The success of nuclear transplantation with mammalian oocytes depends critically on the potential of oocytes activation, which mainly caused to prevent the re-accumulation of maturation promoting factor (MPF). This study was conducted to compare the effect of combined treatment of lonomycin with a Hl-histone kinase inhibitor (dimethylaminopurine, DMAP) or cdc2 kinase inhibitor (sodium pyrophosphate, SPP) on activation of bovine oocytes. In vitro matured bovine oocytes with the first polar body (PB) and dense cytoplasm were assigned to 3 experimental groups. For activation treatment, oocytcs were exposed to 5 M lonomycin for 5 min (Group 1), and followed by 1.9 mM dimethylaminopurine (DMAP) for 3 h (Group 2) or followed by 2 mM sodium pyrophosphate (SPP) for 3 h (Group 3). The activation effects in the three treatments and the control group (untreated) were judged by the extrusion of the second PB and formation of a pronucleus (PN). Differences among groups were analysed using one-way ANOVA after arc-sine transformation of proportional data. All three treatments led to high activation rates (90% to 95%), with significant difference from the control. However, the extrusion of the second PB and the rate of PN formation differed remarkably among treatments. In Group I and 3, about 95% of the oocytes had extruded the second polar body, but one PN had formed in a higher proportion of oocytes in Group 3 than in Group 1 (90% vs. 5%). In experiment 2, the rates of cleavage and development into blastocysts in Group 1 were significantly lower than those of Group 2 and 3 (8.7% and 0% vs. 50.5% and 11.6%, and 44.6% and 7.2%, respectively, P<0.05). In experiment 3, ~80% of parthenotes in Group 1 were developed with haploid chromosomal sets. However, when ionomycin was followed immediately by DMAP (Group 2). only 20% of parthenotes were haploid. In Group 3, combined treatment with ionomycin and SPP, the appearance of abnormal chromosomal tracts was significantly (P〈0.05) reduced and the proportion of haploid parthenotes was increased to 85% (17/20) than in Group 2. These results demonstrate that SPP acted as a cdc2 kinase inhibitor and formed the haploidy in oocyte activation. Thus, the present study suggests that cdc2 kinase inhibitor, such as sodium pyrophosphate, may have an effective role in oocyte activation for the production of cloned embryos/animals by nuclear transplantation.

A new class of deep UV Photoresist based on the principles of chemical amplification was developed. This photoresist consists of three basic elements: a copolymer, blocked tetrabromobisphenol-A as a dissolution inhibitor and a photosensitive onium salt as a photoacid generator. On irradiation followed by a post exposure bake, tert-butoxycarbonyloxy phenyl group is converted to phenol group. Thus the initially base insoluble resin is converted under UV irradiation to a base soluble resin which may be preferentially removed by dissolution. This new photoresist display high sensitivity, 10 mJ/cm2.

The study was focused to investigate the effect of nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) formation due to nitrosamine (NA) precursor and/or inhibitor addition to Kimchi during the fermentation of Kimchi at room temperature (16±2℃). The addition of nitrite and dimethylamine (DMA) to Kimchi showed the average 32-fold (21.3-113.9 ug/kg) and 9-fold (1.3-40.3 ug/kg) higher NDMA formation than control (0-5.6 ug/kg), respectively. Also, the addition of both nitrite and DMA resulted in the increase of NDMA formation to average 42-fold (39.4-155.7 ug/ kg) higher than control. On the other hand, the addition of 4 mM ascorbic acid to Kimchi with nitrite and DMA inhibited the formation of NDMA down to 71.3% of control. However, the addition of cysteine and erythorbic acid affected no inhibition to NDMA formation during the test. The addition of sodium sulfite increased NDMA formation. Accordingly, this showed that the amount of ascorbic acid generated during Kimchi fermentation played an important inhibition role for NA formation.

Lead-acid battery is being most widely used with secondary battery because of its low price, and long life cycles. But According to using for a long time, its voltage, capacity, and recovery ability is decreased gradually. Therefore there are many papers about improving the property of a lead-acid battery. One of them is to slow down sulfation due to formation of inner PbSO sub(4) by adding inhibitor to electrolyte, however it was not well known what is inhibitor's composition and its role acting on both cathodic and anodic electrode because of its know-how of every country and companies. The purpose of this paper is to study about improvement of property of lead-acid battery by adding one of the inhibitor to H sub(2) SO sub(4) electrolyte.

A radically new approach to the in situ synthesis of the consituent phases of a composite structure has enabled the production of a new WC/Co materials with an ultrafine microstructure. The process for synthesizing nanophase WC/Co powders consists of spray drying from solution to form a homogeneous precursor powder, and thermochemical conversion of the precursor powder to the nanophase WC/Co powder. Near theoretical density of pure nanophase WC-10 wt%Co has been obtained in only 30 sec at 140. But WC particles were grown up very rapidly with longer sintering time to get full density. To overcome coarsening of WC particle during sintering, VC, TaC and VC/TaC were used as the grain growth inhibitor with different amount respectively. VC/TaC doped WC-10 wt%Co was shown superior hardness and TRS and microstructure was maintained ultrafine scale (average WC size is less than 0.1 ).

Methyl linoleate의 자동산화와 인지질에 작용하는 lipoxygenase의 활성에 미치는 탄닌산과 알파토코페롤의 영향을 HPLC로 조사하였다. 반응혼합물은 methyl linoleate 70mM, 라디칼 생성체 AMVN와 탄닌산 및 알파토코페롤 각각 0.7mM를 함유하였다. Hydroperxide 생성량을 측정하여 탄닌산과 알파토코페롤이 상당히 좋은 항상화제임을 알았고, 인지질 1μm에 탄닌산과 알파토코페롤을 각각1μm 함유한 혼합물에 효소를 첨가하여 활성 억제효과를 측정하여, 탄닌산과 알파토코페롤이 좋은 효소 활성 억제작용을 하고 있음을 알았다.

This study was designed to assess the possibility of using medicinal plant extracts as β-lactamase inhibitors to control antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The susceptibilities of S. aureus ATCC 15564 (SAWT), ciprofloxacininduced S. aureus ATCC 15564 (SACIP), oxacillin-induced S. aureus ATCC 15564 (SAOXA), and clinically-isolated S. aureus CCARM 3008 (SACLI) to ampicillin were determined in the absence and presence of medicinal plant extracts, including Cleyera japonica (CJ), Carpinus laxiflora (CL), Euphorbia helioscopia (EH), Euscaphis japonica (EJ), Oenothera erythrosepala (OE), and Rosa multiflora (RM). The phenotypic change in the clear inhibition zones around ampicillin disc was observed for SAWT, SACIP, and SAOXA, indicating the production of ampicillinase. Compared to the controls, the MICs of ampicillin against SAWT, SACIP, and SAOXA were decreased from 4 to 0.5 ㎍/mL in the presence of CL, 16 to 4 ㎍/mL in the presence of RM, and 32 to 2 ㎍/mL in the presence of CL, EH, and RM, respectively. The medicinal plant extracts, OE, EJ, and CL, effectively inhibited the β-lactamase activities of SAWT (78%), SACIP (57%), and SAOXA (76%) when compared to the control. This results suggest that the medicinal plant extracts can be used as BLIs to control the antibiotic-resistant S. aureus.

The spermatogenesis is the process by which spermatozoa are generated in the testes. The spermatozoa travel male reproductive tract during which they meet many substances secreted from reproductive organs. One of the substances is epididymal protease inhibitor (EPPIN) that is involved in the post-testicular maturation including capability of fertilizing the eggs. The expression of EPPIN gene was investigated in various tissues of sexually mature and regressed male Syrian hamsters by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The EPPIN gene was identified in the testis and epididymis of the male Syrian hamsters and compared to the genes reported previously. There was no expression of EPPIN gene in reproductively and completely regressed testes of Syrian hamster. These results suggest that the expressions of the EPPIN gene are associated with the reproductive capability in the Syrian hamsters.

We investigate the effect of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress inhibitor treatment during parthenogenetic activation of oocytes on the ER stress generation, apoptosis, and in vitro development of parthenogenetic porcine embryos. Porcine in vitro matured oocytes were activated by 1) electric stimulus (E) or 2) E+10 μM Ca-ionophore (A23187) treatment (EC). Oocytes were then treated by ER stress inhibitors such as salubrinal (200 nM) and tauroursodeoxychloic acid (TUDCA, 100 μM) for 3 h prior to in vitro culture. Parthenogenetic embryos were sampled to analyze ER stress and apoptosis at the 1-cell and blastocyst stages. The x-box binding protein 1 (Xbp1) mRNA and ER stress-associated genes were analyzed by RT-PCR or RT-qPCR. Apoptotic gene expression was analyzed by RT-PCR. At the 1-cell stage, although no difference was observed in Xbp1 splicing among treatments, BiP transcription level in the E group was significantly reduced by salubrinal treatment, and GRP94 and ATF4 transcription levels in EC group were significantly reduced by all treatments (p<0.05) compared to control. In the EC group, both apoptotic genes were reduced by ER stress inhibitor treatments compared to control (p<0.05) except Caspase-3 gene by TUDCA treatment. These results suggest that the treatment of ER stress inhibitor during parthenogenetic activation can reduce ER stress, and thereby reduce apoptosis and promote in vitro development of porcine parthenogenetic embryos.

In this study, Corrosion behavior in mortar was observed by the passage of time by using EIS method. As a result of EIS experiment, equivalent circuit and changes of Impedance parameter could be observed. In addition, it was confirmed that impedance of rebar in concrete and corrosion rate according to the amount of NaCl and LiNO2 were different.

Molecular targeting for the altered signaling pathways has been proven to be effective for the treatment of many types of human cancer, including colorectal cancer (CRC). The dual phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor BEZ235 has shown to exhibit potent antitumor activity against solid tumors. Autophagy is a cellular lysosomal catabolic process to maintain metabolic homeostasis, which has been known to be induced in response to many therapeutic agents in cancer cells. This process is negatively regulated by mTOR and often acts as prosurvival or prodeath mechanism following cancer therapeutics. The current study was designed to investigate the antiproliferation activity of BEZ235 and to evaluate the role of autophagy induced by BEZ235 using HCT15 CRC cells bearing ras oncogene mutation. We found that BEZ235 decreases cell viability, which was mostly dependent on G1 arrest of cell cycle via suppression of cyclin A expression. BEZ235 affects PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway by increasing the phosphorylation of AKT at Ser473 and RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK pathway by decreasing the phosphorylation of ERK at Tyr204. BEZ235 also stimulated autophagy induction as evidenced by the increased expression of LC3-II and abundant acidic vesicular organelles (AVOs) in the cytoplasm. In addition, the combination of BEZ235 with autophagy inhibitor chloroquine, a known antagonist of autophagy, counteracted the antiproliferation effect of BEZ235. Thus, our study indicates that autophagy induced in response to BEZ235 treatment appears to act as cell death mechanism in HCT15 CRC cells.

Hormones play a crucial role in controlling physiological processes, and thus plants grow and develop in response to environmental cues through the interlocked actions of the hormones. Brassinosteroids (BRs) were found as growth-promoting steroid hormones. Rice, as a monocotyledonous model plants and the major staple crop, has been used to study BR action mechanisms. However, many components of BR pathways and the mechanisms of their molecular interactions have yet to be fully understood. Because the use of the BR biosynthetic inhibitor, Brassinazole (Brz), allowed us to identify important components of BR signaling such as the transcription factor BZR1, we decided to employ a similar strategy to identify novel signaling factors using propiconazole (Pcz), a new potent BR inhibitor. We screened a rice T-DNA mutant population which belongs to Dongjin variety and were developed by the Gene An’s group using pGA2715 T-DNA vector. Using Pcz treatments we searched for resistant plants, which were reflected on their lengths of roots and/or leaves. We isolated a total of 17 mutant lines, which are being analyzed phenotypically and at molecular level. So far, we have been able to found various lines presenting high or low yield compared to their wild type counterparts. We have found differences in panicle organization of these mutants. Our current experiments include the confirmation of Pcz resistance of these lines and molecular studies involving BR marker genes to understand the relation among yield and BR action in rice.