This study was conducted to investigate osteopenia and osteoporosis prevalence of radius and tibia using Quantitative Ultrasound (QUS) and to identify affecting factors of osteoporosis. A total of 4,340 women aged 40 - 69 years, living in Ansung (rural) and Ansan (mid-sized) area, and free of illnesses affecting bone metabolism participated in the community-based cohort study. Among them 4,059 subjects measured radius bone density and 4,089 measured tibia. The T-score threshold, defined as < -1.0 and < or = -2.5, was used to identify subjects with osteopenia and osteoporosis by WHO criteria. The crude prevalence of osteoporosis in radius and tibia was 8.4% and 23.3% respectively; after adjustment for age, it changed 6.3% and 18.8%. In simple logistic regression analysis, the prevalence of osteoporosis increased by aging, non-marital status, low education, low income. Otherwise, high intakes of Ca/P, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, and vitamin E were decreased osteoporosis prevalence. Compared to the normal BMI (body mass index) group (18.5 < or = BMI < 23), the odds ratio (ORs) of the low BMI group (BMI < 18.5), and high BMI groups (BMI 25 - 30, BMI > or = 30) were significantly increased. The OR of osteoporosis decreased across increasing quartiles of intakes of Ca, P and Ca/P. Therefore, maintaining normal BMI and increasing Ca intake and Ca/P ratio may have a beneficial effect on bone health of Korean women.
Aging ; Bone Density ; Bone Diseases, Metabolic ; Cohort Studies* ; Education ; Female ; Genome* ; Gyeonggi-do ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Metabolism ; Odds Ratio ; Osteoporosis* ; Prevalence* ; Radius* ; Riboflavin ; Tibia* ; Ultrasonography* ; Vitamin B 6 ; Vitamin E ; Vitamins

PURPOSE: Hepatic stellate cells (HSC) are a type of pericyte with varying characteristics according to their location. However, the electrophysiological properties of HSC are not completely understood. Therefore, this study investigated the difference in the voltage-dependent K(+) currents in HSC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The voltage-dependent K(+) currents in rat HSC were evaluated using the whole cell configuration of the patch-clamp technique. RESULTS: Four different types of voltage-dependent K(+) currents in HSC were identified based on the outward and inward K(+) currents. Type D had the dominant delayed rectifier K(+) current, and type A had the dominant transient outward K(+) current. Type I had an inwardly rectifying K(+) current, whereas the non-type I did not. TEA (5mM) and 4-AP (2mM) suppressed the outward K(+) currents differentially in type D and A. Changing the holding potential from -80 to -40mV reduced the amplitude of the transient outward K(+) currents in type A. The inwardly rectifying K(+) currents either declined markedly or were sustained in type I during the hyperpolarizing step pulses from -120 to -150mV. CONCLUSION: There are four different configurations of voltage-dependent K(+) currents expressed in cultured HSC. These results are expected to provide information that will help determine the properties of the K(+) currents in HSC as well as the different type HSC populations.
Animals ; Cells, Cultured ; Electric Conductivity/classification ; Hepatocytes/*chemistry/classification ; Ion Transport ; Patch-Clamp Techniques ; Potassium Channels, Voltage-Gated/*physiology ; Rats

Increased expression of glucose transporter1 (GLUT1) has been reported in many human cancers. We hypothesized that the degree of GLUT1 might provide a useful biological information in gastric adenocarcinoma. RT-PCR and immunostaining were used to analyze GLUT1 expression in gastric cancer. RT-PCR showed GLUT1 expression was not largely detected in normal gastric tissue but was detected in cancerous gastric tissue of counterpart. By immunohistochemistry, GLUT1 protein was absent in normal gastric epithelium and intestinal metaplasia. 11 of 65 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma had specific GLUT1 immunostaining in a plasma membrane pattern with varied intensities. GLUT1 protein did not show any significant correlation with tumor stage and nodal metastasis (p+AD4-0.05 by Mann-Whitney test). However, the positive immunostaining for GLUT1 is associated with intestinal differentiation (p+AD0-0.003). Our results suggest that GLUT1 protein is associated with intestinal type of gastric cancer.
Adenocarcinoma/pathology ; Adenocarcinoma/chemistry+ACo- ; Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Gastric Mucosa/pathology ; Gastric Mucosa/chemistry+ACo- ; Human ; Intestines ; Male ; Metaplasia ; Middle Age ; Monosaccharide Transport Proteins/analysis+ACo- ; Neoplasm Proteins/analysis+ACo- ; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Stomach Neoplasms/pathology ; Stomach Neoplasms/chemistry+ACo- ; Tumor Markers, Biological/analysis+ACo-

Increased expression of glucose transporter1 (GLUT1) has been reported in many human cancers. We hypothesized that the degree of GLUT1 might provide a useful biological information in gastric adenocarcinoma. RT-PCR and immunostaining were used to analyze GLUT1 expression in gastric cancer. RT-PCR showed GLUT1 expression was not largely detected in normal gastric tissue but was detected in cancerous gastric tissue of counterpart. By immunohistochemistry, GLUT1 protein was absent in normal gastric epithelium and intestinal metaplasia. 11 of 65 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma had specific GLUT1 immunostaining in a plasma membrane pattern with varied intensities. GLUT1 protein did not show any significant correlation with tumor stage and nodal metastasis (p+AD4-0.05 by Mann-Whitney test). However, the positive immunostaining for GLUT1 is associated with intestinal differentiation (p+AD0-0.003). Our results suggest that GLUT1 protein is associated with intestinal type of gastric cancer.
Adenocarcinoma/pathology ; Adenocarcinoma/chemistry+ACo- ; Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Gastric Mucosa/pathology ; Gastric Mucosa/chemistry+ACo- ; Human ; Intestines ; Male ; Metaplasia ; Middle Age ; Monosaccharide Transport Proteins/analysis+ACo- ; Neoplasm Proteins/analysis+ACo- ; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Stomach Neoplasms/pathology ; Stomach Neoplasms/chemistry+ACo- ; Tumor Markers, Biological/analysis+ACo-

ABSTRACT To assess the quality of nutrient intake by area of Korean adults, a dietary survey with the 3-day record method was obtained from 324 subjects aged 40 years and older but younger than 70 (52.4 +/- 8.7) living in a rural area (Ansung) and suburban area of a middle-sized city (Ansan). The quality of nutrient intake was assessed by analyzing Nutrient Adequacy Ratio (NAR), Mean Adequacy Ratio (MAR) and Index of Nutritional Quality (INQ). The average daily mean energy intakes were 1,832 kcal for Ansung and 1,842 kcal for Ansan, respectively. Daily intakes of fat for Ansung and Ansan subjects were 40.9 and 40.3 g, and those for protein were 75.1 and 73.1 g, respectively. The overall calorie: protein: fat ratio (CPF) of energy intake was 63 : 17 : 20. Daily mean intakes of protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus, iron, potassium, carotene, sodium, thiamin, and niacin were significantly higher in Ansung residents than in Ansan subjects (p< .05). The average intakes of energy, calcium, vitamin A were lower than Recommend Dietary Allowance (RDA) in both areas. Note, over 30% of the study subjects had less than 75% of RDA of calcium, vitamin A and riboflavin. The MAR was higher in Ansung than Ansan residents (0.86 and 0.85, respectively; p< .05). INQs were over 1 for most nutrients except calcium (0.87), and that of calcium and phosphorus was each significantly higher in Ansung than Ansan subjects. Based on these results, nutrient intake quality of subjects aged 40 to 69 years living in the surveyed rural area is comparable to that of semi-industrialized suburban area in Korea. Dietary deficiency in all of calcium, vitamin A, and riboflavin, however, was a common problem for both rural and suburban residents.
Adult* ; Calcium ; Carotenoids ; Energy Intake ; Gyeonggi-do ; Humans ; Iron ; Korea ; Niacin ; Nutritive Value ; Phosphorus ; Potassium ; Riboflavin ; Sodium ; Vitamin A

Due to the common dietary practice of preparing foods in various ways using the same food item, in addition to rather a large number of food items that average Koreans consume, it is difficult to accurately assess the nutritional adequacy. In an effort to identify a reliable means of assessing the nutritional adequacy of Korean adults, we analyzed the association between the scores of dietary diversity (DDS) and dietary variety (DVS), and the quality of nutrient intake as assessed by Nutrient Adequacy Ratio (NAR) and Mean Adequacy Ratio (MAR). A three day-dietary record was obtained from each of 324 inhabitants, aged 40 to 69 years (mean +/- SD, 52.4 +/- 8.7), of a rural area (Ansung) and a mid-sized city(Ansan) of Korea. These individuals were randomly selected among the participants of the Korean Health and Genome Study. The number of consumed foods and food groups were assesses by DDS (scored 1 to 5) and DVS (ranked 30 < or = , 31 - 40, 41 - 50, 51 - 60, and 60 <) over three-day period, respectively. As DDS/DVS increased, mean daily food intakes tended to increase, and NAR/MAR was improved. Thus, DDS and DVS were significantly correlated with the quality of nutrient intake. Over 95% of the subjects scored less than 2 in DDS for the first one-day period, whilst over 62% recorded 4 during the full three-day period (p < .0001). The mean number of consumed food items increased from 24.9 to 44.4 as a function of days of the record period (p < .0001). We also analyzed the association of DDS and DVS with MAR, using regression analysis, controlling age and sex as covariates. For DDS, the adjusted coefficient determination (adj R2) values were 8.7%, 15.8%, 23.3% of MAR, also increasing as a function of the record duration, whereas they were 27.3%, 33.3%, 37.6% for DVS, respectively, demonstrating that NAR/MAR has a better correlation with DVS than DDS. Our data show that DDS, and DVS in particular, are useful parameters for evaluating nutrient intake in the Korean population. Our data also support that one day-dietary records are by no means adequate for accurately describing a wide variety of food choices offered for average Koreans, and that dietary assessment at least for 3 days or longer should be obtained for a reliable evaluation of dietary quality using DDS or DVS.
Adult ; Genome ; Humans ; Korea

We carried out a validation-calibration study of the food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) that we had previously developed for a community-based cohort of the Korean Genome and Health Study of the Korea National Genome Research Institute. We have collected a total of 254 3-day diet records (DRs) from 400 subjects, 200 each randomly selected from the two study cohorts of Ansung and Ansan. FFQ was administered at the time of cohort recruitment in 2001, and DRs were collected during a two month period from January through February of 2002. The mean age was 52.2 years. Farming for men and housewife for women were the most common occupations. The majority of the subjects had undergone 6~12 years of education. The general characteristics including demographic and other data were not different from the total cohort subjects. Absolute levels of consumed nutrients including total energy (energy), protein, fat, carbohydrate, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, iron, retinol, carotene, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin C were compared. The average of energy intake was not significantly different between the data collected by the 2 methods. However, consumptions of protein and fat were higher in data of DRs, whereas that of carbohydrate was higher in FFQ data. Significant correlation of each nutrient consumption between the data sets was observed (p <0.05) except in the case of iron, while the average correlation coefficient between them was 0.22 ranging from 0.33 for energy to 0.11 for iron. The results of cross classification by quantile for exact classification ranged from 25.2% (carotene) to 35.0% (phosphorus), and from 64.6% (vitamin A) to 76.4% (retinol) for adjacent classification. The proportion of completely opposite classification was 8.1% in average. Calibration slope was estimated by regression and calibration parameters ranged from 0.025 for carotene to 0.423 for niacin. We conclude that the FFQ we have developed is an appropriate tool for assessing the nutrient intakes as ranking exposures in epidemiology studies in view that amounts of consumed nutrients obtained by FFQ were similar to those collected by DRs, that correlations between consumed nutrients collected by these methods were significant, and that classification results were relatively fair. The correlation coefficients, however, were lower than expected, which may be mainly due to the survey season. In fact, any short-term dietary survey cannot accurately reflect the overall dietary intakes that change heavily depending on seasons. Further studies including the analysis of chemical indices would be helpful for the studies of causal relationship between the diet and disease.
Academies and Institutes ; Ascorbic Acid ; Calcium ; Calibration* ; Carotenoids ; Classification ; Cohort Studies ; Dataset ; Diet ; Diet Records ; Education ; Energy Intake ; Epidemiology ; Female ; Genome* ; Gyeonggi-do ; Humans ; Iron ; Korea ; Male ; Niacin ; Occupations ; Phosphorus ; Potassium ; Riboflavin ; Seasons ; Sodium ; Vitamin A

Comparative Statistic Module(CSM) provides more reliable list of significant genes to genomics researchers by offering the commonly selected genes and a method of choice by calculating the rank of each statistical test based on the average ranking of common genes across the five statistical methods, i.e. t-test, Kruskal-Wallis (Wilcoxon signed rank) test, SAM, two sample multiple test, and Empirical Bayesian test. This statistical analysis module is implemented in Perl, and R languages.
Genomics

The self-splicing group I intron from Tetrahymena thermophila has been demonstrated to perform splicing reaction with its substrate RNA in the trans configuration. In this study, we explored the potential use of the trans-splicing group I ribozymes to replace a specific RNA with a new RNA that exerts any new function we want to introduce. We have chosen thymidine phosphorylase (TP) RNA as a target RNA that is known as a valid cancer prognostic factor. Cancer-specific expression of TP RNA was first evaluated with RT-PCR analysis of RNA from patients with gastric cancer. We determined next which regions of the TP RNA are accessible to ribozymes by employing an RNA mapping strategy, and found that the leader sequences upstream of the AUG start codon appeared to be particularly accessible. A specific ribozyme recognizing the most accessible sequence in the TP RNA with firefly luciferase transcript as a 3' exon was then developed. The specific trans-splicing ribozyme transferred an intended 3' exon tag sequence onto the targeted TP transcripts, resulting in a more than two fold induction of the reporter activity in the presence of TP RNA in mammalian cells, compared to the absence of the target RNA. These results suggest that the Tetrahymena ribozyme can be a potent anti-cancer agent to modify TP RNAs in tumors with a new RNA harboring anti-cancer activity.
Codon, Initiator ; Exons ; Fireflies ; Humans ; Introns ; Luciferases ; RNA* ; RNA, Catalytic ; Stomach Neoplasms ; Tetrahymena ; Tetrahymena thermophila ; Thymidine Phosphorylase ; Trans-Splicing*

MediScore is an information retrieval system, which helps to search for the set of genes associated with a specific disease or the set of diseases associated with a specific gene. Despite recent improvement of natural language processing (NLP) and other text mining approaches to search for disease associated genes, many false positive results come out due to diversity of exceptional cases as well as ambiguities in gene names. In order to overcome the weak points of current text mining approaches, MediScore introduces statistical normalization based on binomial to normal distribution approximation which corrects inaccurate scores caused by common words not representing genes and interactive rescoring by the user to remove the false positive results. Interactive rescoring includes individual alias scoring for each gene to remove false gene synonyms, referring MEDLINE abstracts, and cross referencing between OMIM and other related information.
Data Mining ; Databases, Genetic ; Information Systems ; Natural Language Processing