Extensive soft tissue defects involving loss of skin, fat, and muscle often result from trauma or tumor resection. Current treatments, including autografts and flaps, are limited by donor-site morbidity and scarce tissue availability. Animal models, particularly in rodents, are essential for research but are limited by their primary healing mechanism—contraction via the panniculus carnosus—which does not accurately reflect human healing. Furthermore, standardized models for complex skin–muscle defects are lacking. Therefore, this study aims to create a clinically relevant composite soft tissue defect model in mice using a three-dimensional (3D) polylactic acid (PLA) chimney splint to inhibit contraction and better mimic human wound healing mechanisms (re-epithelialization and granulation tissue formation). A composite defect was created on the dorsum of 8-week-old BALB/c nude mice. The biocompatibility of the 3D-printed PLA chimney was assessed via MTT assay. In vivo, fixation methods—tissue adhesive (TA), simple interrupted sutures (SI), and purse-string suture (PS)—were compared. Wound healing was evaluated over 4 weeks via gross and histological analyses. PLA material showed excellent biocompatibility in vitro, with cell viability consistently above 85%, indicating noncytotoxicity. In vivo, the TA and SI groups showed severe inflammation, tissue necrosis, and splint detachment. In contrast, the PS group remained stable for 4 weeks with no complications. Histologically, the PS group effectively suppressed contraction. Re-epithelialization from the wound edge, well-organized granulation tissue with active angiogenesis, abundant fibroblasts, and collagen deposition, and spindle-shaped cells were clearly observed. In conclusion, this study establishes a reproducible and stable murine composite soft tissue defect model by combining a 3D-printed chimney splint with a PS technique. This model overcomes a key limitation of rodent wound models by controlling contraction, offering a robust preclinical platform to study composite tissue healing and evaluate next-generation regenerative medicine therapies.

The bacterial diversity of an Antarctic hard coral, Errina fissurata, was examined by isolating bacterial colonies from crushed coral tissue and by sequencing their 16S rRNA gene. From the analyzed results, the bacteria were classified as Actinobacteria (56%), Firmicutes (35%) and Proteobacteria (9%). The thirty-four isolates were cultured in liquid media at different temperatures and their growth was assessed over time. The majority of the isolates displayed their highest growth rate at 25℃ during the first three days of cultivation, even though the coral was from a cold environment. Nevertheless, strains showing their highest growth rate at low temperatures (15℃ and 4℃) were also found. This study reports the composition of an Antarctic hard coral-associated culturable bacterial community and their growth behavior at different temperatures.

Nonthermal atmospheric plasma has been studied for its many biomedical effects, such as tooth bleaching, wound healing, and coagulation. In this study, the effects of dentinal tubules occlusion were investigated using fluoride-carboxymethyl cellulose (F-CMC) gel, nano-sized hydroxyapatite (n-HA), and nonthermal atmospheric plasma. Human dentin specimens were divided to 5 groups (group C, HA, HAF, HAP, and HAFP). Group HA was treated with n-HA, group HAF was treated with n-HA after a F-CMC gel application, group HAP was treated with n-HA after a plasma treatment and group HAFP was treated with n-HA after a plasma and F-CMC gel treatment. The occlusion of dentinal tubules was investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), which shows Ca/P ratio. In the EDS results, a higher Ca/P ratio was shown in the groups including n-HA than in the control group. The specimens of group HAP and HAFP had a higher Ca/P ratio in retentivity. In the SEM results, there was not a significant difference in the amount of times applied. Therefore, this study suggests F-CMC gel and n-HA treatment using nonthermal atmospheric plasma will be a new treatment method for decreasing hypersensitivity.

Distribution and abundance of species are influenced by their environmental condition. Among various environmental factors, a vegetation is one of the most influential factors, because it is used as habitats as well as food resources. Arthropods including insects play a important role in forest ecosystems as grazers, scavenger, predators, etc. Deciduous and coniferous forests have different plant community composition, resulting in different environmental condition. In this study, we collected arthropod communities at two different deciduous and coniferous forest stands in the Mountain Gariwang. At each stand, three different sampling methods were used: soil core for soil macroinvertebrate, pitfall trap for wandering insects, and sweeping net for insects in the shrups. Therefore, sampling was conducted at vertical habitats in the forest. The results showed that there were no difference in the number of orders from soil at both coniferous and deciduous stands. However, the abundance was higher at coniferous stand than at deciduous stand. Collembola was the dominant taxa in soil. Meanwhile, there were no statistically significant differences of community composition between coniferous stand and deciduous stands. Multivariate analyses was conducted to characterize differences of communities at different stands as well as vertical distribution in forest.

This study aimed to examine the most effective exercise method for shoulder joint rehabilitation by comparatively observing activity of shoulder stabilizer muscles during push up and push up plus exercises under diverse stable conditions. The subjects were 20 healthy adults students who went to M university. While the subjects conducted push up and push up plus exercises under diverse stable conditions(a stable surface, a support of 25cm height, a support of 30 cm height and a balance pad), activities of the upper trapezius muscle, pectoralis major muscle, serratus anterior muscle, and triceps brachii muscle were recorded. During push up and push up plus exercises, activities of the stabilizer muscles were higher when the stable condition was changed rather than on the stable surface. In particular, when the support of 30cm height and balance pads were applied, activity of the shoulder stabilizer was highest. There were significant differences in the upper trapezius muscle and triceps brachii muscle during the push up exercise(p<.05) and in the serratus anterior muscle during the push up plus exercise(p<.05). Activities of the shoulder stabilizers were higher when the upper and lower limbs' surface stable conditions were changed than the stable surface. Therefore, when programs for rehabilitation of shoulder joints are applied, provision of diverse stable conditions according to patients' conditions will be effective methods.

CD63, a member of tetraspanin membrane protein family, plays pivotal role in cell growth, motility, signal transduction, host-pathogen interactions and cancer. In this work, the cDNA encoding CD63 homologue (TmCD63) was cloned from larvae of coleopteran beetle, Tenebrio molitor. The cDNA is comprised of an open reading frame of 705 bp, encoding putative protein of 235 amino acid residues. In silico analysis shows that the protein has four putative transmembrane domains and one large extracellular loop. The characteristic ‘Cys-Cys-Gly’ motif and ‘Cys188’ residues are highly conserved in the large extracellular loop. Phylogenetic analysis of TmCD63 revealed that they belong to the insect cluster with 50-56% identity. Analysis of spatial expression patterns demonstrated that TmCD63 mRNA is mainly expressed in gut and Malphigian tubules of larvae and the testis of the adult. Developmental expression patterns of CD63 mRNA showed that TmCD63 transcripts are detected in late larval, pupal and adult stages. Interestingly, TmCD63 transcript was upregulated the maximum 4.5 fold in response to DAP-type peptidoglycan during the first 6 h, although other immune elicitors also made significant increase in the transcript level at later time-points. These results suggest that CD63 might contribute to T. molitor immune response against various microbial pathogens.

We have identified novel ricin-type (R-type) lectin by sequencing of random clones from cDNA library of the coleopteran beetle, T.molitor. The cDNA sequence is comprised of 495 bp encoding a protein of 164 amino acid residues and shows 49% identity with galectin of Tribolium castaneum. Bioinformatics analysis shows that the amino acid residues from 35 to 162 belong to ricin-type β-trefoil structure. The transcript was significantly upregulated after early hours of injection with peptidoglycans derived from Gram (+) and Gram (-) bacteria, beta-1, 3 glucan from fungi and an intracellular pathogen, L. monocytogenes suggesting putative function in innate immunity.