNA demethylation, acting on the promoters of pluripotency-related genes. We screened proteins that bind to the methylated promoter of Oct4 and identified Zinc finger protein 127 (Zfp127), the functions of which have not yet been identified. We found that Zfp127 binds to the Oct4 promoter. Overexpression of Zfp127 in fibroblasts induced demethylation of the Oct4 promoter, thus enhancing Oct4 promoter activity and gene expression. These results demonstrate that Zfp127 is a novel regulator of Oct4, and may become a potent target to improve cellular reprogramming.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.255-261
• /
• 2002

GTP cyclohydrolase I (E.C. 3.5.4.16) is a homodecameric protein that catalyzes the conversion of GTP to 7,8-dihydroneopterin triphosphate (H2NTP), the initial step in the biosynthesis of pteridines. It was proposed that the enzyme complex could be composed of a dimer of two pentamers, or a pentamer of tightly associated dimers; then the active site of the enzyme was located at the interface of three monomers (Nar et al. 1995a, b). Using mutant enzymes that were made by site-directed mutagenesis, we showed that a decamer of GTP cyclohydrolase I should be composed of a pentamer of five dimers, and that the active site is located between dimers, as analyzed by a series of size exclusion chromatography and the reconstitution experiment. We also show that the residues Lys 136, Arg139, and Glu152 are of particular importance for the oligomerization of the enzyme complex from five dimers to a decamer.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
• /
• v.39 no.4
• /
• pp.177-185
• /
• 2014

Transfection is a gene delivery tool that is a popular means of manipulating cellular properties, such as induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) generation by reprogramming factors (Yamanaka factors). However, the efficiency of transfection needs to be improved. In the present study, three transfection protocols - non-liposomal transfection (NLT), magnetofection and electroporation - were compared by analysis of their transfection efficiencies and cell viabilities using human dental pulp cells (hDPC) and bovine fetal fibroblasts (bFF) as cell sources. Enhanced green fluorescent protein gene was used as the delivery indicator. For magnetofection, Polymag reagent was administrated. NLT, FuGENE-HD and X-treme GENE 9 DNA transfection reagents were used for NLT. For electroporation, the $Neon^{TM}$ and $NEPA21^{TM}$ electroporators were tested. $Neon^{TM}$ electroporation showed highest transfection efficiency when compared with NLT, magnetofection, and $NEPA21^{TM}$ electroporation, with transfection efficiency of about 33% in hDPC and 50% in bFF, based on viable cell population in each cell type. These results suggest that transfection by $Neon^{TM}$ electroporation can be used to deliver foreign genes efficiently in human and bovine somatic cells.

• 대한생식의학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2002.05a
• /
• pp.11-17
• /
• 2002

Animal clones derived from somatic cells have been successfully produced in a variety of mammalian species such as sheep, cattle, mice, goats, pigs, cat and rabbits. However, there are still many unsolved problems in the present cloning technology. Somatic cell nuclear transfer has shown several developmental aberrancies including high rate of abortion in early gestation and increased perinatal death. These developmental failures of cloned embryos may arise from abnormal reprogramming of donor genome and/or incomplete cloning procedure. We have found that overall genomic methylation status of cloned bovine embryos is quite different from that of normal embryos in various genomic regions, suggesting that the developmental failures of cloned embryos may be due to incomplete reprogramming of donor genomic DNA. Many of the advances in understanding the molecular events for reprogramming of donor genome will more clarify the developmental defects of cloned embryos.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.237-243
• /
• 2018

Hedgehog (Hh) pathway plays a key role in development from invertebrate to vertebrate. It is known to be involved in cell differentiation, polarity, proliferation, including the development of vertebrate limb and the establishment of flies' body plan. To investigate how the regulation of Hh pathway affects the development of parthenogenetic murine embryos, the parthenogenetically activated murine embryos were treated with either cyclopamine (Cyc), an antagonist of Hh pathway, or purmorphamine, an agonist of Hh pathway. While Cyc did not affect the blastocyst formation and its total cell number, the chemical reduced the hatching rate of embryos and the expression levels of Fn1 mRNA. The results of the present study show the possibility that Cyc may affect the development of embryos at blastocyst stage by blocking Hh pathway and this may cause detrimental effect to the embryos at peri-, and post-implantation stages.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.54 no.7
• /
• pp.335-343
• /
• 2021

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a subpopulation of cancer that can self-renew and differentiate into large tumor masses. Evidence accumulated to date shows that CSCs affect tumor proliferation, recurrence, and resistance to chemotherapy. Recent studies have shown that, like stem cells, CSCs maintain cells with self-renewal capacity by means of asymmetric division and promote cell proliferation by means of symmetric division. This cell division is regulated by fate determinants, such as the NUMB protein, which recently has also been confirmed as a tumor suppressor. Loss of NUMB expression leads to uncontrolled proliferation and amplification of the CSC pool, which promotes the Notch signaling pathway and reduces the expression of the p53 protein. NUMB genes are alternatively spliced to produce six functionally distinct isoforms. An interesting recent discovery is that the protein NUMB isoform produced by alternative splicing of NUMB plays an important role in promoting carcinogenesis. In this review, we summarize the known functions of NUMB and NUMB isoforms related to the proliferation and generation of CSCs.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.209-214
• /
• 2010

Cells that have endogenous multipotent properties can be used as a starting source for the generation of induced pluripotent cells (iPSC). In addition, small molecules associated with epigenetic reprogramming are also widely used to enhance the multi- or pluripotency of such cells. Skinderived precursor cells (SKPs) are multipotent, sphereforming and embryonic neural crest-related precursor cells. These cells can be isolated from a juvenile or adult mammalian dermis. SKPs are also an efficient starting cell source for reprogramming and the generation of iPSCs because of the high expression levels of Sox2 and Klf4 in these cells as well as their endogenous multipotency. In this study, valproic acid (VPA), a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, was tested in the generation of iPSCs as a potential enhancer of the reprogramming potential of SKPs. SKPs were isolated from the back skins of 5-6 week old C57BL/6 X DBA/2 F1 mice. After passage 3, the SKPs was treated with 2 mM of VPA and the quantitative real time RT-PCR was performed to quantify the expression of Oct4 and Klf4 (pluripotency specific genes), and Snai2 and Ngfr (neural crest specific genes). The results show that Oct4 and Klf4 expression was decreased by VPA treatment. However, there were no significant changes in neural crest specific gene expression following VPA treatment. Hence, although VPA is one of the most potent of the HDAC inhibitors, it does not enhance the reprogramming of multipotent skin precursor cells in mice.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.37 no.1
• /
• pp.31-35
• /
• 2014

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are capable of unlimited self-renewal and can give rise to all three germ layers, thereby providing a new platform with which to study mammalian development and epigenetic reprogramming. However, iPSC generation may result in subtle epigenetic variations, such as the aberrant methylation of the Dlk1-Dio3 locus, among the clones, and this heterogeneity constitutes a major drawback to harnessing the full potential of iPSCs. Vitamin C has recently emerged as a safeguard to ensure the normal imprinting of the Dlk1-Dio3 locus during reprogramming. Here, we show that vitamin C exerts its effect in a manner that is independent of the reprogramming kinetics. Moreover, we demonstrate that reprogramming cells under 2i conditions leads to the early upregulation of Prdm14, which in turn results in a highly homogeneous population of authentic pluripotent colonies and prevents the abnormal silencing of the Dlk1-Dio3 locus.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
• /
• v.9 no.7
• /
• pp.25-32
• /
• 2019

This paper proposes the method of an in-vehicle gateway to reduce the reprogramming time for the ECU (Electronic Control Unit). In order to reduce the reprogramming time, the gateway must prohibit transmitting messages, that are not related to reprogramming, to the destination CAN network, and no ECU should diagnose the DTC(Diagnostic Trouble Code) that indicates CAN communication error caused by prohibiting CAN messages by the gateway. Moreover, STmin, which are the minimum time between two consecutive CAN messages, should be minimized. In order to do this, this paper proposes the method that uses the link control command specified in UDS(Unified Diagnostic Services) and hardware based gateway functionality that are supported by the latest MCU(Micro Controller Unit). The proposed method is developed using TC275 based embedded system, and its results are presented.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.67-72
• /
• 2012

The generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from patients' somatic cells provides a new paradigm for studying human genetic diseases. Human iPSCs which have similar properties of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) provide a powerful platform to recapitulate the disease-specific cell types by using various differentiation techniques. This promising technology has being realized the possibility to explore pathophysiology of many human genetic diseases at the molecular and cellular levels. Furthermore, disease-specific human iPSCs can also be used for patient-based drug screening and new drug discovery at the stage of the pre-clinical test in vitro. In this review, we summarized the concept and history of cellular reprogramming or iPSC generation and highlight recent progresses for disease modeling using patient-specific iPSCs.