The hypopharyngeal gland (HPG) of the honeybee worker produces royal jelly (RJ) and has a developmental cycle closely related to the division of labor. In this study, we investigated to compare the HPG acini diameter of differently aged worker bees with high royal jelly producing colony (HRC) or less producing colony (LRC). Additionally, we also evaluated whether the fresh weight of the head is a reliable indicator of the developmental status of HPG. The HRC showed a significantly higher RJ production about two-times as compared with those of the LRC. We measured the HG-diameters on days 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15. The microscopic analysis revealed that the acini size of the HRC was significantly larger than the LRC. In addition, the acini diameter of HRC was 15% longer than the LRC on the first day after emerging. It was shown that the fastest development during 3 days which is preparing for nurse the brood. The HPG acini diameters increased in both colonies in a similar fashion until day 12 and then decreased. We also compared the fresh head weight of the experimental colonies, differences were similar to the development of HPG. Therefore, high royal jelly production may have a positive correlation between HPG acini size and the fresh head weight.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most prevalent cancer in the world, and heme iron is known to promote the CRC in an animal model. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of ascorbic acid in the presence of hemin on the formation of pre-neoplastic lesions induced by azoxymethane (AOM)/disodium sulfate (DSS) in mice. After acclimation for 1 week, five-week old mice received three s.c. injections (0-2 weeks of the experiment) of AOM [10 mg/kg body weight (BW)] weekly and were treated with 2% DSS in drinking water for the next week to induce aberrant crypt foci (ACF). All animals were fed the AIN-76A purified rodent diet for experimental period of 6 weeks. Experimental groups were then divided into three groups: carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) alone (control), CMC + Hemin, CMC + Hemin + ascorbic acid (AA). The CMC was used as a solvent for hemin. The daily doses were 534 mg/kg BW hemin and 246 mg/kg BW ascorbic acid administered orally. After the colonic mucosa were stained with methylene blue, aberrant crypt foci (ACF), aberrant crypt (AC) and polyps were counted. Lipid peroxidation in liver was evaluated by the thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) assay. The numbers of ACF, AC and large ACF (≥4 AC/ACF) per colon increased in the hemin group compared to the control group, while they decreased significantly in the hemin + ascorbic acid group compared to the control group or hemin group (p<0.01). The number of polyps/colon in the hemin + AA group was significantly decreased compared to the hemin group (p<0.05). In the liver, the TBARS value of the hemin group was significantly higher than that of the control group (p<0.01). Additionally, the TBARS value of the hemin + AA group decreased slightly compared to that of the hemin group. Taken together, these results suggest that hemin can promote colon carcinogenesis in a mouse model and that ascorbic acid has a protective effect against hemin-promoted colon carcinogenesis.

Gluten-free industry has experienced consistent growth with increasing the number of individuals with celiac disease. Among gluten-free products, the popularity of rice noodles has been worldwide increasing over the recent years. However, rice noodles have several processing limitations such as high cooking turbidity and long cooking time. Therefore, various ingredients have been incorporated into the formulation of rice noodles in order to improve their quality attributes. In this study, turanose which is known to be a new sugar alternative with low sweetness was applied to rice noodles and their effects were characterized in terms of thermal, rheological, and textural properties. Gluten-free rice noodles were prepared with different levels of turanose (0.5, 1.0, 1.5%, w/w) by using a twin-screw extruder. Rice flour with turanose had higher gelatinization temperature and also showed higher enthalpy values after storage at 4°C. The use of turanose also increased the pasting and mixing parameters of rice flour. In addition, the application of turanose to rice noodles affected their qualities such as texture and cooking loss. Thus, this study demonstrated that turanose could positively contribute to enhancing the qualities of gluten-free rice noodles as a new additive.

The aim of the present study was to investigate sex- and age-associated clinico-metabolic characteristics of urinary stone patients. A retrospective review was performed on data from 2,009 consecutive patients presenting with their first urinary stone episode between 2005 and 2013. Of the 2,009 patients, 1,426 (71.0%) satisfied the inclusion criteria and were enrolled in the study. Patients were grouped by age (<60, ≥60 years old) and sex. The medical history and 24 hr urinary chemistry results of each patient were obtained. The mean age of the 165 (11.6%) patients aged 60 or over was 65.5 ± 4.2 years. Body mass index was greater in elderly females than in younger females (p=0.031). After stratification by sex and age, lower urinary excretion of calcium and uric acid was a protective factor for both sexes among the elderly (p<0.05, each, respectively). Low urine pH was a common risk factor for both sexes among the elderly (p=0.013 in males, p=0.047 in females, respectively), whereas lower citrate excretion was a risk factor for only the elderly female group (p=0.004). With regard to urinary metabolic abnormalities, elderly females showed higher incidence of hypocitraturia compared to younger females (p=0.049). In conclusion, this study demonstrated the sex- and age-associated clinico-metabolic characteristics of urinary stone patients. Thus, it is important to tailor metabolic evaluation and medical prevention therapies for patient according to sex and gender characteristics.

In this paper we introduce the Plasma Physics of Active Galactic Nuclei project, which is an ongoing experiment with Korean VLBI Network (KVN) and KVN and VERA Array (KaVA) to study multi- frequency polarimetric properties on parsec scales of active galaxies. The goal of the project is to improve our understanding of fundamental jet physics, especially evolution of the relativistic out ow coupled with the large-scale magnetic field. We selected six radio-loud AGN as our targets. So far we (i) detected resolved emissions regions at 86 and 129 GHz on VLBI scales, (ii) constructed 2D spectral index maps of the out ows, and (iii) found polarizations at 22 and 43 GHz for a few targets. Here we present spectral index distributions of 3C 120 between 22 and 43 GHz and a linear polarization map of BL Lac at 43 GHz obtained with KVN.

Dietary and lifestyle modifications are widely prescribed to prevent recurrence of urolithiasis, although little is known about the clinical and demographic factors associated with patient compliance and urinary metabolic changes. The present study assessed the clinical and demographic factors influencing compliance with a modified diet and lifestyle in first-time ureteric stone formers as well as determined the effects of compliance on urinary stone risk factors. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 53 patients presenting with ureteric calcium stones. Using a self-completed questionnaire, patients were classified according to compliance with seven recommendations for modifying diet and lifestyle into good compliance group (complied with ≥ three recommendations) and poor compliance group. Before (on a random diet) and after prescribing the modifications, 24 hour urine samples were collected from those in the good and poor compliance group. The stone size at presentation and initial treatment modality were closely associated with patient compliance (P=0.019, P=0.027, respectively). Citrate excretion significantly increased in the good compliance group after adopting modifications (P=0.012), whereas the poor compliance group did not show a statistically significant difference. Moreover, patients in the poor compliance group showed significantly increased urinary calcium excretion by the end of the study (P=0.040). After adjustments for age, sex, body mass index, and metabolic abnormality status, poor compliance was found to be an independent risk factor for persistence or development of hypocitraturia (OR: 3.885; 95% CI: 1.102~13.694; P=0.035). In conclusion, our results imply that patient education programs regarding diet and lifestyle should be tailored to the individual’s clinical and demographic characteristics.

Muscle satellite cell (SC) is responsible for postnatal muscle growth, repair, and regeneration. Satellite cell is an im-portant source of multi-potent stem cell process and differentiation into adipogenic, myogenic, and osteoblastogenic. The objective of this study was to identify alter of transcriptome during differentiation in porcine satellite cell and to elevated transcriptome at different stages of postnatal development to gain insight into the differences in differ-entiated PSC. We used RNA-seq technique to investigate the transcriptomes during differentiation in pig muscle. Sequence reads were obtained from Illumina HiSeq2000. Differentially expressed genes (DEG) were detected by EdgeR. Gene ontology (GO) terms are powerful tool for unification among representation genes or products. In study of GO biological terms, functional annotation clustering involved in cell cycle, apoptosis, extracellular matrix, phosphoryla- tion, proteolysis, and cell signaling in differences stage. Taken together, these results would be contributed to a better understanding of muscle biology and processes underlying differentiation. Our results suggest that the source of DEGs could be better understanding of the mechanism of muscle differentiation and transdifferentiation.

Satellite cells were derived from muscular tissue in postnatal pig. Satellite cell is an important to growth and development in animal tissues or organs. However, the progress underlying induced differentiation is not clear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the morphologic and the transcriptome changes in porcine satellite cell (PSC) treated with insulin, rosiglitazone, or dexamethasone respectively. PSC was obtained from postnatal muscle tissue. In study 1, for study the effect of insulin and FBS on the differentiated satellite cells, cells were cultured at absence or presence of insulin treated with FBS. Total RNA was extracted for determining the expression levels of myo-genic PAX3, PAX7, Myf5, MyoD, and myogenin genes by real-time PCR. Myogenic genes decreased expression levels of mRNA in treated with insulin. In study 2, in order to clarify the relationship between rosiglitazone and lipid in differentiated satellite cells, we further examined the effect of FBS on lipid accumulation in the presence or absence of the rosiglitazone and lipid. Significant differences were observed between rosiglitazone and lipid by FBS. The mRNA of FABP4 and PPARγ increased in rosiglitazone treatment. In study 3, we examined the effect of dexame-thasone on osteogenic differentiation in PSC. The mRNA was increased osteoblasotgenic ALP and ON genes treated with dexamethasone in 2% FBS. Dexamethasone induces osteoblastogenesis in differentiated PSC. Taken together, in differentiated PSCs, FABP4 and PPARγ increased to rosiglitazone. Whereas, no differences to FBS and lipid. These results were not comparable with previous reports. Our results suggest that adipogenic, myogenic, and osteoblasto-genic could be isolated from porcine skeletal muscle, and identify culture conditions which optimize proliferation and differentiation formation of PSC.