• Toxicological Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.303-310
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• 2018

The methods of applied genetic toxicology are changing from qualitative hazard identification to quantitative risk assessment. Recently, quantitative analysis with point of departure (PoD) metrics and benchmark dose (BMD) modeling have been applied to in vitro genotoxicity data. Two software packages are commonly used for BMD analysis. In previous studies, we performed quantitative dose-response analysis by using the PROAST software to quantitatively evaluate the mutagenicity of four piperidine nitroxides with various substituent groups on the 4-position of the piperidine ring and six cigarette whole smoke solutions (WSSs) prepared by bubbling machine-generated whole smoke. In the present study, we reanalyzed the obtained genotoxicity data by using the EPA's BMD software (BMDS) to evaluate the inter-platform quantitative agreement of the estimates of genotoxic potency. We calculated the BMDs for 10%, 50%, and 100% (i.e., a two-fold increase), and 200% increases over the concurrent vehicle controls to achieve better discrimination of the dose-responses, along with their BMDLs (the lower 95% confidence interval of the BMD) and BMDUs (the upper 95% confidence interval of the BMD). The BMD values and rankings estimated in this study by using the EPA's BMDS were reasonably similar to those calculated in our previous studies by using PROAST. These results indicated that both software packages were suitable for dose-response analysis using the mouse lymphoma assay and that the BMD modeling results from these software packages produced comparable rank orders of the mutagenic potency.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.50-57
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• 2010

Mercuric chloride, a model nephrotoxicant was used to elucidate time- and dose- dependent global gene expression changes associated with proximal tubular toxicity. Rat kidney cell lines NRK-52E cells were exposed for 2, 6 and 12 hours and with 3 different doses of mercuric chloride. Cell viability assay showed that mercuric chloride had toxic effects on NRK-52E cells causing 20% cell death (IC20) at $40{\mu}M$ concentration. We set this IC20 as high dose concentration and 1/5 and 1/25 concentration of LC20 were used as mid and low concentration, respectively. Analyses of microarray data revealed that 738 genes were differentially expressed (more than two-fold change and p<0.05) by low concentration of mercuric chloride at least one time point in NRK-52E cells. 317 and 2,499 genes were differentially expressed at mid and high concentration of mercuric chloride, respectively. These deregulated genes showed a primary involvement with protein trafficking (CAV2, CANX, CORO1B), detoxification (GSTs) and immunity and defense (HMOX1, NQO1). Several of these genes were previously reported to be up-regulated in proximal tubule cells treated with nephrotoxicants and might be aid in promoting the predictive biomarkers for nephrotoxicity.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.117-125
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• 2008

Recently, obesity has become a worldwide public health concern and the use of anorectic drugs has drastically increased. In this study, sibutramine and phendimetrazine, representative marketed anorectics, were repeatedly administered per os on a daily basis into C57BL/6 mice and the effects of these drugs on food intakes, body weight changes and gene expression profiles were monitored for up to following 7 days. Methamphetamine, which has a potent anorectic effect, was used as a positive control. Anorectic effects were sustained only for two days by phendimetrazine or methamphetamine, but for six days by sibutramine. The modulations of gene expressions in the hypothalamus and the striatum were investigated using microarrays on day 2 and day 7 post-administration, which corresponded to the anorectic period and a return of appetite respectively, for all three drugs tested. Differences in overall gene expression profiles in the stratum on day 2 for sibutramine and phendimetrazine seems to reflect difference between the two in terms of the onsets of drug tolerance. According to microarray findings, the Ankrd26 gene appears to have an important anorectic role, whereas the up-regulation of the olfaction system appeared to be involved in the drug tolerance of anorectics. The microarray data presented in this study demonstrates the usefulness of gene expression analysis for gathering information on the efficacy and safety of anorectic drugs.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.56-64
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• 2019

Recently, a number of adulterated products, which are advertised as hair-growth enhancer have been emerged among those who suffer hair loss disease. For continuous control of illegal products, in this study, a rapid and sensitive method for simultaneous screening of 12 compounds that enhance hair-growth was established to protect public health by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS). Fragmentation pathways of them were proposed based on $MS^2$ spectral data obtained using the established method. In this analysis, the LODs and LOQs ranged from 0.05 to 50 ng/mL and from 0.17 to 167 ng/mL, respectively. The square of the linear correlation coefficient ($R^2$) was determined as more than 0.995. The intra- and inter-assay accuracies were respective 88-112 % and 88-115 %. Their precision values were measured within 5 % (intra-day) and 10 % (inter-day). Mean recoveries of target compounds in adulterated products ranged from 84 to 115%. The relative standard deviation of stability was less than 12 % at $4^{\circ}C$ for 48 h. The method was employed to screen 14 dietary supplements advertised to be effective for the treatment of hair loss. Some of the products (~21 %) were proven to contain synthetic drugs that promote hair growth such as triaminodil, minoxidil, and finasteride.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.597-603
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• 2015

Synthetic cannabinoids JWH-018 and JWH-250 in 'herbal incense' also called 'spice' were first introduced in many countries. Numerous synthetic cannabinoids with similar chemical structures emerged simultaneously and suddenly. Currently there are not sufficient data on their adverse effects including neurotoxicity. There are only anecdotal reports that suggest their toxicity. In the present study, we evaluated the neurotoxicity of two synthetic cannabinoids (JWH-081 and JWH-210) through observation of various behavioral changes and analysis of histopathological changes using experimental mice with various doses (0.1, 1, 5 mg/kg). In functional observation battery (FOB) test, animals treated with 5 mg/kg of JWH-081 or JWH-210 showed traction and tremor. Their locomotor activities and rotarod retention time were significantly (p<0.05) decreased. However, no significant change was observed in learning or memory function. In histopathological analysis, neural cells of the animals treated with the high dose (5 mg/kg) of JWH-081 or JWH-210 showed distorted nuclei and nucleus membranes in the core shell of nucleus accumbens, suggesting neurotoxicity. Our results suggest that JWH-081 and JWH-210 may be neurotoxic substances through changing neuronal cell damages, especially in the core shell part of nucleus accumbens. To confirm our findings, further studies are needed in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Veterinary Pathology Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.149-149
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• 2002

Epidemiologically the incidence of liver cancer is markedly sex-differentiated, with a much higher frequency in men than in women. In experimental animals, it is also higher in male than in female irrespective of carcinogen-induced or spontaneous tumors. Therefore, we tried to investigate the modulating effects of sex hormones in experimental hepatocarcinogenesis. For induction of liver tumors, mini-osmotic pump containing diethylnitrosamine at a dose level of 47.5mg was implanted into the peritoneal cavity of the rat at 6 weeks old. To remove the effects of male sex hormones, the animals of group 2 were castrated one week prior to DEN treatment. To see the effects of estrogen, pellet containing 1g or 10g of estradiol-3-benzoate was infused subcutaneously to the animals of group 3 and 4 one week prior to DEN treatment. The pellets were exchanged every 4 weeks until sacrifice. All animals were sacrificed at 26 weeks after DEN treatment. The tumor incidences in group 1 (DEN alone), group 2 (DEN +castration), group 3(DEN +EB 1g) and group 4 (DEN +EB 10g) were 100％ (15/15), 93.3％ (14/15), 85.7％ (12/14) and 66.7％ (10/15), respectively, showing that the value of group 4 is significantly different from that of group 1. Tumor multiplicity data of group 1, 2, 3 and 4 were 5.470.73, 2.800.51, 2.070.41 and 1.670.46, respectively, showing castration or EB treatment reduced number of liver tumors significantly (P<0.001). With immunohistochemistry and Western blotting of ER the expressions were detected in normal adjacent liver cells but decreased or lost in tumor cells. From these results we conclude that female sex hormone, especially estrogen, may act as a liver tumor suppressor, and it seemed that the down regulation of ER may be associated with liver tumor development.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2005

There are some critical drawbacks in the use of biomarkers for a global assessment of the toxicological impacts many chemicals and environmental pollutants have, primarily due to an individual biomarker's specificity for an explicit chemical or toxicant. In other words, the biomarker-based assessment methodology used to analyze toxicological effects lacks a high-throughput capability. Therefore, eco-toxicogenomics, or the study of toxicogenomics with organisms present within a given environmental locale, has recently been introduced with the advent of the so-called "-omics" era, which began with the creation of microarray technologies. Fish are comparable with humans in their toxicological responses and thus data from toxicogenomic studies performed with fish could be applied, with appropriate tools and implementation protocols, to the evaluation of environments where human or animal health is of concern. At present, there have been very active research streams for developing expression sequence tag (EST) databases (DBs) for zebra fish and rainbow trout. Even though few reports involve toxicogenomic studies with fish, a few groups have successfully fabricated and used cDNA microarrays or oligo DNA chips when studying the toxicological impacts of hypoxia or some toxicants with fish. Furthermore, it is strongly believed that this technology can also be implemented with non-model fish. With the standardization of DNA microarray technologies and ample progress in bioinformatics and proteomic technologies, data obtained from DNA microarray technologies offer not only multiple biomarker assays or an analysis of gene expression profiles, but also a means of elucidating gene networking, gene-gene relations, chemical-gene interactions, and chemical-chemical relationships. Accordingly, the ultimate target of eco-toxicogenomics should be to predict and map the pathways of stress propagation within an organism and to analyze stress networking.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.239-254
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• 2004

It has been debating about conducting and interpretating of 2-year rodent carcinogenicity bioassay. Although some criticisms arising in usefulness, it has been still known that long-term carcinogenicity studies using rodents would be the only assay system to predict any possible human risks, which would not be replaced. Both regulatory agencies and academies have developed some assay models, however, there have been controversy whether those study designs and interpretations are based on sound scientific rationale and validated data. Such kinds of issues including choice of species/strain, dose level selection, duration of study, number of animals per group, historical control data, monitoring parameters, terminal investigations, peer review, statistics, alternative assay models, interpretation of neoplastic lesions, and risk assessments, were reviewed.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.964-969
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• 2000

Di-(2-ethylhexyl) adipate(DEHA) has been used extensively as a plasticizer in the manufacture of plastic products such as PVC films. Though, phthalate esters plasticizers have been known to induce endocrine system-mediated responses, few studies have been conducted for the screening of estrogenic activity of DEHA, an adipate plasticizer. This study was initiated to evaluate the estrogenic activity of DEHA by in vitro E-screen assay and in vivo uterotrophic assay. MCF-7 human breast cancer cells were treated with $DEHA(5{\times}10^{-9}{\sim}5{\times}10^{-4}\;M)$, for 144 hr, and cell proliferation was determined by sulforhodamine B(SRB) assay. DEHA dissolved in corn oil was administered subcutaneously to ovariectomized(OVX) female Sprague-Dawley rats at dosage levels of 0, 2, 20 and 200 mg/kg/day for three consecutive days. Rats were sacrificed 24 hr after final treatment and vagina and uterus(wet and blotted) weights were obtained. E-screen assayed DEHA did not generate cell proliferation at treated concentrations$(5{\times}10^{-9}{\sim}5{\times}10^{-4}\;M)$, whereas 17 ${\beta}-estradiol$(E2), the positive control, induced cell proliferation at low concentrations$(5{\times}10^{-14}{\sim}5{\times}10^{-9}\;M)$. In the uterotrophic assay, DEHA did not change vagina and uterus(wet and blotted) weights at dosage levels up to 200 mg/kg/day treatment. These results demonstrated that DEHA did not exhibit the estrogenic activity as determined by in vitro E-screen assay and in vivo uterotrophic assay.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.125-133
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• 2020

Methylisothiazolinone (MIT) and chloromethylisothiazolinone (CMIT) cause allergic contact dermatitis and are banned cosmetics ingredients, except in rinse-off products. However, their presence has been detected in cosmetics. We report a UPLC-tandem MS/MS screening method for their simultaneous determination in cosmetics. To facilitate extraction from various matrices, pretreatment methods were developed for each sample type. The method was optimized through a series of assessments, including specificity, LOD, LOQ, linearity, recovery, stability, precision, and accuracy. The LODs and LOQs for MIT ranged from 0.054 and 0.163 ㎍ mL^-1 whereas those for CMIT ranged from 0.040 and 0.119 ㎍ mL^-1. The linear correlation coefficients (r²) were higher than 0.999. Relative standard deviations (RSDs) for both intra- and inter-day measurements ranged from 0.3 ~ 13.6 %. Recoveries at three different concentrations were within 87.9 ~ 118.9 %. The RSD for stability measurements of spiked samples was within 7 %. These results confirm the suitability of the developed method for the simultaneous quantitation of MIT and CMIT in cosmetics. Samples of 320 color cosmetics, including eyeshadows, solid lipsticks, liquid lipsticks, and nail polishes were analyzed using the developed method, and two of them were found to contain both MIT and CMIT and one of them was found to contain only MIT. This data and the method will aid the regulation of ingredients used in cosmetics.