The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of oxygen tension during in vitro maturation of porcine oocytes on the nuclear maturation and differences in gene expression. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were collected from ovaries obtained at a local slaughterhouse, matured for 44 hours in TCM199 supplemented with porcine follicular fluid (pFF) under 5% or 20% oxygen concentration. In results, oxygen tension had no significant effects on nuclear maturation. Relative poly(A) mRNA abundance of MnSOD, CCNB1, LDHA, G6PD, BCL, GPX1, IGFR2, GLUT1, BAX, GREM, PTGS2 was analysed in cumulus cells. GLUT1, G6PD, LDHA were up-regulated in the cumulus cells matured in low oxygen, suggesting a higher glucose uptake and an increase in anaerobic glycolysis, whereas CCNB, MnSOD were up-regulated in the cumulus cells matured in high oxygen, which suggest a higher activity of mitosis-promoting factor and antioxidant response. In conclusion, cumulus cells increase in glucose metabolism via anaerobic glycolysis under low oxygen concentration and show significant change in antioxidant against oxidant damage or apoptotic response under high oxygen concentration. For such an effect of cumulus cells, oocytes could be matured normally regardless of various oxygen concentration.

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.

High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used for the determination of lignans, eleutherosides B and E, in Acanthopanax sessiliflorus fruits and their fermented wine. The lignans were quantified by a reversed-phase system using a gradient of H2O and acetonitrile as a mobile phase within 20 min. The analysis was successfully carried out within 20 min. The contents of eleutherosides Band E as main active principles of Acanthopanax species were measured in A. sessiliflorus fruits (1.15 and 8.49 μg/mg, respectively), their fermented wine (0.45 and 1.33 μg/mg, respectively) and wine residues (no detection).

This research aims to investigate the behavior of organic matter that causes bacterial re-growth and the formation of disinfectant by-products such as THM in water treatment, and to optimize conditions for a more efficient and conventional water facility. THM removed 51 % and 12 % through coagulation/sedimentation and filtration using a selected conventional system. In this experiment, the removal ratio of DOC was highest at 68 % when the Gt value was 42,000 and lowest at 41 % when the Gt value was 30,000. 77-84 % of total DOC was removed during coagulation/sedimentation, and 15-23 % was removed during filtration. When Gt values were between 30,000 and 66,000, over 50 % of high molecular matter above 10 K during coagulation/sedimentation was removed. Turbidity removed 98 % when the Gt value was 66,000. As the Gt value increased, the turbidity removal ratio increased. Turbidity removed over 20 % during the filtration process.

When we carried out an anti-stress study using the extracts of A. senticosus, R. coreanus, F .japonica root, and A. fruticosa fruit grown in Korea, the results showed that blood cell counts returned to normal levels fastest with R. coreanus after stress application. The total WBC count was decreased in mice due to stress, whereas the number of lymphocytes was increased. The serum glucose level was higher in the control group compared with the comparative stress group. The weight of each organ to returning to normal level was significantly faster in those mice treated with the extracts compared with those in control groups. Especially, it even return to that of normal level with R. coreanus extract, suggesting that the administration of the plant extracts in this study would affect hormonal activities in the body to increase immune activities. F. japonica root that showed the highest anti-stress activities maybe effective for lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. These results would provide basic data to examine anti-stress effects of natural plants. Further in-depth studies could contribute in the development of functional plant materials with anti-stress activities.

Two compounds from Gomisin N and Gomisin A were isolated from the fruits of Schizandra chinensis Baillon. The highest extraction yield as 21.36% was observed in the ethanol extract, compared to the yield obtained form the water extract. The extraction yields of the single compounds were measured to be 0.13 and 0.014 Gomisin A and Gomisin N, respectively. Approximately, 90% of the growth of human stomach adenocarcinoma cancer cells was inhibited after adding 1.0 g/l of the ethanol extract. The growth of the human normal lung cell was limited to 24% after adding the ethanol extract. The water extract lowered the specific secretion of TNF-á and IL-6 from T cells, 10.3×10-4 pg/cell and 12.1×10-4 pg/cell, respectively, compared to the ethanol extracts. On the other hand, a treatment with the ethanol extract increased the specific secretion of TNF-á and IL-6 from human T cells, to 11×10-4 pg/cell and 14.3×10-4 pg/cell, respectively. The crude ethanol extract had the highest effect on the differentiation of human promyelocytic leukemia cells compared to the other extracts and Gomisin A and N. In general, the biological activities of the extracts gradually decreased as the purification process proceeded, which suggests that higher immunostimulatory activities can be maintained by adding the crude extracts of the fruits rather than by adding a single compound.

Two different types of molecular markers, simple sequence repeat (SSR) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), were used to measure genetic diversity among five Korean, eight Thai, and three wild soybeans. For SSR analysis, a total of 20 markers were surveyed to detect polymorphisms. For SNP analysis, four primers were designed from consensus sequence regions on disease resistance protein homolog genes, and used to amplify the genomic region. The PCR products were sequenced. A number of polymorphic SSR and SNP bands were scored on all genotypes and their genetic similarity was measured. Clustering analysis was performed independently on both types of markers. Clustering based on SSR markers separated the genotypes into three main groups originated from Korea, Thailand, and wild soybeans. On the other hand, two main groups were classified using SNP analysis. It seemed that SSR was more informative than SNP in this study. This may be due to the fact that SNP was surveyed on the smaller genomic region than SSR. Grouping based on the combined data of both markers revealed similar results to that of SNP rather than that of SSR. This might be due to the fact that more loci from SNP were considered to measure genetic relatedness than those from the SSR.