No abstract available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate nutrition knowledge, dietary attitude and a food habits of middle school students. The study was carried out through questionnaire. The subjects were 431 middle school students (boys 298, girls 133) in Chonbuk area. In nutrition knowledge, there were no significant differences in total scores between boys and girls. However, the girls showed higher score in knowledge of weight control than boys did (p < 0.05). In dietary attitude, there were significant differences in attitude of "balanced meal (p < 0.05)", "sufficient protein intake (p < 0.01)", "food diversity (p < 0.001)" and "overeating (p < 0.01)" between boys and girls. The boys showed better dietary attitudes than the girls did. In food habits, there were significant differences in the rate of skipping breakfast (p < 0.05), the rates of skipping dinner (p < 0.01), the frequency of snacks (p < 0.05), the type of snacks (p < 0.05) between boys and girls. The girls showed higher rates of skipping a meal and frequency of snacks than the boys did. It suggests that gender should be considered for an effective and practical nutrition education for middle school students to improve dietary attitudes and food habits.
Breakfast ; Education ; Female ; Food Habits* ; Humans ; Jeollabuk-do* ; Meals ; Snacks

No abstract available.
Methicillin Resistance* ; Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus*

The purpose of current experiment is the generation of insulin-producing human mesenchymal stem cells as therapeutic source for the cure of type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is generally caused by insulin deficiency accompanied by the destruction of islet beta-cells. In various trials for the treatment of type 1 diabetes, cell-based gene therapy using stem cells is considered as one of the most useful candidate for the treatment. In this experiment, human mesenchymal stem cells were transduced with AAV which is containing furin-cleavable human preproinsulin gene to generate insulin-producing cells as surrogate beta-cells for the type 1 diabetes therapy. In the rAAV production procedure, rAAV was generated by transfection of AD293 cells. Human mesenchymal stems cells were transduced using rAAV with a various multiplicity of infection. Transduction of recombinant AAV was also tested using beta-galactosidse expression. Cell viability was determined by using MTT assay to evaluate the toxicity of the transduction procedure. Expression and production of Insulin were tested using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and immunocytochemistry. Secretion of human insulin and C-peptide from the cells was assayed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Production of insulin and C-peptide from the test group represented a higher increase compared to the control group. In this study, we examined generation of insulin-producing cells from mesenchymal stem cells by genetic engineering for diabetes therapy. This work might be valuable to the field of tissue engineering for diabetes treatment.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or glycolipid antigens of Leptospira interrogans have been candidates as serogroup or serotype specific antigen. In this study, therefore, we prepared the LPS and lipid antigens from L. interrogans serovars lai, icterohaemorrhagiae, copenhageni, canicola, pomona, grippotyphosa, and a Korean isolate 30R. The LPS antigens were analyzed by a polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and lipid antigens by thin-layer chromatography, respectively. The seroreactivity of the antigens were also examined with homologous or heterologous antisera using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The LPS antigens from serovar lai and the strain 30R were closely related but different from serovar icterohaemorrhagiae. Particularly, the LPS antigens from serovars icterohaemorrhagiae and grippotyphosa were reactive only with the homologous antisera, thus indicating serovar specificity. However, the LPS antigens of the other serovars were reactive to the heterologous antisera. The lipid antigen of serovar icterohaemorrhagiae reacted only with the homologous antisera. In contrast, lipids of other serovars reacted broadly with heterologous antisera, particularly among serovars lai, copenhageni, canicola, pomona, and the strain 30R. The results thus indicated that the LPS and lipid antigens of L. interrogans may contain serovar-specific as well as cross-reactive epitopes.
Antigens, Bacterial/*analysis ; Chromatography, Thin Layer ; Comparative Study ; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel ; Leptospira interrogans/*chemistry/immunology ; Lipids/*analysis/immunology ; Lipopolysaccharides/*analysis/immunology ; Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Leprosy is a chronic granulomatous disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, which is an obligate intracelluar pathogen. It presents broad spectrum of clinical manifestations depending on the host's specific cell-mediated immune response to M. leprae. Especially, type I Th cells and macrophages are important in defense mechanism to M. leprae, and the immune response is regulated by cytokines secreted by immune cells. Recent investigations showed nitric oxide(NO) was the key molecule in the killing activity of macrophages, which was enhanced by IFN-gamma but suppressed by TGF-beta1 and IL-10. Since cytokine is secreted by activated immune cells with antigenic stimulation, decreased antigens by treatment modulates the expression of cytokines in leprosy. In this study, we observed the dynamics of cytokines expression using RT-PCR, such as TGF-beta1 and IL-10, which suppress the activity of macrophages, IFN-gamma, which activates macrophages, and iNOS, which represents the killing activity of macrophages, in the lesions taken from fifteen borderline lepromatous leprosy patients before and after multiple drug therapy for 4 weeks. The results are summarized as follows: 1. Before treatment, cytokines were expressed in order of IL-10, iNOS, TGF-beta1 and IFN-gamma(p>0.05). 2. After 4 weeks treatment, cytokines were expressed in order of iNOS, IL-10, TGF-beta1 and IFN-gamma(p<0.05). 3. Fifty-four percent of patients showed a non-polarized Th 0 pattern, 33% a polarized Th 1 pattern, and 20% Th-negative. Th 2 pattern was not observed. 4. The changes of cytokines expression after 4 weeks treatment were not significant, although mRNA of IL-10, TGF-beta1 and IFN-gamma were somewhat decreased. 5. There was negative correlation between TGF-beta1 and iNOS(gamma(2)=0.499, p<0.05, before treatment), positive correlation between TGF-beta1 and IFN-gamma(gamma(2)= 0.622, p<0.05, before treatment), and positive correlation between IFN-gamma and IL-10(gamma(2)= 0.935, p<0.05, before treatment; gamma(2)= 0.937, p<0.05, after treatment). In conclusion, these results suggest that TGF-beta1 and IL-10 may contribute to immune suppression in multibacterial leprosy patients, and that TGF-beta1 suppresses iNOS expression in macrophages. With 4 weeks treatment, the significant changes in cytokines expression were not observed. Interestingly, the majority of BL patients showed Th 0 pattern of cytokine, and none of Th 2 pattern.
Cytokines ; Drug Therapy ; Granulomatous Disease, Chronic ; Homicide ; Humans ; Interleukin-10* ; Leprosy* ; Leprosy, Multibacillary* ; Macrophages ; Mycobacterium leprae ; RNA, Messenger* ; Transforming Growth Factor beta1*

BACKGROUND: Systemic hypertension produces varying degree of LVH which is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidiity. Previous studies have documented regression of LVH with various antihypertensives including calcium channel blockers, except diuretics and vasodilators. Recently echocadiographic assessment of the change of left ventricular mass(LVM) after antihyertensive therapy have been reported to offer prognostic cardiovascular information. The aim of this echocardiographic study is determining the influence of nicardipine, a calcium channel blocker, on the change of LVM in patients with essential hypertenison. METHODS: Left ventricular mass(LVM) and left ventricular mass index(LVMI) were measured by M-mode echocardiography in 15 patients with essential hypertension. Nicardipine, a calcium channel blocker, was administered for 6 months and two echocardiographies were done before and after administering, respectively. RESULTS: In the 15 patients treated for 6 months, systolic and diastolic pressure remained very significantly decreased compared with pressure before before therapy(135+/-15mmHg vs 168+/-26mmHg, and 86+/-7mmHg vs 105+/-16mmHg, both p<0.01). Concomitantly both LVM and LVMI decreased significantly(209+/-49g vs 235+/-71g, and 116+/-6g/m2 vs 131+/-38g/m2,both p<0.05). And no change was noted in left ventricular cavity size, demonstration that LVM reduction was due to regression of hypertrophy. CONCLUSION: This study showed that nicardipine produced a significant decrease in blood pressure, LVM, and LVMI over the 6 months period. And large and longterm controlled studies are needed for the clarification of the association between nicardipine and regression of LVH in hypertensive patients.
Antihypertensive Agents ; Blood Pressure ; Calcium Channel Blockers ; Calcium Channels ; Diuretics ; Echocardiography ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Hypertrophy ; Nicardipine* ; Vasodilator Agents

BACKGROUND: All over the world, chromosomal microarray (CMA) is now the first tier diagnostic assay for genetic testing to evaluate developmental delay (DD), mental retardation (MR), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with unknown etiology. The average diagnostic yield of the CMA test is known to be about 12.2%, while that of conventional G-banding karyotype is below 3%. This study aimed to assess the usefulness of CMA for the purpose of clinical diagnostic testing in the Korean population. METHODS: We performed CMA and multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) tests in 96 patients with normal karyotype and unexplained DD, MR, or ASD. The CMA was conducted with CytoScan 750K array (Affymetrix, USA) with an average resolution of 100 kb. RESULTS: Pathogenic copy number variations (CNVs) were detected in 15 patients by CMA and in two patients by MLPA for four known microdeletion syndromes (Prader-Willi/Angelman syndrome, DiGeorge syndrome, Miller-Dieker syndrome and Williams syndrome) designated by National Health Insurance system in Korea. The diagnostic yield was 15.6% and 2.1%, respectively. Thirteen (13.5%) patients (excluding cases with pathogenic CNVs) had variants of uncertain clinical significance. There was one patient with a 17.1-megabase (Mb) region of homozygosity on chromosome 4q. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest the necessity of CMA as a routine diagnostic test for unexplained DD, MR, and ASD in Korea.
Child ; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive ; Classical Lissencephalies and Subcortical Band Heterotopias ; Diagnostic Tests, Routine ; DiGeorge Syndrome ; Genetic Testing ; Humans ; Intellectual Disability ; Karyotype ; Korea ; Microarray Analysis* ; Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction ; National Health Programs

No abstract available.
Hepatitis C* ; Interferons* ; Polymyositis*

BACKGROUND: Mycobacterial antigens released as PIM, LM, LAM, lipoproteins and other cellular factors may contribute to macrophage and dendritic cell activation through pattern recognition receptors such as TLRs. In this study, we assessed cytokine production and ERK activation with stimulation of several major mycobacterial antigens. METHODS: Purified mycobacterial antigens (10, 22, 30, 38kappaDa) and recombinant antigens (6, 16, 19, 38kappaDa, Ag85A antigen) were studied. The production of cytokines (TNF-alpha, IL-12, IL-6) was measured by ELISA. The ERK activation was detected by western blotting. The expression of TLR2 or TLR4 was measured by flow cytometry. RESULTS: Among purified antigens only 30kappaDa antigen induced production of IL-6 or TNF-alpha in THP-1 macrophage cells. When THP-1 macrophage cells were treated with 30kappaDa antigen, phosphorylation of ERK was detected. ERK activation also occurred in TLR2 transfectant HEK293 cells with 30kappaDa antigen stimulation. CONCLUSION: 30kappaDa antigen is one of the major mycobacterial antigens inducing cytokine production and MAP kinases phosphorylation in macrophages.
Blotting, Western ; Cytokines ; Dendritic Cells ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay ; Flow Cytometry ; HEK293 Cells ; Interleukin-12 ; Interleukin-6* ; Lipoproteins ; Macrophages* ; Phosphorylation ; Phosphotransferases ; Receptors, Pattern Recognition ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha*