Thin-film composite membranes (TFCs) have dominated desalination markets for recent decades, but a higher water permeance is still necessary to reduce the energy consumption. Although most researches have focused on the ultrathin active layer of TFCs, the supports should also be considered to further enhance the membrane performances. In this study, TFCs were fabricated on PSf supports containing carbon nanotubes (CNT) by interfacial polymerization. CNT/PSf supports show rougher and more porous surface morphologies than those of bare PSf supports. Because of such surface characteristics, CNT/PSf supports were favorable to increase the roughness and surface area of TFCs. Consequently, TFCs prepared on CNT/PSf nanocomposite supports showed a 41% enhanced water permeance without losing its salt rejection compared to the bare TFCs.

외상으로 인한 혈액담즙증은 드물지 않게 보고되고 있고 경피경간 경로를 이용한 담도내시경이나 배액술 등에 의한 의인성 손상이 증가하고 있다. 그러나 담도스텐트 제거에 따 른 대량의 혈액담즙증의 보고는 매우 드물다. 본 증례는 복부 외상으로 간엽절제술을 받은 환자에서 발생한 담즙 누출을 치료하기 위해 삽입한 담도 스텐트를 제거하면서 혈액담 즙증이 대량 출혈로 악화된 사례이다. 간외상 수술 후 담즙 누출로 플라스틱 담도 스텐트 삽입 후 호전 중에 혈액담즙증 및 담도염 발생으로 스텐트 교체 목적으로 제거하였으나 제 거하자마자 대량의 활동성 혈액담즙증으로 악화되었다. 수술 후의 담즙 누출로 인한 주변조직 손상 및 삽입된 담도 스 텐트로 인한 자극과 제거시의 손상이 원인이 될 수 있을 것 으로 생각된다. 치료는 대량 출혈로 내시경 시야가 확보되지 않아 응급 혈관조영술로 지혈술을 시행하였다. 따라서 복부 외상 환자나 수술 환자에서 담즙 누출 후 담도 배액 스텐트 는 일반적으로 시행되는 효과적인 치료 방법이나 혈액담즙 증 및 합병증으로 담도 스텐트를 교체할 때 주변 담도나 혈 관계의 합병증 유무에 대한 사전 검사를 시행하고 스텐트 제거시에도 주의를 요한다.

This study was designed to evaluate the effect of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in a maturation medium on oocyte maturation and embryonic development in pigs. Immature pig oocytes were matured for 44 h in a medium supplemented with 0.4% (w/v) BSA, 0.1% (w/v) polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), or 10% (v/v) pig follicular fluid (PFF). After IVM, oocytes reached metaphase II stage were activated for parthenogenesis (PA) or used as cytoplasts for somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Nuclear maturation (89.5%, 90.7% and 91.3% for BSA, PVA and PFF, respectively) and intraoocyte glutathione contents (1.20, 1.16 and 1.00 pixels/oocyte for BSA, PVA and PFF, respectively) were not altered by the macromolecules added to maturation medium. IVM of oocytes in a medium containing BSA (21.4%) and PVA (20.7%) showed significantly lower blastocyst formation after PA than culture in medium with PFF (39.2%). After SCNT, oocytes matured in medium with BSA showed decreased embryonic development to the blastocyst stage (9.2%) compared to those matured in medium with PFF (28.9%), while 23.6% of SCNT oocytes matured in medium with PVA developed to the blastocyst stage. When the effect of BSA in a maturation medium during the first 22 h and the second 22 h of IVM in combination with PFF or PVA was examined, PVA-BSA showed a higher nuclear maturation (94.1%) than BSA-PFF (84.5%). However, there was no significant difference in the blastocyst formation among tested combinations (47.3, 52.2, 50.0, 44.4 and 49.0% for PFF-PFF, PFF-BSA, PVA-BSA, BSA-PVA and BSA-PFF, respectively). Our results demonstrate that BSA and PVA added to maturation medium can support oocyte maturation comparable to PFF-supplemented medium. However, maturation of oocytes in a BSA-containing medium decreases embryonic development after PA and SCNT when compared with the medium supplemented with PFF.

Despite many researches related with in-vitro culture of porcine spematogonial stem cells (SSCs), adherent culture system widely used has shown a limitation in the maintenance of porcine SSC self-renewal. Therefore, in order to overcome this obstacle, suspension culture, which is known to have numerous advantage over adherent culture, was applied to the culture of porcine SSCs. Porcine SSCs retrieved from neonatal testes were suspension-cultured for 5 days or 20 days, and characteristics of suspension-cultured porcine SSCs including proliferation, alkaline phosphatase (AP) activity, and self-renewal-specific gene expression were investigated and compared with those of adherent-cul-tured porcine SSCs. As the results, the suspension-cultured porcine SSCs showed entirely non-proliferative and significantly higher rate of AP-positive cells and expression of self-renewal-specific genes than the adherent-cultured porcine SSCs. In addition, long-term culture of porcine SSCs in suspension condition induced significant decrease in the yield of AP staining-positive cells on post-day 10 of culture. These results showed that suspension culture was inappropriate to culture porcine SSCs, because the culture of porcine SSCs in suspension condition didn’t stimulate proliferation and maintain AP activity of porcine SSCs, regardless of culture periods.

Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) developed into sperms through spermatogenesis have been utilized as a useful tool in the field of regenerative medicine and infertility. However, a small number of highly qualified SSCs are resided in the seminiferous tubule of testis, resulted in developing effective in-vitro culture system of SSCs for solving simultaneously quantitative and qualitative problems. Presently, SSCs can be enriched on testicular stromal cells (TSCs), but there are no systematic researches about TSC culture. Therefore, we tried to optimize culture condition of TSCs derived from mouse with different strains. For these, proliferation and viability were measured and compared by culturing ICR outbred or DBA/2 inbred mouse-derived TSCs at 35 or 37℃. In case of ICR strain, primary TSCs cultured at 37℃ showed significantly higher proliferation and viability than those at 35℃ and significant increase of proliferation and viability in sub-passaged TSCs was detected in the 35℃ culture condition. Moreover, sub-passage of primary TSCs at 35℃ induced no significant effects on proliferation and viability. In contrast, in case of DBA/2 strain, significantly improved proliferation were detected in the primary TSCs cultured at 35℃, which showed no significant difference in the viability, compared to those at 37℃. Furthermore, sub-passaged TSCs cultured at 37℃ showed no significant differences in proliferation and viability, compared to those at 35℃. However, with significant decrease of proliferation induced by sub-passage of primary TSCs at 35℃, no significant effects on proliferation and viability were resulted from sub-passage of primary TSCs at 37℃. From these results, culture temperature of primary TSCs derived from outbred and inbred strain of mouse could be separately optimized in primary culture and subculture.

총담관결석의 진단방법은 여러 가지가 있으며 크게 임상양상, 영상검사 및 내시경검사로 나눌 수 있다. 이 중에서 임상증상, 검사실 소견, 초음파검사 또는 복부전산화 단층촬영과 같은 기본 검사 결과를 바탕으로 총담관결석이 있을 가능성이 높은 군과 낮은 군으로 구별 혹은 층화하여 몇 개의 위험군으로 나누어 치료 방침 및 추가 검사를 시행한다. 저위험군에서는 환자가 담낭담석을 동반하여 담낭절제술이 필요하다면 내시경역행담췌관조영술을 시행하지 않고 바로 담낭절제술을 시행할 수 있다. 중등도 위험군에서는 총담관결석의 제거를 위한 내시경역행담췌관조영술이 필요한지를 알아보기 위하여 자기공명 담췌관조영술이나 내시경초음파검사의 추가 검사가 필요하다. 고위험군에서는 다른 추가 검사 없이 담석 제거 등의 치료를 할 수 있는 내시경역행담췌관조영술을 바로 시행할 수 있다.

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of in vitro maturation (IVM) medium, cytochalasin B (CB) treatment during intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), and electric activation on in vitro development ICSI-derived embryos in pigs. Immature pig oocytes were matured in vitro in medium 199 (M199) or porcine zygote medium (PZM)-3 that were supplemented with porcine follicular fluid, cysteine, pyruvate, EGF, insulin, and hormones for the first 22 h and then further cultured in hormone-free medium for an additional 21～22 h. ICSI embryos were produced by injecting single sperm directly into the cytoplasm of IVM oocytes. The oocytes matured in PZM-3 with 61.6 mM NaCl (low-NaCl PZM-3) tended to decrease (0.05<P<0.1) nuclear maturation when compared with oocytes matured in M199 (76.9% vs. 83.8%) but no significant differences were found in embryo cleavage, blastocyst formation, and mean number of cells in blastocyst (73.8% vs. 74.6%, 11.1% vs. 12.1%, and 28.4 cells vs. 30.1 cells, respectively). The oocyte degeneration was not reduced by CB treatment during ICSI (11.9%) when compared with no treatment control (11.3%) while the treatment showed detrimental effects (P<0.05) on embryonic cleavage (40.0%) and blastocyst formation (1.8%) rates when compared with control (60.0% and 11.5%, respectively). For activation of ICSI oocytes, additional electric stimulus has no positive or negative effect on in vitro development of preimplantation stage ICSI porcine embryos. Our results demonstrate that CB treatment during ICSI inhibits embryonic development of ICSI oocytes and additional electric activation after ICSI has no effect in improving ICSI embryonic development in pigs. Further studies are needed to improve ICSI efficiency by investigating factors influencing embryonic development after ICSI in pigs.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs)를 320 ℃에서 90분 동안 가열하여 비정질 탄소를 제거하고 남아 있는 금속 촉매를 제거하기 위해 염산에 24시간 처리하였다. 정제된 SWNT 표면에 산화반응을 통해 카복실기를 도입하였으며, 가혹한 환경으로 인해 길이가 짧아진 SWNT를 얻었다. 세정된 실리콘 웨이퍼를 3-aminopropyldiisopropylethoxysilane (3-APDIPES)의 톨루엔 용액에 담가 표면에 3-APDIPES의 자기 조립 단층막을 형성시켰다. SWNT의 카복실기와 3-APDIPES의 아미노기 사이의 산-염기 반응을 통해 생성되는 이온 사이의 정전기적 인력을 이용하여 실리콘 웨이퍼 표면에 SWNT를 배열하였다. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) 분석을 통해 반응시간과 농도에 따른 효과를 확인하였고, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)을 이용해 산 처리 시간에 따른 효과를 확인하였다.

Background : Licorice has been used as a source of medicine and a food material in East-Asia. Recently, demand for licorice increased in market due to a growing interest in health. Thus we conducted breeding research to solve the problems associated with domestically cultivated licorice such as low productivity and low glycyrrhizin content. Methods and Results : We crossed European licorice (G. glabra L.; female parent) and Chinese licorice (G. uralensis Fisch; male parent) in the greenhouse in May 2007. In September 2007, crossed and germinated seeds were retrieved and sown in the greenhouse. In June 2008, stolons were separated from the F1 licorice seedlings and cultivated, resulting in 32 clonal lines of interspecific hybrids. Among them we selected good lines and then conducted the replicated yield trials (RYT) in 2012-2013 and local adaptability test (LAT) in 2014-2015. The results, GLYES9 showed that was elect of stem, oblong of leaf shape, red-brown of root color. Glycyrrhizin conten of GLYES9 (3.0%) was higher than G. uralensis (1.9%) at four regions from 2014 to 2015. GLYES9 was less than 10% in the desease of brown spot (G. uralensis was more than 30%). The root yield of GLYES9 was 4.31 ton per hectare, which was increased 193% compared with a check variety of G. uralensis. Therfore, we named GLYES9 as new cultivar ‘Dagam’. Conclusion : Depending on the above results, we have developed a new licorice cultivar ‘Dagam’ by the medicinal crop breeding team of National Institute of Horticulture and Herbal Science, RDA, in 2015. It showed brown spot disease resistant, high-glycyrrhizn content and high-yielding than colleted Glycyrrhiza spp.