In mammals, puberty is a dynamic transition process from infertile immature state to fertile adult state. The neuroendocrine aspect of puberty is started with functional activation of hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal hormone axis. The timing of puberty can be altered by many factors including hormones and/or hormone-like materials, social cues and metabolic signals. For a long time, attainment of a particular body weight or percentage of body fat has been thought as crucial determinant of puberty onset. However, the precise effect of high-fat (HF) diet on the regulation of hypothalamic GnRH neuron during prepubertal period has not been fully elucidated yet. The present study was undertaken to test the effect of a HF diet on the puberty onset and hypothalamic gene expressions in immature female rats. The HF diet (45% energy from fat, HF group) was applied to female rats from weaning to around puberty onset (postnatal days, PND 22-40). Body weight and vaginal opening (VO) were checked daily during the entire feeding period. In the second experiment, all animals were sacrificed on PND 36 to measure the weights of reproductive tissues. Histological studies were performed to assess the effect of HF diet feeding on the structural alterations in the reproductive tissues. To determine the transcriptional changes of reproductive hormone-related genes in hypothalamus, total RNAs were extracted and applied to the semi-quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Body weights of HF group animals tend to be higher than those of control animals between PND 22 and PND 31, and significant differences were observed PND 32, PND 34, PND 35 and PND 36 (p<0.05). Advanced VO was shown in the HF group (PND p<0.001) compared to the control (PND ). The weight of ovaries (p<0.01) and uteri (p<0.05) from HF group animals significantly increased when compared to those from control animals. Corpora lutea were observed in the ovaries from the HF group animals but not in control ovaries. Similarly, hypertrophy of luminal and glandular uterine epithelia was found only in the HF group animals. In the semi-quantitative RT-PCR studies, the transcriptional activities of KiSS-1 in HF group animals were significantly higher than those from the control animals (p<0.001). Likewise, the mRNA levels of GnRH (p<0.05) were significantly elevated in HF group animals. The present study indicated that the feeding HF diet during the post-weaning period activates the upstream modulators of gonadotropin such as GnRH and KiSS-1 in hypothalamus, resulting early onset of puberty in immature female rats.
It has been reported that ganglioside GT1b is expressed during neuronal cell differentiation from undifferentiated mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs), which suggests that ganglioside GT1b has a direct effect on neuronal cell differentiation. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of exogenous addition of ganglioside GT1b to an in vitro model of neuronal cell differentiation from undifferentiated mESCs. The results revealed that a significant increase in the expression of ganglioside GT1b occurred during neuronal differentiation of undifferentiated mESCs. Next, we evaluated the effect of retinoic acid (RA) on GT1b-treated undifferentiated mESCs, which was found to lead to increased neuronal differentiation. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that ganglioside GT1b plays a crucial role in neuronal differentiation of mESCs.
Gd-157 material has very large neutron capture cross section in the thermal region. So it is very useful to shield material for thermal neutrons. Futhermore, in the neutron capture experiment and calculation, the neutron absorption and scattering are very important. Especially these effects are conspicuous in the resonance energy region and below the thermal energy region. In the case of very narrow resonance, the effect of scattering is to be more considerable factor. In the present study, we obtained energy dependent neutron absorption ratios of natural indium in energy region from 0.003 to 100 keV by MCNP-4B Code. The coefficients for neutron absorption was calculated for circular type and 1 mm thickness. In the lower energy region, neutron absorption is larger than higher region, because of large capture cross section (1/v). Furthermore it seems very different neutron absorption in the large resonance energy region. These results are very useful to decide the thickness of sample and shielding materials.
This study was aimed to investigate the difference for carbohydrate accumulation in both the red skinned tuber and white skinned tuber of Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.), and to evaluate their tuber yield of seven lines collected from Korea. Jerusalem artichoke tubers were divided into two groups regarding to their skinned colors. Red skinned tuber collected from Euisung region showed the lowest tuber yield as 3,100 kg per 10a, otherwise white skinned tuber collected from Imdong region resulted in the highest tuber production as 6,300 kg per 10a among the six kinds of white skinned tubers. Yield of white skinned tuber was higher than that of red skinned tuber. It was inferred from the result that carbohydrate accumulation in white skinned tuber was highly increased compared to red skinned tuber since after early tuber enlargement.
Dental caries is the destruction of the enamel of teeth by Streptoccus mutans. S. mutans has been isolated from human dental plaque and is associated with the initial development of enamel lesions. We have studied the antibacterial action of the fruit of Callistemon citrin us against a cariogenic bacterium, S. mutans. From the fruit of C. citrinus, piceatannol (3,3',4',5-tetrahydroxystilbene) was isolated by repeated column chromatography with SiO2 and Sephadex LH-20. Its structure was elucidated by instrumental analysis using 1D-NMR, 2D-NMR and EI-MS. This compound was isolated from the fruit of C. citrin us for the first time. The anticarcinogenic activity of this compound was determined by using agar well-diffusion method and minimal inhibition concentration (MIC).
Here we reported two unrecorded naturalized species from Korean flora. Andropogon virginicus L. of Graminaeae and Euphorbia postrata Aiton of Euphorbiaceae are collected from Dong-gu, Ulsan-si and Sinjindo-ri, Taean-gun, Chungcheongnam-do respectively. A. virginicus L. was easily distinguishable from Themeda triandras var. japonica Makino by keel on glume, 2-4 racemes and long hairy rachis. Thus, the new Korean name, 'Na-do-sol-sae', was given. E. postrata Aiton was cleary distinguished from related taxa by hairs on only edges of fruits. The new Korean name, 'Nu-un-ttang-bin-dae' was given considering the species epithet. Descriptions, illustrations and photographs showing habitat were given.
Phytochemical investigation of the sesame dregs of Sesamum indicum was conducted by open column and prep-HPLC chromatography. Two phytosterols (1 and 2) and two lignans (3 and 4) were isolated from the MeOH extracts of sesame dregs, and identified as β-sitosterol (1), daucosterol (2), sesamin (3), and sesamolin (4) by spectral analysis. Although these compounds were already isolated from sesame, it is important that they were still main phytochemical components in the sesame dregs.
The growth and yield performance of 19 new com hybrids were evaluated. Results showed that all hybrids had a superior growth performance in the drained-paddy than in the upland field except for daeyul × cheongdo and hyoryeong × cheongdo in plant height, cheongdoyeop × wx-3 in tassel1ength, and cheongdo (black) × wx-3 in number of tassel branch. The same hybrids, except cheongdoyeop × wx-3, obtained lower ear quality in drained-paddy field compared to upland in terms of ear weight, and ear and grain setting length. The highest yield in the drained-paddy and upland fields was obtained in the hybrids ks5wx × ks6wx × cheongdo (1,633.3kg · 10a-1) and daeyul × wx-3 (1,516.7kg · 10a-1), respectively. Highest yield among the wx-3 crosses was obtained in daeyul which was 1,583.3kg · 10a-1 and 1,516.7kg · 10a-1 in drained-paddy and upland field, respectively. For the crosses of wx-8, highest yields were recorded in the cultivar bugye50 (1,466.7kg · 10a-1) and seokgu12 (1,384.6kg · 10a-1) for drained-paddy and upland field, respectively. In the case of cheongdo, highest yields were obtained in ks5wx × ks6wx (1,633.3kg · 10a-1) and seokgu14 (1,111.1kg · 10a-1) for drained-paddy and upland field, respectively. Result also showed that the drained-paddy soil had better physicochemical properties than the upland. The relatively high performance in terms of growth parameters and yield of com hybrids planted in the drained-paddy field is in agreement with the higher organic matter and micro-element content of drained-paddy field.
The neutron capture spectrum for the light nuclide was very useful to study the nuclear structure. In the present study, the capture gamma-ray from the 27-keV resonance of 19F(n,g)20F reaction were measured with an anti-Compton NaI(Tl) spectrometer and the 3-MV Pelletron accelerator of the Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors at the Tokyo institute of technology. A neutron Time-of-Flight method was adopted with a 1.5 ns pulsed neutron source by the 7Li(p,n)7Be reaction. In the present experiment, a Teflon((CF2)n) sample was used The sample was disk with a diameter of 90mm. The thickness of sample was determined so that reasonable counting rates could be obtained and the correction was not so large for the self-shielding and multiple scattering of neutrons in the sample, and was 5mm. The primary gamma-ray transitions were compared with previous measurement of Kenny.
In this study, the potential of a newly developed simulation toolkit, GATE for the simulation of electronic portal imaging devices (EPID) in radiation therapy was evaluated by characterizing the performance of the metal plate/phosphor screen detector for EPID. We compared the performances of the GATE simulator against MCNP4B code and experimental data obtained with the EPID system in order to validate its use for radiation therapy.
This research is the basic research to develop new anti-inflammatory medicine by feeding Scutellariae Radix extract to lipopolysaccharide(LPS) exposed rats, and analyzed it's effect on inflammatory response by LPS derivation. As a result, Plasma interleukin-1β(IL-1β) and Plasma interleukin-6(IL-6) concentration showed the highest point at 5h after LPS injection, and in this time, the concentration of IL-1β and IL-6 in the Scutellariae Radix extract groups at 200mg/kg and 300mg/kg showed lower values than that of control group. Plasma tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α) concentration after LPS injection showed the highest point at 2h and showed similar level till at 5h. TNF-α concentration at 2h after LPS injection showed the low value only in the Scutellariae Radix extract 300mg/kg group compared to others, and in 5h, the all Scutellariae Radix extract groups showed lower value than that of the control group. Plasma interleukin-10(IL-10) concentration increased at 2h after LPS injection and reached the highest at 5h. After LPS injection the IL-10 concentration at 2h, the Scutellariae Radix extract injection group at 300mg/kg showed higher value than that of the others, and in 5h after LPS injection, Scutellariae Radix extract 200mg and 300mg groups showed higher value than the control group. Concluding from the above results, in inflammatory response by LPS derivation, the Scutellariae Radix gives positive effect.
A stable method for strain distinction using viral RNA 1 structures analyses was developed and compared with the combined RT-PCR and RAPD methods. Seven out of 61 random primers were found to be polymorphic based on RAPD analysis resulting on the differentiation of the 33 BaYMV isolates into four distinct groups according to geographical districts. The first and largest group includes 13 isolate and consists mainly of two-rowed malting barley in Haenam area. The second group had ten collections from inland in west southern. The third group had seven isolates from west southern coastal region, where mainly six-rowed naked barley is cultivated. The last fourth group included three isolates from Gyungnam region in east southern area. Conclusively, RNA 1 analysis proved to be stable and efficient method for strain distinction for Korean BaYMV isolates. Further, results of pathogenicity and RNA 1 structure analyses revealed four groups BaYMV strains and were distributed all over Korea, represented by Naju, Haenam-okcheon, Iksan and Milyang.
Antioxidant activity, total phenolics level and cytotoxicity of the methanol extracts from the young sprouts of 5 Korean woody salad plants were determined. Methanol extracts of Kalopanax pictus had the highest DPPH radical scavenging activity, with an IC50 value of 23.5mg 100g-1, and followed by Valeriana fauriei(43.1mg 100g-1), and Morus alba(〉100mg 100g-1). Total phenolic content showed the highest amount in methanol extracts from Kalopanax pictus(23.7mg 100g-1), and followed by Valeriana fauriei(22.7mg 100g-1), Aralia elata(16.8mg 100g-1) and Morus alba(14.2mg 100g-1). In a MTT assay, methanol extracts of Aralia elata with IC50 values of 151.0 and 140.7μg mL-1 showed the most potent cytotoxicity on Calu-6 and MCF-7, respectively. On the other hand, methanol extracts of Kalopanax pictus(IC50=96.5μg mL-1) showed the highest activity against HCT-116, and followed by those of Aralia elata(123.3μg mL-1), and Actinidia arguta(162.0μg mL-1). Total phenolic content of the tested plant extracts was correlated with the DPPH radical scavenging activity, suggesting the phenolic compounds may contribute to the antioxidant properties of Korean salad plants.
Energy calibration is important to identify accurate neutron capture resonance energy in the neutron TOF (Time-of-Flight) experiment. In present study, the accurate neutron capture resonance energies of natural Sm were measuredby using a 46-MeV electron linear accelerator (linac) at the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University(KURRI). The BGO spectrometer were adopted for measurement the prompt capture gamma-ray of the sample. To obtain energy calibration curve, resonance energy of a gold sample used as standard resonance energy Mughabghab’s data (From neutron resonance parameters data). Previous data (by Mughabghab) of natural Sm sample have been compared with the present result.