In this study, for the treatment efficiency of the IGF process for the treatment of produced water (PW) discharged from the oil sands plant, the bench-scale oil sands plant PWT package was designed, manufactured and evaluated to verify the efficiency of the process. The microbubble generation efficiency and microbubble size change according to the circulation pump pressure were observed, and the correlation between influent concentration and temperature, residence time and oil-water separation performance was analyzed.

Childhood obesity causes a higher risk of obesity, premature death and disability in adulthood. In addition, obese children experience an increased risk of respiratory problems, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and psychological effects. This study aimed to investigate how an exercise intervention affects health-related physical fitness and inflammatory-related blood factors in obese children after. We hypothesized that there would be positive effects on serum levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), connecting peptide(C-peptide) and resistin, as well as in muscle and cardiovascular-related physical capacities, after an exercise intervention in obese children. Thirty-seven obese children haveperformed health-related fitness tests and provided blood samples for the analysis of changes in circulating biomarkers, both before and after an 8-week exercise intervention, which includes stretching, aerobic exercise, resistance exercise and sports games. The results indicate that exercise training beneficially affects body compositions, especially percentage body fat and muscle mass, without influencing to body weight and height. The results of the physical fitness tests show that muscle and cardiovascular capacity were increased in obese children in response to exercise training. Simultaneously, the exercise training decreased circulating levels of C-peptide, which equated to a “large” effect size. Although there were no significant effects on the levels of IGF-1 and resistin, they show a “small” effect size. Therefore, our findings suggest that the exercise intervention have beneficial effects on body composition and physical fitness levels in obese children, whichmight be associated with the decline in circulating C-peptide.

Insulin/IGF signaling (IIS) regulates different physiological processes such as metabolism, trehalose level, growth, and reproduction. Four IIS components are identified from the bean pod borer, Maruca vitrata (Lepidoptera: Crambidae). RNA interference (RNAi) of insulin receptor (InR), Forkhead Box O (FOXO), Target of Rapamycin (TOR) or Akt led to ovary dysfunction. Especially, the RNAi treatment significantly reduced the stem cell division in the germarium. However, an addition of a porcine insulin stimulated the cell division. Immature diets significantly influenced on the ovarian stem cell development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of rope skipping and band exercise on GH, IGF-1 and metabolic syndrome risk factors in female obese middle school students. Twenty female obese middle school students(%BF > 30%) were randomly assigned to a exercise group(EX, n=10) or control group(CON, n=10). The exercise group has performed rope skipping and band exercise for 12 weeks, 3time per week. Exercise intensity was increased gradually, from 40% to 70% of Heart Rate Reserve(HRR) and Rating of Perceived Exertion(RPE) 11-15. GH, IGF-1 and metabolic syndrome rist factors were GH, IGF-1 and metabolic syndrome risk factors were measured pre- and post-exercise program including rope skipping and band exercise. Levels of GH and IGF-1 were significantly increased (p<.01 and p<0.001, respectively) in exercise group after 12 weeks of exercise training. WC and TG were significantly decreased(p<.01) in exercise group after 12 weeks of training. HDL-C was significantly increased(p<.05) in exercise group after 12 weeks of training. In conclusion, rope skipping and band exercise were effective exercise program in improving GH, IGF-1 and metabolic syndrome risk factors in female obese middle school students.

It is well known that the production of transgenic bovine embryos is more difficult than the production of non-transgenic bovine embryos. We performed whether the quality of transgenic bovine embryos expressing the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) can be improved when cultured for 4 days from day 4 until day 8 after activation with epidermal growth factor (EGF), insulin-like growth factor (IGF), and flavonoid (F) supplements. The EGFP gene was introduced into bovine IVF embryos using microinjector. In experiment, transgenic bovine embryos were cultured in modified CR1aa medium containing 10% FBS at 38.8℃ in an incubator (5% CO2, 5% O2, and 90% N2) for 8 days and embryos were equally divided into four groups [non-treated group (control), 1 μM IGF+EGF (IE), 10 μM F and 1 μM IGF+EGF+10 μ M F (IEF)] at day 4 embryos. In the result, development rate of F treatment group (41.8%) was higher than that of control (33.3%), IE (23.9%) and IEF groups (28.0%). However, hatching rate was significantly high in IE (53.0%) and IEF (65.0%) groups than in control (42.9%) and F group (42.8%) (p<0.05). The EGFP expression rate was not different among all groups (30.0~33.3%) at blastocyst stage. In comparison of total cell number, IE group (145.2±10.4) was significantly higher than control group (101.4±14.3). Apoptotic index of IE group (1.9%) was the lowest compared with that of control (3.3%), F (3.5%) and IEF groups (4.6%). This result demonstrate that the combination of IGF, EGF and flavonoid can be helpful to improve the development potential and the quality of transgenic bovine embryos.

Recently, with the increase of meat production, high quality and safety of meat have been strongly emphasized by Korean consumers. Marbling in beef has been regarded as an important criterion deciding meat quality in Korea. The purpose of this study was to identify the transcriptional level of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in longissimus muscle samples of 46 Hanwoo. The level of IGF-1 transcripts was measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and molecular connection of IGF-1 was analyzed using the Pathway Studio program (Ver 9.0). Increase of marbling score (MS) induced increase of IGF-1 transcripts level in the muscle and there is a significant correlation (p<0.05) between IGF-1 mRNA expression and MS. The pathway study showed that IGF-1 genes are regulated in insulin, fatty acid synthase, leptin, and corticotrophin releasing hormone. These results suggest that IGF-1 might be used as a useful marker for the improvement of economic traits in Hanwoo.

The majority of early embryonic mortality in pregnancy occurs during the peri-implantation stage, suggesting that this period is important for conceptus viability and the establishment of pregnancy. Successful establishment of preg-nancy in all mammalian species depends on the orchestrated molecular events that transpire at the conceptus- uterine interface during the peri-implantation period. This maternal-conceptus interaction is especially crucial in pigs because in them non-invasive epitheliochorial placentation occurs, in which the pre-implantation phase is prolonged. During the pre-implantation period, conceptus survival and the establishment of pregnancy are known to depend on the developing conceptus receiving an adequate supply of histotroph, which contains a wide range of nutrients and grow-th factors. Evidence links growth factors including epidermal growth factor (EGF), insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and colony-stimulating factor 2 (CSF2) to embryogenesis or implantation in various mammalian species; however, in the case of pig, little is known about such functions of these growth factors, especially their regulatory mechanisms at the maternal-conceptus interface. Our research group has presented evidence for promising growth factors affecting cellular activities of primary porcine trophectoderm (pTr) cells, and we have identified potential intracellular signaling pathways responsible for the activities induced by these factors. Therefore, this review focuses on promising growth factors at the maternal-conceptus interface regulating the develop-ment of the porcine conceptus and playing pivotal roles in implantation events during early pregnancy in pigs.

Chicken Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (cIGF-1), one of the most important hormone for regulating physiological function includes body growth, muscle volume, bone density, chicken cell development and metabolism. In order to find in vitro Knokdown expression of cIGF-1, this study introduced tetracycline inducible RNA interference expression system (TetRNAi system). Tet system can inductively control high expression of extrinsic genes and expression of intrinsic genes. So it has advantages such as minimized physiological side-effects any cell and low cytotoxicity. RNAi system is proving to be a powerful experimental tool for inhibition of gene expression and post-transcriptional mechanism of gene silencing. RNAi is mediated by small interfering RNA (siRNA) consisting of 19- to 23- nucleotide double-stranded RNA duplexes that promote specific endonucleolytic cleavage of mRNA targets through an RNA-induced silencing. Then, this study RNAi-based gene knockdown can be achieved by retroviral-based expression systems. Stable integration of our inducible siRNA vector allowed the production of siRNA on doxycycline induction, followed by specific down regulation of chicken IGF-1 gene. Analyses of Real-time PCR to determine expression of the cIGF-1 gene showed successful from chicken embronic fibroblast (CEF) cells with the reduced rate of an approximately 92%. Our results demonstrate the successful regulation of cIGF-1 knockdown expression in CEF cells and support the application of an tetracycline inducible RNAi expression system in transgenic Mini chicken production. This research was supported by Bio-industry Technology Development Program, Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Republic of Korea.

To study the signaling effect of insulin-like growth factor-Ⅰ(IGF-1), transgenic mice containing IGF-1 Receptor (IGF-1R) cDNA fused to metallothionein promoter were produced by DNA microinjection into the pronucleus of mouse zygote. Three founders were produced with transgenic mice containing IGF-1R gene. Transgenic mice lines contained approximately 4～20 copies of transgenes per cell and transmission of this gene into the progeny with Mendelian manner were determined. The founder mice were mated with normal mice to produce F1 mice and then F2 mice. Transmission rates of IGF-1R transgene in the progeny mice were 25～60% in F1 generation and 40～50% in F2 generation. The mRNA expression of IGF-1R transgene in liver was analyzed using RT-PCR for IGF-1R gene in liver. When body weights of transgenic pups were measured during 4, 10 and 14 weeks after birth, IGF-1R transgenic mice grew faster than non transgenic littermates. This study indicated that growth regulation by IGF-1 signaling through IGF-1R can be elucidated using IGF-1R transgenic mice.