본 연구는 소의 초기 난할 단계인 2 또는 4세포기 수정란의 특정 분할구가 배반포 단계의 내부 세포괴(Inner Cell Mass) 와 영양막 세포(Trophectoderm cells)로의 발달 운명이 미리 정해지는 지를 확인하기 위해 실시되었다. 먼저 생쥐의 체내 수정란과 소의 체외 수정란에서 배반포의 영양막 세포에서만 특이적으로 발현하는 cdx2 단백질의 발현 양상을 조사하였다. 또한, 소의 경우 2세포기와 4세포기가 내부 세포괴와 영양막 세포로 나눠지는 시점인지를 조사하기 위해 2 또는 4세포기의 특정 분할구에Dextran의 주입 실험과 분할구 제거 실험을 통해 ICM과 TE 형성을 확인하였다. cdx2의 발현 경향은 생쥐와 소의 2세포기일 때 대칭과 비대칭적으로 발현되는 것을 확인하였다. 생쥐의 4, 8세포기 및 상실배기에서는 분할구 전체에서 발현되었으나, 소 수정란의 분할구에서는 전체 또는 부분적으로 발현되었다. 또한, 생쥐와 소의 배반포기에서는 영양막 세포에서만 발현이 되는 것을 확인하였다. 소 수정란의 2세포기와 4세포기 단계에서 특정 분할구에 주입된 Dextran은 배반포의 내부 세포괴와 영양막 세포의 양쪽에 분포된 것을 관찰할 수 있었다. 2세포기 단계에서 하나의 분할구가 제거된 수정란 역시 ICM 및 TE 세포를 지닌 정상 배반포로 발달함을 확인하였다. 따라서 본 연구 결과는 영양막 세포에서만 특이적으로 발현하는 cdx2의 발현이 2 또는 4세포기 단계 소 수정란에서는 특별한 차이를 보이지 않으며, 궁극적으로 난할 초기에는 ICM과 TE 세포로의 운명이 결정되지 않는다는 것을 보여준다.

This study analyzed characteristics of ozone (O3) formation regimes in Busan over a period of recent five years (2015~2019) and compared the findings with those obtained in Seoul. We employed four observed variations: early morning commuting-hour (i.e., 06:00-09:00 LST) nitrogen dioxide (NO2), peak-hour (i.e., 12:00-16:00 LST) O3, 8-hour average O3 (MDA8 O3), and △O3 (=O3_max- O3_min) in Busan and Seoul. In addition, the NO2-O3 relation was assessed to interpret which of NOx-limited or volatile organic compound (VOC)-limited was dominant. In Busan, the annual mean O3 concentration was relatively higher than in Seoul, whereas there were fewer high-concentration days. The Pearson correlation coefficients (R) between Early morning-hour NO2 and the Peak-hour O3 was positive (but close to zero) in Busan and negative in Seoul. Likewise, the R between the Early morning-hour NO2 and the △O3 showed a relatively considerable positive correlation (R=+0.4~0.5) in Busan, while a weak positive correlation (R=+0.1~0.2) in Seoul. From this result, it can be inferred that the O3 formation regime in Busan was intrepreted to be nearly neutral or relatively closer to the NOx-limited regime than Seoul, while Seoul to the VOC-limited regime. The study findings imply that O3 control strategies should be applied differently in Busan and Seoul. The results here were inferred from surface NO2 and O3 observations, and the varification studies based on in-situ VOCs measurements would be needed.

In this study, impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on PM2.5 mass and its five chemical components (NH4 +, NO3 -, SO4 2-, OC, EC) in Busan was evaluated, and compared with that of Seoul. The study period over the recent three years was sub-divided into two periods: Pre-COVID (2018~2019) and COVID (2020) periods, and the differences in observed annual and monthly variations between the two periods were explored here. The results indicated that annual mean PM2.5 mass concentrations decreased during the COVID period by 16% in Seoul and 29% in Busan, and the satellite-observed annual average of aerosol optical depth (AOD) over the Korean Peninsula also decreased by approximately more than 10% compared with that of the Pre-COVID period. All of the five chemical components decreased but no particular changes were found in their fractions occupied during the COVID period. However, over the Lock-down period (2020-March), the sulfate fraction decreased in Seoul, mostly reflecting the recent Chinese trends of aerosol characteristics, whereas the nitrate fraction considerably decreased in Busan, which was attributable to the local emission changes and their variabilities in Busan. Other meteorological characteristics such as higher frequencies of easterly winds in the Busan area during the COVID period were also discussed in comparison with those in the Seoul area.

This study analyzed the characteristics of high PM2.5 episodes that meets the concentration criteria of Emergency Reduction Measures Plan (ERMP) in Busan during the 2015-2020, and compared with those in Seoul. As a first step, the CAPSS-2017 emission data was employed to analyze the emission differences between Busan and Seoul, and pointed out that Busan emission included the dominance of ship emissions (37.7%) among total PM2.5 city emissions, whereas fugitive PM2,5 emission was the highest in Seoul. These emission characteristics are indicating that the controlling action plan should be uniquely applied to cope with ERMP in each region. We selected extremely high PM2.5 episode days that meet the criteria of ERMP levels. In Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam region, 15, 16, and 8 days of extremely high PM2.5 cases were found, respectively, whereas Seoul showed approximately doubling of occurrences with 37 cases. However, the occurrences in summer season indicated big differences between two cities: the proportion of summer-season occurrence was 13-25% in Busan, whereas no single case have occurred in Seoul. This is suggesting the needs of comprehensive summer emission reduction plan with focusing on sulfur reduction to effectively cope with the ERMP levels in summer in the southeastern region, including Busan.

We analyzed the recent characteristics of Particulate Matter (PM) including PM10 (PM with diameter of less than 10μm) and PM2.5 (PM with diameter of less than 2.5μm) observed in Busan metropolitan area, and compared them with those measured in Seoul metropolitan area. This analysis includes the monthly, seasonal, and annual variations and differences, in emissions and chemical compositions observed in both Busan and Seoul areas. Synoptic meteorological conditions were investigated at the time when high PM concentrations occurred in each of the two areas. The results showed clearly decreasing trends of annual mean concentrations with strong seasonal variations: lower in summer and higher in winter in both areas. In comparison with Seoul, the seasonal variation in Busan demonstrated relatively lower, but showed greater summer fluctuations than in Seoul metropolitan area. This is implying the importance of secondary generation of PM in summer via active photochemical reaction in Busan area. In high concentration days, Busan’s chemical composition of sulfate was higher than that of nitrate in summer, whereas nitrate was higher than sulfate in Seoul. The ratios of NO3 - to SO4 2-(N/S ratio) showed lower in Busan approximately by a factor of 1/2(half of N/S ratio) in Busan compared with that in Seoul. Others such as synoptic characteristics and emission differences were also discussed in this study.

Emission reduction program for in-use diesel vehicles(ERPDV) has been enacted since 2004 over the Seoul metropolitan area, and diesel emission reduction is forced to fulfill this regulation. This study was performed to evaluate the ERPDV using PM10 concentrations of both road-side monitoring and national background network during the period of 2004-2010. In order to assess the pure road emission, we first eliminated the long range transport effect by deducting the trend of annual national background concentrations from the road-side PM10 concentrations, and then analyzed the time series of the resultant PM10 concentrations over Seoul metropolitan area. The annual rates of variations of road-side PM10 with the deduction of trend of background level show -3.2, +0.4, and -2.4㎍/㎥/year, in Seoul, Incheon, and Gyonggi province, respectively. There are steadily decreasing trend in Seoul with all of statistic parameters such as mean, mediam, 5%ile, 10%ile, 25%ile, 75%ile, 90%ile, and 95%ile concentrations. Incheon shows some fluctuations with positive with no significant trend, and Gyonggi province shows overall decreasing but not consistent. Student-t test shows 95% significant level of ERPDV effect in Seoul, but there exists no significant level greater than 90% in both Incheon, and Kyonggi province. Total annual averaged trend over the whole Seoul metropolitan area is estimated to lie in approximately -2.9㎍/㎥/year in this study, implying the intimate involvement of ERPDV to a large extent. This is also suggesting that the further research cost-effectiveness of ERPDV with consideration of the long range transport process would be needed over the Seoul metropolitan area.

Climate change assessment, together with climate change adaptation process, would be one of the worldwide important issues, and the study on climate change vulnerability indicator has been an essential problem for climate change adaptation. Vulnerability indicator can be used as a good tool to estimate the impact of climate change and to map out the distribution of its vulnerability over the given area both in Korea and other countries. This study addressed the conceptual summary on the assessment of climate change and its adaptation process. Previous studies on how to yield the vulnerability indicators of climate change are reviewed and several previous results of vulnerability indicators applied to Korean provinces are also discussed here.

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a vertebrate model system suitable for fishing novel genes in post-genome era. Two neural mutants isolated from the ENU-based chemical mutagenesis, were characterized and the point mutations were identified by the positional cloning method. The first mutant is headless: Wnt antagonists secreted by the organizer have been identified as head inducers. The severe head defects in headless are due to a mutation in Tcf-3, a component of the Wnt pathway. The second is mind bomb: Reduced lateral inhibition in mutant permits too many neural progenitors to differentiate as neurons. Mind bomb encodes a novel gene in the Notch signaling pathway. In addition to chemical mutagenesis, we developed a novel transgene reporter system and tried to apply its use for the insertional mutagenesis. The first mutant "ondal" from this new screening approach, was characterized and mapped to a gene involved in axonal myelination and human schizophrenia. The other mutants, samdori and hayan-4 are being mapped and characterized. As a separate approach, we are challenging a genome-wide screen against the human UniGene collections. Currently, more than 15,000 human full-length cDNAs are available from the Korean UniGene Information (KUGI). After in silico screening of functionally unknown genes through database search, we performed overexpression experiments by microinjecting the single human genes into the zebrafish embryos. So far, we performed microinjections more than 2,700 human full-length cDNAs and identified 50 functionally active genes. Zebrafish embryos display variable phenotypes from developmental defects to neuronal cell death in injected embryos. Many of these genes were involved in not only developmental process but also diseases, such as cancer. After these phenotype-based screening, homologous zebrafish genes were cloned and further functional studies were performed by expression analysis, overexpression and antisense knockdown approaches. From these functionally active genes, we found that the human clone #462, now named it as "Ottogi", plays a role in vertebrate head formation during early development. Overexpression of Ottogi caused a big head phenotype, indicating its possible role in the Wnt signaling pathway. Ottogi physically interacted with the Wnt receptor Frizzled 8 within the endoplasmic reticulum. These findings suggest that Ottogi is a novel component negatively regulating the Wnt signal pathway. In addition, the human clone #498, now named as ZNF312b, plays a role in tumor progression and metastasis in gastric cancer via transcriptional activation of the K-ras oncogene. ZNF312b seems to be specifically overexpressed in gastric cancer tissues and cell lines. The overexpression of ZNF312b induces cancer-like phenotypes, including accelerated proliferation and increased tumor masses in nude mice, which are reversed by its knockdown in gastric cancer cell lines, implying involvement in gastric tumor progression.

Aerosol physical properties have been measured at Pusan National University by using the 16-channel LPC(Laser Particle Counter), and particle characteristics have been examined for the period from Aug. 4 2007 to Dec. 30, 2008. Annual total average, seasonal average, and other averages of the meteorologically classified four categories such as Asian dust, precipitation, foggy, and clear days are respectively described here. Both annually and seasonally averaged number concentration show three peaks at the particle diameter of 0.3, 1.3, and 4㎛, respectively. However, the first peak for summer season tends to be shifted toward smaller size than other seasons, implying the strong fine particle generation. Meteorological condition shows strong contrast in aerosol concentrations. In Asian dust case, relatively lower number concentrations of fine particles(i.e., smaller than 0.5㎛) were predominant, while higher concentrations of coarse particles were found particularly for the size bigger than 0.5㎛. In precipitation day, number concentrations were decreased by approximately 30% due to the removal process of precipitation. Foggy day shows significantly higher concentrations for fine particles, implying the importance of the aerosol condensation process of micro-fine-particle growing to fine-particle. Finally the regressed particle size distribution function was fitted optimally with two log-normal distribution, and discussed the similarities and differences among four categorized cases of the Asian dust, precipitation, foggy, and clear days.

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is now the pre-eminent vertebrate model system for clarification of the roles of specific genes and signaling pathways in development. I will talk about positional cloning of two developmental mutants in zebrafish. The first mutant is headless: The vertebrate organizer can induce a complete body axis when transplanted to the ventral side of a host embryo by virtue of its distinct head and trunk inducing properties. Wingless/Wntantagonists secreted by the organizer have been identified as head inducers. Their ectopic expression can promote head formation, whereas ectopic activation of Wnt signalling during early gastrulation blocks head formation. These observations suggest that the ability of head inducers to inhibit Wntsignalling during formation of anterior structures is what distinguishes them from trunk inducers that permit the operation of posteriorizing Wnt signals. I describe the zebrafish headless (hdl) mutant and show that its severe head defects are due to a mutation in T-cell factor-3 (Tcf3), a member of the Tcf/Lef family. Loss of Tcf3 function in the hdl mutant reveals that hdl represses Wnt target genes. I provide genetic evidence that a component of the Wntsignalling pathway is essential in vertebrate head formation and patterning. Second mutant is mind bomb: Lateral inhibition, mediated by Notch signaling, leads to the selection of cells that are permitted to become neurons within domains defined by proneuralgene expression. Reduced lateral inhibition in zebrafish mib mutant embryos permits too many neural progenitors to differentiate as neurons. Positional cloning of mib revealed that it is a gene in the Notch pathway that encodes a RING ubiquitin ligase. Mib interacts with the intracellular domain of Delta to promote its ubiquitylation and internalization. Cell transplantation studies suggest that mib function is essential in the signaling cell for efficient activation of Notch in neighboring cells. (중략)

Nitrate in edible vegetables is converted to nitrite by nitrate reductase(NR) and/or bacteria in intestines. Nitrite and amino, in the intestine of some animals and human, bind to form nitrosamine, which is toxic and known as carcinogen. This study was carried out to examine the effect of added chlorides and their concentrations on growth, yield and nitrate content in leaf lettuce plants in hydroponics. Seeds of lettuce cv, "Samsunjokchukmyon" were planted on April 29, and seedlings were planted on June 2, and were cultured until July 5 in 1998. KCI and CaCl₂ were used as chloride source and their concentrations were 1, 2 and 4 me/L, respectively, in the lettuce standard nutrient solution for National Horticultural Research Institute(NHRI). Completely randomized design with 3 replications was used. Nitrate content and NR activity were measured 2 and 5 weeks after planting(WAP). The obtained results were summarized as the follows : Leaf weight per plant was difference from harvest dates and treatments, but total leaf weight was not significantly different among treatments. Number of leaves was higher in KCI 2 me/L, CaCl₂1 me/L and control at 2 WAP than the others, and was higher in KCI 1 me/L, and control at 3 WAP than others, and was higher in control at 5 WAP. Total number of harvested leaves was the highest in control with 14, which followed by KCI 2 me/L and CaCl₂1 me/L. Nitrate content was decreased by addition of chloride in nutrient solution. Nitrate content in the 3rd and 9th leaves was significantly decreased. NR activity was higher in control and CaCl₂ addition treatments, while KCI addition treatments reduced NR activity. However, no direct relationship with nitrate was observed. Growth characteristics such leaf length and leaf width were not significantly influenced by chloride addition.