Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) such as acetate, propionate, and butyrate are secondary metabolites produced by anaerobic fermentation of dietary fibers in the intestine. Intestinal SCFAs exert various beneficial effects on intestinal homeostasis, including energy metabolism, autophagy, cell proliferation, immune reaction, and inflammation, whereas contradictory roles of SCFAs in the oral cavity have been reported. Herein, we found that low and high concentrations of SCFAs induce differential regulation of intracellular Ca2+ mobilization and expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-8, respectively, in gingival fibroblast cells. Additionally, cell viability was found to be differentially regulated in response to low and high concentrations of SCFAs. These findings demonstrate that the physiological functions of SCFAs in various cellular responses are more likely dependent on their local concentration.

Low molecular weight hydrolysates from donkey bone extracts (LHDB) was prepared with different food enzymes, and its antioxidative, elastase and collagenase inhibitory, and fibroblast cell protection effects against photoaging were evaluated. Gelatin from donkey bone was extracted three times at 121℃ for 1 h and was lyophilized. The lyophilized powder (5 g) was dissolved in 95 mL distilled water with 1% FoodPro alkaline protease (A), 1% Protease P (P), 1% Protease M (M) and a 0.3% A + 0.3% P + 0.3% M (APM) mixture and was hydrolyzed for 3 h at 45℃. After enzyme inactivation at 90℃ for 10 min, the LHDBs hydrolyzed by A, P, M, and APM were separated by centrifugal filtration and were lyophilized and marked as LHDB-A, LHDB-P, LHDB-M, LHDB-APM. The LHDB-M showed higher 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline–6- sulphonic acid (ABTS) radical scavenging activity, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) than the other treatments (p<0.05). The elastase inhibition effect (37.49%) of LHDB-M were significantly higher than those of the other treatments (9.97-34.18%). The viability of human fibroblast cells (Hs68) after UVB irradiation was significantly increased by LHDB-M, indicating that it can be used as an antioxidant or as a UVB stress protector. However, further in vivo studies should precede its usage in the bioactive compound industry.

Soy isoflavones have been reported to possess many physiological activities such as antioxidant activity and inhibition of cancer cell proliferation. This study investigated the photoprotective effects of soybean extract in human fibroblast cell line and hairless mice model. Human fibroblast was treated with soybean extract before and after ultraviolet B (UVB; 290-302 nm) irradiation. In the soybean extract treated group, the cells showed better resistance to ultraviolet (UV) than control group. The amount of type I collagen recovered from the soybean treated group was higher than the vehicle group exposed to UV-induced damage. Moreover, increased expression of metalloproteinases-1 as a result of UV irradiation was suppressed by the soybean extract. Female mice were orally administered soybean extract and irradiated with UVB light for 8 weeks. The effects of the soybean extract on the skin appearance, collagen deposition and epidermal thickness in the UV-damaged mouse skin were analyzed using histopathological methods. In soybean extract treated group, the skin had a better morphology than that of the control group. Furthermore, the amount of type I collagen was increased and overexpression of MMP-1 was reduced in the soybean extract group compared to vehicle group. Additionally, up-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines induced by UV irradiation was suppressed by dietary soybean extract treatment. It appears that soybean extract had a photoprotective effect, including anti-aging and anti-inflammatory effect, from UV-induced damage in not only human fibroblast, but also hairless mice. We confirmed that these effects were possibly due to promotion of collagen synthesis and inhibition of MMP-1 expression.

Ultraviolet B (UVB) exposure is a risk factor for skin damage resulting in oxidative stress, inflammation, and cell death. The purpose of this study was to investigate the physicochemical properties of Platycodon grandiflorum (PG) to improve its biological activities using a three-step steaming process. We investigated the protective effects of PG and steamed PG extracts on human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) against UVB radiation-induced oxidative stress and inflammation as well as the underlying mechanisms. The antioxidant potential of the PG extracts was evaluated by measuring the 2,2-diphenyl-1- picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS) scavenging activity. ABTS and DPPH were shown by the 0, 30, and 70% ethanol extracts of 2S-PG and 3S-PG (IC50, 28~45 and 27~30 μg/mL, respectively). Treatment of UVB-irradiated cells with steamed PG (25~400 μg/mL) did not affect their viability. The streamed PG extract suppressed UVB-induced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). In addition, streamed PG extract reduced cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) protein expression in UVB-irradiated HDF, regulating nuclear factor (NF)-κB expression. These findings suggest that steamed PG extract may be potentially effective against inflammation associated with UVB-induced oxidation stress.

본 연구는 예부터 약용으로 사용되었거나, 현재 식품공 전에 식품원료로 사용이 가능한 것으로 등록된 국내 산림 지역에 자생하는 식물을 식품산업에 활용하고자 선행연구에서 우수한 항산화 활성을 보인 갈참나무 잎을 본 연구 에서 사용하였다. 70% 에탄올을 이용하여 추출한 갈참나무 잎을 이용하여, hydrogen peroxide로 산화적 스트레스를 유도한 피부 섬유아세포에서의 세포 보호효과, 세포내 항산화 효과 및 항노화 효과를 측정하였다. 세포 독성을 평가한 결과 25, 50 및 100 μg/mL의 갈참나무 잎 추출물을 처리하였을 때 모두 독성을 나타내지 않았으며, hydrogen peroxide로 산화적 스트레스를 유도한 상태에서는 세포를 보호하여 농도 유의적으로 세포생존율이 증가하였다. 특히, 100 μg/mL의 농도에서는 양성대조군으로 사용한 50 μM ascorbic acid 수준까지 세포 생존율이 증가하였다. 세포내 항산화 효과를 확인 하기위해 사용한 H2-DCFDA assay에서는 형광현미경과 형광흡광도 측정에서 모두 농도 유의적으로 세포내 ROS 저감 활성을 확인하였고 갈참나무 잎 추출물을 100 μg/mL 농도로 처리했을 때는 50 μM ascorbic acid와 비슷한 세포내 항산화 효과를 나타내었다. 또한 SA- β-galactosidase assay를 이용한 갈참나무 잎 추출물의 피부 섬유아세포에 대한 항노화활성은 ROS 생성 억제 효과 와 유사한 경향으로 갈참나무 잎 추출물의 농도 유의적으로 세포 노화 억제효과를 확인하였다. 이상의 결과를 종 합하여 볼 때 갈참나무 잎 추출물이 hydrogen peroxide로 인한 산화적 스트레스 상태에서 세포 보호효과, 항산화 효 과 및 항노화 효과가 관찰되어 기능성 식품원료로서의 활용도가 매우 넓을 것으로 판단된다.

Adhesive capsulitis of the shoulder is a common cause of pain that occurs during shoulder movement, thereby restricting shoulder rotation in clinical practice. Although most patients respond to pain relief treatment (NSAID or corticosteroids) by improving their range of motion, it remains poorly understood without any definitive treatment algorithm. In addition to immune cells, synoviocytes, chondrocytes and osteoblasts in the joint are known to produce pro-inflammatory mediators such as reactive oxygen species (ROS), inflammatory cytokines and lipid mediators, presumably contributing to the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA) and adhesive capsulitis. Although inflammation and also fibrosis are proposed to be the basic pathological changes of a frozen shoulder, there is a lack of information regarding the downstream targets of the pro-inflammatory ROS signaling pathway in the synoviocytes and also how these ROS targets are modulated at the transcription level by a corticosteroid - dexamethasone. In this study, we used human fibroblast like synoviocytes (HFLS) to characterize the signaling targets of ROS by employing a human DNA microarray tool and studied the role of dexamethasone in this process. Our data suggest that several genes such as FOS, FOSB and NFkBIZ, which are known to be involved in pro- or anti- inflammation response, are modulated at the transcription level by ROS and dexamethasone.

현재 식품공전에 식품원료로 사용이 가능한 것으로 등 록된 국내 산림지역 자생 식물을 식품산업에 활용하고자 국내 자생식물 45종을 선별하였고, 본 연구팀의 선행연구 에서 45종의 항산화 활성을 평가한 결과, 다른 종들과 비 교하여 우수한 항산화 활성을 보인 밤나무 잎을 본 연구 에서 사용하였다. 본 연구에서는 hydrogen peroxide로 산화적 스트레스를 유도한 상태에서 밤나무 잎 추출물의 세포 보호효과, 세포내 항산화 효과 및 항노화 효과를 관찰 하였다. 세포 보호효과를 측정한 결과 밤나무 잎 추출물 의 농도 유의적으로 세포를 보호하는 효과를 확인하였고, 특히 100 μg/mL에서는 양성대조군으로 사용한 항산화 물질인 ascorbic acid 수준까지 세포를 보호하는 효과를 나타내었다. H2-DCFDA 염색을 통한 세포내 항산화 효과를 확인한 결과, 형광현미경과 형광흡광도 측정에서 모두 밤나무 잎 추출물이 농도 유의적으로 세포내 ROS를 저감을 확인하였고, 세포 보호효과와 마찬가지로 농도 100 μg/mL 에서는 ascorbic acid와 비슷한 수준을 보였다. SA-β- galactosidase 염색을 통하여 관찰한 세포노화 억제 효과는 ROS 생성 억제 효과와 유사한 경향으로 밤나무 잎 추출 물의 농도 유의적으로 세포노화 억제를 관찰되었다. 이상 의 결과를 종합하여 볼 때 밤나무 잎 추출물은 산화적 스트레스로 인한 세포노화를 억제하는 효능을 보였으며, 이는 천연물에서 유래한 항산화 및 항노화 활성 첨가제로 활용도가 매우 넓을 것으로 판단된다.

Ribosomal protein L21 (RPL21) plays an important role in ribosome assembly. It is considered to be a major cause for the occurrence of the hypotrichosis simplex (HTS), a type of sustained hair loss from early childhood to adulthood. In this study, the full-length sequence of pig RPL21 gene (GenBank accession number: KU891824) was cloned and identified for the first time. We found it contains a 483-bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding 160 amino acids. It is located in the plus strand of chromosome 11, which spans 2,167 bp from 4,199,792 to 4,201,958. We found RPL21 expression level is closely related to cell proliferation and cell cycle arrest. In the knockdown group, the cell proliferation activity was significantly decreased (P<0.01) and an obvious accumulation of cells at the G2/M phase with a simultaneous up-regulation of p53 and p21 was observed. This likely due to knockdown of RPL21 triggered ribosomal stress, which affected the normal ribosome assembly and caused defective ribosome biogenesis. The unassembled RPs were released consequently from the nucleolus to the nucleoplasm where they can activate p53-dependent cell-cycle responsive factors and led to a G2/M arrest. We expect these results may provide valid information for further study on the pig RPL21 gene and the cause of hypo trichosis simplex.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technique is a key point of producing transgenic animal disease models. During in vitro production of SCNT embryo, the quality of matured oocytes are one of the important factors that regulate embryo developmental capacity. In preliminary test, we confirmed the effect of fibroblast growth factor 10 (FGF10) on porcine oocyte maturation. In this study, we investigated the developmental potential of SCNT embryos treated with the 10 ng/ml FGF10 (10 F) during in vitro maturation of recipient oocytes. The polar body emission rate was significantly higher in the 10 F treated group than control group. After SCNT, although the rate of fusion was no significant difference, the rate of cleavage and blastocyst formation was significantly increased in the 10 F treated group (p<0.05). In 10 F treated group, the total cell number was increased and the percentage of apoptotic cell was decreased in the blastocyst stage at day 7 (p<0.1). The transcription level of apoptosis relative gene, Casp3 was significantly decreased, while anti-apoptosis gene BCL2l1 was increased in the 10 F treated group compared to control group. The 10 F treated group was highly expressed the reprogramming related genes, Sox2 and POU5f1. Also, the first cleaving time was more faster and the percentage of cell block was significantly lower in 10 F treated group than in control group. In this study, we confirmed that 10 ng/ml FGF10 has effect on enhance the oocyte maturation and developmental capacity. These results demonstrate that FGF10 treatment can be used for in vitro development of porcine SCNT embryos and subsequent production of transgenic animal model.

Gingival fibroblasts (GF) are the most abundant cell type in periodontal connective tissues, andhave distinct functional activities in the repair of periodontal tissues and in inflammatory periodontal diseases. Human gingival fibroblasts (hGF) can be used for periodontal tissue engineering. This study examined whether the alkaline phosphatase of hGF is enhanced by recombinant human BMP-4 and/or Anti human BMP-4 antibody. hGF was obtained from the excised gingival tissue of an implant patient undergoing 2nd surgery. The tissue was incubated at 37℃ in 5% CO2 and 95% humidity, and the cultivating media was changed every 2 days. The 2nd passage hGF cells were cultured in a medium containing Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and 1 X antibiotic antimycotic solution. The control hGF was cultured for 7 days without rhBMP-4/Anti human BMP-4 antibody. The experimental groups were cultured for 7 with BMP-4 (10 ng/ml) and/or Anti human BMP-4 antibody. This study evaluated the differentiation of hGF to osteoblasts using alkaline phosphatase assay. In the experimental groups, the hGF showed abundant positive ALP staining. Among the experimental groups, the experimental group 3 (mixture of rhBMP-4 (20ng/㎖) and Anti human BMP-4 antibody (50000ng/㎖) showed most abundant positive ALP staining. In the control group, the hGF showed weak positive ALP staining. Overall, these results suggest that the ALP expression of hGF can enhanced by rhBMP-4 or mixture of rhBMP-4/ anti human BMP-4 antibody.

alcineurin (CN) is a calcium and calmodulin-depedent serine/threonine phosphatase. CN plays an important role in various biological processes including cell proliferation, cardiovascular, skeletal muscle development and apoptosis. In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), CN plays a role synoviocyte activation and arthritis progression. The selective inhibition of CN by the over-expression of CN-binding protein 1 (Cabin1). In the present study, joint restricted transgenic mice expressing the human Cabin1(hCabin1) were generated, driven by type II collagen promoter and efficiency of these mice was investigated by experimental arthritis. These transgenic mice successfully expressed hCabin1 in joint tissue as well as other organs like the liver, the heart, and the brain. The joint specific over-expression of hCabin1 reduced the disease severity during collagen-induced arthritis. In fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLSs) from hCabin1 transgenic mice, the productions of these cytokines including, TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 were decreased and MMPs was also depressed in transgenic mice FLS. In addition, the expression of proapoptotic p53, p21, caspase-3, caspase-9 and Bax increased in transgenic mice, indicating that hCabin1 may induce FLS death by regulating the expression of Bcl-2, p53, p21, caspase-3, casepase-9 and Bax. It is expected that these findings will provide a more knowledge about the pathogenic mechanisms of rheumatoid arthritis and a potential animal model of the choronic inflammatory conditions, including atherosclerosis and transplantation.

Gene targeting is a genetic technique that utilizes homologous recombination between an engineered exogenous DNA fragments with the endogenous genome of an organism. In domestic animal, gene targeting has provided an important tool for producing Knock-out pig for GGTA1 gene to use xenotransplantation. The frequency of homologous recombination is a critical parameter for the success of gene targeting. The efficiency of homologous recombination in somatic cells is lower than that in mouse ES cells. So the application of gene targeting in somatic cells has been limited by its low efficiency. Recently, knock-out rat and mouse was generated by introducing nonhomologous end joining (NHE)-mediated deletion or insertion at the target site using zinc-finger nucleases (ZFN). Therefore, the development of effective knock-out and knock-in techniques in domestic animal is very important in biomedical research. In this present study, we investigated whether homologous recombination events occurs at cytidine monophospho-N-acetylneuraminic acid hydroxylase (CMAH) gene locus using ZFN in porcine primary fibroblast. CMAH-targeted ZFN DNA and mRNA were purchased from SIGMA-Aldrich. CMAH neo targeting vector consists of the neomycin resistance gene as a positive selectable marker gene, 789 bp 5’ arm and 763 bp 3’ arm from Exon 8 of CMAH gene. For transfection, the targeting vector and ZFN DNA or mRNA were introduced into ear fibroblasts cells of Chicago miniature pig by electroporation. After selection of G-418, PCR analysis was performed using 213 colonies transfected with ZFN DNA or mRNA. As a result, 39 positive colonies were identified in colonies transfected with ZFN DNA or mRNA. To our knowledge, this study provides the first evidence that the efficiency of gene targeting using ZFN was higher than that of conventional gene targeting in the porcine fibroblast. These cell lines may be used in the production of CMAH knock-out for xenotransplantation.

Several human leukocyte subsets including natural killer (NK) cells, cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), and polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) participate in cellular immune responses directed against vascularized pig-to-human xenografts. As these leukocytes express the death receptor Fas either constitutively (PMN) or upon activation (NK, CTL), we explored in vitro whether the transgenic expression of membrane-bound human Fas ligand (mFasL) on porcine fetal fibroblasts is a valuable strategy to protect porcine xenografts. cDNA of mFasL carrying the deletion at the cleavage site with metalloproteinase and lacking the death domain in its cytoplasmic tail was subcloned into pCAGGS expression vector driven by the chicken β-actin promoter containing blastidin- resistance cassette. The mFasL expression vector was transfected into mini-pig fetal fibroblasts by lipofection method. Blastidin-resistant cells were screened by PCR and FISH. The expression of mFasL was confirmed by Western blot and FACS with the mouse anti-human FasL antibody. Interaction of two transgenic clonal cell lines with human leukocytes was analyzed using functional assay for cytotoxicity. mFasL expressed on porcine fetal fibroblasts protected porcine fetal fibroblasts against killing mediated by human NK cells. The rate of NK cell mediated cytotoxicity was significantly reduced in transgenic clonal cells (54±10.80%) compared to normal minipig fetal fibroblasts. This result indicated that grafts of transgenic pigs expressing mFasL could control the cellular immune response to xenografts, and create a window of opportunity to facilitate xenograft survival.