Evaluation of luteolin from shells of Korean peanut cultivars for industrial utilization

Luteolin is a medicinally valuable phyto-chemical, which was indentified in plants. This study was aimed to analyse the luteolin content in peanut waste (shell) of 42 peanut cultivars. The concentration of luteolin varied in the range of 546.8 to 4485.0 mg/kg and a significantly higher concentration of luteolin (4485.0 mg) was found in Mikwang. This is the first report on luteolin analysis in Korean peanut shells. The results of the present study suggest that Mikwang peanut shells have higher concentration of luteolin, which would be useful for agricultural, industrial and pharmaceutical purposes.Keywords: Luteolin, peanut, shell, Mikwang.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(28), pp. 4477-448

miTarget: microRNA target gene prediction using a support vector machine

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs, which play significant roles as posttranscriptional regulators. The functions of animal miRNAs are generally based on complementarity for their 5' components. Although several computational miRNA target-gene prediction methods have been proposed, they still have limitations in revealing actual target genes. RESULTS: We implemented miTarget, a support vector machine (SVM) classifier for miRNA target gene prediction. It uses a radial basis function kernel as a similarity measure for SVM features, categorized by structural, thermodynamic, and position-based features. The latter features are introduced in this study for the first time and reflect the mechanism of miRNA binding. The SVM classifier produces high performance with a biologically relevant data set obtained from the literature, compared with previous tools. We predicted significant functions for human miR-1, miR-124a, and miR-373 using Gene Ontology (GO) analysis and revealed the importance of pairing at positions 4, 5, and 6 in the 5' region of a miRNA from a feature selection experiment. We also provide a web interface for the program. CONCLUSION: miTarget is a reliable miRNA target gene prediction tool and is a successful application of an SVM classifier. Compared with previous tools, its predictions are meaningful by GO analysis and its performance can be improved given more training examples

The prognostic factors of resected non-small cell lung cancer with chest wall invasion

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We retrospectively reviewed the clinical features and surgical outcomes of patients with a surgically resected NSCLC invading chest wall in order to identify prognostic factors that impact long term survival.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Between January 1990 and December 2009, 107 patients who underwent surgical resection for chest wall invading NSCLC were reviewed. Tumors invading only the parietal pleura were defined as superficial invasions, and those involving the soft tissue or ribs were defined as deep invasions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were 91 men and 16 women; median age was 64 years (range 30 to 80 years). Overall 5 year survival rate was 26.3%. The univariate prognostic factors for survival included gender, extent of resection (pneumonectomy vs lobectomy), tumor size(> 5 cm vs ≤ 5 cm), nodal status (N0 or N1 vs N2), completeness of resection (complete vs incomplete) and completeness of adjuvant chemotherapy. At multivariate analysis, five independent prognostic factors were shown; depth of invasion (superficial vs deep), tumor size, nodal status, completeness of resection, and completeness of adjuvant chemotherapy. In patients with completely resected T3N0 NSCLC, completion of chemotherapy is the only prognostic factor for long term survival.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Completeness of resection, nodal status, depth of invasion, tumor size, and adjuvant chemotherapy were prognostic factors for long-term survival in NSCLC patients with chest wall invasion. Because of poor prognosis in cases with chest wall invasion that have N2 positive LN, that is difficult to achieve complete resection and that need pneumonectomy, definite chemoradiotherapy or neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy should be considered first in these cases.</p

Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Transient Left Ventricular Apical Ballooning Related to Emotional Stress: a Case Report

Transient left ventricular apical ballooning is characterized by transient wall motion abnormalities involving the left ventricular apex and mid-ventricle in the absence of coronary arterial occlusion. A 66-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with chest pain that mimicked acute myocardial infarction. An aortogram showed akinesis from the mid to apical left ventricle with sparing of the basal segments. Four days later, she underwent MRI, which demonstrated characteristic apical contractile dysfunction, the same as the aortogram, without evidence of myocardial infarction on the MRI. Two weeks later, her symptoms were resolved and follow-up echocardiography showed normal ventricular function

Shuttle-effect-free sodium–sulfur batteries derived from a Tröger's base polymer of intrinsic microporosity

Room-temperature sodium-sulfur (RT Na-S) batteries have recently gained attention as next-generation energy storage devices owing to their low cost, the abundance of sodium, and the high theoretical capacity of sulfur. However, the notorious shuttle effect, caused by the dissolution of intermediate polysulfides during cycling, limits the long-term performance of Na-S batteries. In this study, intrinsically microporous Tro center dot ger's base based polymer (PIM-EA-TB)-based carbon-sulfur composites are prepared for shuttle-effect-free RT Na-S batteries by utilizing the combination of physical confinement and covalent bonding in a single material. The composites demonstrate excellent electrochemical performance, including a negligible capacity fading over 350 cycles and a high coulombic efficiency of approximately greater than 99%.

The use of gold nanoparticle aggregation for DNA computing and logic-based biomolecular detection

The use of DNA molecules as a physical computational material has attracted much interest, especially in the area of DNA computing. DNAs are also useful for logical control and analysis of biological systems if efficient visualization methods are available. Here we present a quick and simple visualization technique that displays the results of the DNA computing process based on a colorimetric change induced by gold nanoparticle aggregation, and we apply it to the logic-based detection of biomolecules. Our results demonstrate its effectiveness in both DNA-based logical computation and logic-based biomolecular detection.the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy through the Molecular Evolutionary Computing (MEC) Project the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MOEHRD) under the BK21-IT Program The ICT at Seoul National University provided research facilities a Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (MOEHRD, Basic Research Promotion) (KRF-2006-351-C00045