The purpose of this study was to examine the anti-metastatic effect of Juniperus chinensis extract by inhibition of galectin-3 expression. For this study, we carried out the experiment of galectin-3 expression assay and in vivo metastasis mouse model bearing colon 26-M3.1 lung carcinoma, and also MMP-1, MMP-2 and MMP-9 inhibitory assays relating metastasis mechanism. J. chinensis extract significantly showed the inhibitory effect of basal expression and MNNG-induced expression of galectin-3 in colon 26-M3.1 lung carcinoma at the all tested doses (5, 50 and 500 ㎍/㎖). In case of the inhibition of MMP-1, MMP-2 and MMP-9, the weak activity was showed at the doses of 50 and 500 ㎍/㎖ and was not detected at the dose of 5 ㎍/㎖. However, J. chinensis extract significantly showed the anti metastatic activity on mouse mode bearing colon 26-M3.1 lung carcinoma. Therefore, this study strongly suggests that J. chinensis is a potent inhibitor of galectin-3 expression, and holds great promise for use in inhibiting metastasis induced by elevated expression of galectin-3.
The possibility of producing transgenic embryos expressing the green fluorescence protein (GFP) gene have been evaluated after transfer of exogenous gene into the porcine zygote cytoplasm using the intracytoplasm sperm injection (ICSI) as gene delivery method. For DNA binding to sperm heads, 0.05% Triton X-100 or Lipofectin was used. After injection of the sperm bound to DNA by means of Lipofectin or Triton X-100 triturate, the blastocyst formation rates on day 6 were not significantly different from that of ICSI only group (18.8, 19.2 and 25.3%). In terms of GFP expression, more embryos were in GFP form in Triton X-100 group than in Lipofectin group (40.6 vs 36.4%), while percentage of non-mosaic embryos expressing the GFP gene in all blastomere was higher (P<0.05) in Lipofectin group than in Triton X-100 group (4.2 vs 0.9%). ICSI embryos derived from sperm treated with Lipofectin/DNA complex was transferred into 3 recipients and were collected by uterine flushing on days 5, 7 and 15 after embryo transfer, and then GFP expression was observed by a fluorescence microscopy. Over 26% of the collected embryos were normally expressed GFP gene. These results suggest that foreign gene transfer method with DNA bound sperm caused minimal damage to structure of oocytes that can result to full development of porcine embryos. This was confirmed in this study when the embryos that were transferred after ISCI of DNA bound sperm had a normal development and gene expression until preimplantation.