Korea Bio Polytechnic College

There is a growing body of evidence supporting the significant role of bacterial biofilms in the pathogenesis of various human diseases including cancer. Biofilms are polymicrobial communities enclosed within an extracellular matrix composed of polysaccharides, proteins, extracellular DNA, and lipids. This complex matrix provides protection against antibiotics and host immune responses, enabling the microorganisms to establish persistent infections. Moreover, biofilms induce anti-inflammatory responses and metabolic changes in the host, further facilitating their survival. Many of these changes are comparable to those observed in cancer cells. This review will cover recent research on the role of bacterial biofilms in carcinogenesis, especially in colorectal (CRC) and gastric cancers, emphasizing the shared physical and chemical characteristics of biofilms and cancer. This review will also discuss the interactions between bacteria and the tumor microenvironment, which can facilitate oncogene expression and cancer progression. This information will provide insight into developing new therapies to identify and treat biofilm-associated cancers, such as utilizing bacteria as delivery vectors, using bacteria to upregulate immune function, or more selectively targeting biofilms and cancer for their shared traits.

Nitroreductase (NTR) has the ability to activate nitro group-containing prodrugs and decompose explosives; thus, the evaluation of NTR activity is specifically important in pharmaceutical and environmental areas. Numerous studies have verified effective fluorescent methods to detect and image NTR activity; however, near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence probes for biological applications are lacking. Thus, in this study, we synthesized novel NIR probes (NIR-HCy-NO2 1–3) by introducing a nitro group to the hemicyanine skeleton to obtain fluorescence images of NTR activity. Additionally, this study was also designed to propose a different water solubility and investigate the catalytic efficiency of NTR. NIR-HCy-NO2 inherently exhibited a low fluorescence background due to the interference of intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) by the nitro group. The conversion from the nitro to amine group by NTR induced a change in the absorbance spectra and lead to the intense enhancement of the fluorescence spectra. When assessing the catalytic efficiency and the limit of detection (LOD), including NTR activity imaging, it was demonstrated that NIR-HCy-NO2 1 was superior to the other two probes. Moreover, we found that NIR-HCy-NO2 1 reacted with type I mitochondrial NTR in live cell imaging. Conclusively, NIR-HCy-NO2 demonstrated a great potential for application in various NTR-related fields, including NTR activity for cell imaging in vivo.

Dexamethasone (DEX) promotes proteolysis, which causes muscle atrophy. Muscle atrophy is connected to sarcopenia. We evaluated the effect of Curcuma longa L. water extract (CLW) on DEX-induced muscle atrophy. ICR mice were divided into three groups (eight mice per group) to investigate the capability of CLW in inhibiting muscle atrophy. The control group (Ex-CON) was administered distilled water (DW) by gavage and subjected to exercise; the muscle atrophy group (Ex-DEX) was administered DW by gavage, an injection of DEX (1 mg/kg body weight/day) intraperitoneally (IP), and subjected to exercise; and the treatment group (Ex-CLW) was administered CLW (1 g/kg body weight/day) by gavage, DEX IP injection, and subjected to exercise. Following the injection of DEX, the expression levels of myostatin, MuRF-1, and Atrogin-1 were increased. However, these expression levels were decreased in the Ex-CLW group, thereby leading to the conclusion that CLW inhibits muscle atrophy. ROS (that was overproduced by DEX) decreased antioxidant enzyme activity and increased malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, which led to muscle atrophy. When CLW was ingested, the antioxidant enzyme activities increased while the MDA levels decreased. These findings suggest that CLW could serve as a natural product for the prevention of muscle atrophy by modulating muscle atrophy-related genes and increasing antioxidant potential.

Food Codex regulations have set freshness limits for oils used to fry food, suchas potato and fish products, and fried food itself; however, no such freshnesslimits have been set for meat products, such as sweet and sour pork. Thefreshness standard suggest that acid values (AVs) and peroxide values (POVs) forfrying oil should be less than 2.5 and 50, respectively, whereas AVs and POVsfor common fried food should be less than 5.0 and 60, respectively. Therefore,in this study, we investigate the effect of the number of frying cycles onoxidation-promoted changes in the oils used to fry sweet and sour pork and friedfood itself during repeated frying over 10 d by determining their AVs and POVs,which were found to be highly correlated. Soybean, canola, palm, and pork lardoils could be reused approximately 37, 32, 58, and 87 times, respectively, tofry sweet and sour pork based on oil freshness, and 78, 78, 81, and 286 times,respectively, based on the freshness of fried food. Our data may help establishfood-quality regulations for oils used to fry animal-based foods.

The protective activity of a mixture of aqueous and ethanolic extracts from Houttuynia cordata Thunb, Nelumbo nucifera G. leaves, and Camellia sinensis seed (HNC) was evaluated in C57BL/6 mice. Pretreatment with HNC prevented the elevation of serum aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase caused by ethanol-induced hepatic damage. The HNC-treated mice showed significantly lower triglyceride levels, reduced CYP2E1 activity, and increased antioxidant enzyme activities and lipogenic mRNA levels. These results suggest that HNC might be a candidate agent for liver protection against ethanol-induced oxidative damage, through enhancement of antioxidant and antilipogenic activity.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of frying number on oxidative changes in edible oils and fried foods. According to the frying number, the extracted edible oils from pork cutlet and fried potato were used as experimental samples. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) regulations permit edible oils to have <2.5 mg KOH/g of acid value and <50 meq/kg of peroxide value in food. However, there are no regulations for edible oils used to fry livestock. Animal foods contain protein and fat, and should be held to a different standard than ordinary food. Therefore, we present basic information and suggest the establishment of regulations for livestock frying oil and fried livestock.

Chronic monitoring of intravesical pressure is required to detect the onset of intravesical hypertension and the progression of a more severe condition. Recent reports demonstrate the bladder state can be monitored from the spiking activity of the dorsal root ganglia or lumbosacral spinal cord. However, one of the most serious challenges for these methods is the difficulty of sustained spike signal acquisition due to the high-electrode-location-sensitivity of spikes or neuro-degeneration. Alternatively, it has been demonstrated that local field potential recordings are less affected by encapsulation reactions or electrode location changes. Here, we hypothesized that local field potential (LFP) from the lumbosacral dorsal horn may provide information concerning the intravesical pressure. LFP and spike activities were simultaneously recorded from the lumbosacral spinal cord of anesthetized rats during bladder filling. The results show that the LFP activities carry significant information about intravesical pressure along with spiking activities. Importantly, the intravesical pressure is decoded from the power in high-frequency bands (83.9–256 Hz) with a substantial performance similar to that of the spike train decoding. These findings demonstrate that high-frequency LFP activity can be an alternative intravesical pressure monitoring signal, which could lead to a proper closed loop system for urinary control.

Purpose Advances in experimental devices have led to substantial achievements in electrophysiological studies in the last few decades. However, conventional systems tend to hinder freely moving behavioral tests, because of the use of tethering cables connecting subjects to devices. To tackle this limitation, we developed a wireless neural interface system (WNIS) that is capable of multi-channel recording and stimulation with a wireless charging battery.

Galactooligosaccharide is one of prebiotics materials containing galactose and used mainly for infant formula products because some components of galactooligosaccharide are recognized as human milk oligosaccharides. Some studies showed that galactooligosaccharide has the outstanding physiological functions such as boosting immune system, improving skin conditions, and some others. And it has a role of making good intestinal microflora based on prebiotics effects. In conclusion, galactooligosaccharide is expected to be used for food materials such as functional beverages and dietary supplements, based on various physiological functions as well as physical stability