Bone remodeling is a process controlled by the action of two major bone cells; the bone forming osteoblast and the bone resorbing osteoclast. In the process of osteoclastogenesis, stromal cells and osteoblast produce RANKL, OPG, and M-CSF, which in turn regulate the osteoclastogenesis. During the bone resorption by activated osteoclasts, extracellular Ca²+/PO₄²- concentration and degraded organic materials goes up, providing the hypertonic microenvironment. In this study, we tested the effects of hypertonicity due to the degraded organic materials on osteoclastogenesis in co-culture system. It was examined the cellular response of osteoblastic cell in terms of osteoclastogenesis by applying the sucrose, and mannitol, as a substitute of degraded organic materials to co-culture system. Apart from the sucrose, mannitol, and NaCl was tested to be compared to the effect of organic osmotic particles. The addition of sucrose and mannitol (25, 50, 100, 150, or 200 mM) to co-culture medium inhibited the number of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) positive multinucleated cells induced by 10 nM (). However, NaCl did exert harmful effect upon the cells in this co-culture system, which is attributed to DNA damage in high concentration of NaCl. To further investigate the mechanism by which hypertonicity inhibits -induced osteoclastogenesis, the mRNA expressions of receptor activator of nuclear factor (NF)-kB ligand (RANKL) and osteoprotegerin (OPG) were monitored by RT-PCR. In the presence of sucrose (50 mM), RANKL mRNA expression was decreased in a dose-dependent manner, while the change in OPG and M-CSF mRNA were not occurred in significantly. The RANKL mRNA expression was inhibited for 48 hours in the presence of sucrose (50 mM), but such a decrement recovered after 72 hours. However, there were no considerable changes in the expression of OPG and M-CSF mRNA. Conclusively, these findings strongly suggest that hypertonic stress down-regulates -induced osteoclastogenesis via RANKL signal pathway in osteoblastic cell, and may playa pivotal role as a regulator that modulates osteoclastogenesis.

In this paper, the intensity ratio of [O I] λ6300 and Hα lines, which plays an important role in the study of warm (or diffuse) ionized interstellar medium, is calculated assuming collisional ionization equilibrium (or coronal equilibrium). The calculated ratio is compared with the previous works, and with the observations, obtained by Reynolds (1989) and Reynolds et al. (1998) with the Wisconsin Ha Mapper facility, toward the directions that sample the faint interstellar emission-line background. The comparison confirms that most of the Ha originates from nearly fully ionized regions along the lines of sight rather than from partially ionized H I clouds or layers of H II on the surfaces of H I clouds.

생물학적 자극통제 수단으로서 활용하기 위한 새로운 돼지 웅성 페르몬성 물질을 탐색하고자 lipocalin의 수용체인 돼지 웅성 페르몬 P1과 P2의 리간드에 기초하여 54개의 P1 및 P2 유사체들에 대한 분자 유사성 지수 (S)는 물론, 분자량 (MWt), 소수성 (logP), 몰라 굴절율 (MR), van der Waals 분자 표면적 (SA), van der Waals 분자 부피 (MV), HOMO, LUMO 에너지, 이온화 포텐셜 (IP), 생성열 (HF), 리폴(lipole), 쌍극자 능율 (DM) 및 전체 에너지 (TE)등, 다양한 13종의 물리-화학 파라미터들을 계산하고 비교 검토하였다. 이들 스테로이드 유사체들의 물리-화학적인 성질은 주로 A와 D-고리가 입체적으로 상이함에 따라 의존적이었며 또한, S와 MV 상수와의 상관관계로부터 분자들의 MV상수가 작아질수록 S=1에 근접하는 경향이었다. 이같은 결과에 근거하여 P1-1과 P2-1 등, 2개의 화합물이 유사성 지수뿐 만 아니라, 소수성, 몰라 굴절율 및 분자부피 등의 측면에서 기존의 페르몬성 물질과 유사한 경향을 보이므로 새로운 돼지 웅성 페로몬성 화합물로 예상되었다.

The first sentence in the second paragraph of INTRODUCTION, 'The first discovery of a galaxy beyond z=5 was reported by Weymann et al. (1998); HDF 4-470.3 at z=5.60.' should be read as 'The first discovery of a galaxy beyond z=5 was reported by Dey et al. (1998); 0140+326 RD1 at z=5.34'. The authors sincerely regret this error.

P-Cygni type Lyα from starburst galaxies, either nearby galaxies or Lyman Break galaxies, are believed to be formed by galactic outflows such as galactic supershells or galactic superwinds. We develope a Monte Carlo code to calculate the Lyα line transfer in a galactic supershell which is expanding and formed of uniform and dusty neutral hydrogen gas. The escape of Lyα photons from the system is achieved by a number of back-scatterings. A series of emission peaks are formed by back-scatterings. When we observe P-Cygni type Lyα emissions of starforming galaxies, we can usually see merely singly-peaked emission. Hence the secondary and the tertiary emission humps should be destroyed. In order to do this, dust should be spatially more extended into the inner cavity than neutral supershell. We find that the kinematic information of the expanding supershell is conserved even in dusty media. We discuss the astrophysical applications of our results.