Highly oxygen-stable CO2 reductase-catalyzed bioconversion of carbon dioxide into formate in electrochemical reactor

Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) into value-added chemicals have been one of promising issues to utilize greenhouse gas for the storage of hydrogen, bioplastic, fuel cell et al. Among many potential candidates such as formate, alcohols, ethylene, etc., formate was known one of most promising chemicals through the addition of two elections and one proton during electro-catalytic reduction of CO2. Here, our group has developed efficient CO2 reductase-catalyzed conversion of CO2 into formate in electrochemical reactor. Electro-biocatalytic reduction of CO2 into formate have three main challenges. Formate dehydrogenase(FDH) have been one of potential CO2 reductase candidates but the activity of many FDHs for formate oxidation was superior than that of CO2 reduction. However, recombinant MeFDH1 in our study showed significantly higher preference for CO2 reduction with 209 (±10.66) s-1 of turnover rate than that of formate oxidation with 85.62 (± 5.76) s-1. In addition, the value of kinetic equilibrium constant (Keq), which determines the direction of reaction in reversible catalysis, implied that kinetic preference for CO2 reduction is 62.3-folds higher than that for formate oxidation. This kinetics analysis allowed MeFDH1 to be referred to as the CO2 reductase. As another challenge, Mo- or W-containing formate dehydrogenase was known vulnerable against oxygen molecule. As contrasted with the high oxygen-sensitivity of FDHs from other strains, MeFDH1 was not deactivated even under 0.13 mM of dissolved oxygen. At a range of oxygen level (0.1 % to 4 %) in the composition of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) gas, MeFDH1 was consequently stable without considerable decreased activity. Lastly, the long-term stability of CO2 reduction reaction system has been indispensable issue in both biocatalysts and chemical catalysts. Through the immobilization of MeFDH1, the enhanced stability for long-term operation leaded the formate formation over 500 mM with high volumetric productivity for several days

Selenoprotein W promotes cell cycle recovery from G2 arrest through the activation of CDC25B

AbstractSelenoprotein W (SelW) contains a highly reactive selenocysteine (Sec; U) in the CXXU motif corresponding to the CXXC motif in thioredoxin (Trx) and thus it appears to be involved in regulating the cellular redox state. Recent reports on the interaction between SelW and 14-3-3 suggest that SelW may be redox dependently involved in the cell cycle. However, the precise function of SelW has not yet been elucidated. Here, we show that SelW is involved in the G2–M transition, especially in the recovery from G2 arrest after deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) damage. Knockdown of SelW significantly accumulated phosphorylated cyclin‐dependent kinase (Cdk1), which eventually led to a delay in recovery from G2 arrest. We also found that inactive Cdk1 is caused by the sustained inactivation of CDC25B, which removes the inhibitory phosphate from Cdk1. Our observation from this study reveals that SelW activated CDC25B by promoting the dissociation of 14-3-3 from CDC25B through the reduction of the intramolecular disulfide bond during recovery. We suggest that SelW plays an important role in the recovery from G2 arrest by determining the dissociation of 14-3-3 from CDC25B in a redox-dependent manner

Effect of channel estimation error on packet-based multi-user OFDM systems

In this paper, we consider the performance of a packetbased multi-user orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) wireless system in the presence of channel estimation error. To investigate the effect of incorrect channel information on the system performance, we consider the use of two channel estimation schemes; one is a simple linear and the other is an optimum Wiener-type channel estimator. We analyze the effect of channel impulse response (CIR) estimation error on coherent reception and the effect of instantaneous signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) estimation error on channel aware techniques associated with packet scheduling. It is shown that the performance of coherent reception is relatively less susceptible to the CIR error, but the performance of channel aware schemes can be very sensitive to the SINR estimation error, mainly due to incorrect scheduling. To alleviate this scheduling problem, we propose an improved scheduling method which can be employed even with the use of a simple channel estimator. Finally, we verify the performance of the proposed scheduling scheme by computer simulation

Association between Workplace Risk Factor Exposure and Sleep Disturbance: Analysis of the 2nd Korean Working Conditions Survey

OBJECTIVES: Sleep is essential for human beings to live and work properly. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between occupational exposures to workplace risk factors and sleep disturbance in Korean workers. METHODS: The data were drawn from the second Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS); a total of 7,112 paid workers were analyzed. The independent variables were occupational exposures such as physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial risk factor in the workplace, and psychosocial risk factor was divided into five categories (job demand, job control, social support, job insecurity, lack of reward). We estimated the relationship between various occupational exposures and sleep disturbance using multivariate logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: The results showed that people who exposed to physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial (high job demand, inadequate social support, lack of reward) risk factors were more likely to increase the risk of sleep disturbance. Furthermore, after adjusting for general and occupational characteristics, we found significant positive associations between exposures to physical (odds ratios [OR] 1.47, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05-2.07) and psychosocial (high job demand (OR 2.93, 95% CI 2.16-3.98), inadequate social support (OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.14-2.15), lack of reward (OR 1.45, 95% CI 1.08-1.96)) risk factors and sleep disturbance. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that occupational exposures to physical and psychosocial workplace risk factors are significantly related to sleep disturbance

A Hybrid Channel Estimation Scheme for OFDM Systems

Accurate channel information is indispensable for coherent reception of OFDM signal. Although a Wienertype channel estimation filter (CEF) is known optimum, it is not easily employable due to large implementation complexity. In practice, a moving average (MA)-type CEF is often employed, but it may not provide robust performance to the variation of channel condition. In this paper, we propose a hybrid CEF that takes advantages of both the Wiener and MA CEF, by alternatively employing the CEF according to the channel condition. Simulation results show that the proposed hybrid CEF scheme provides near optimum performance, while significantly reducing the implementation complexity compared to the long tap Wiener CEF

Selenoprotein W enhances skeletal muscle differentiation by inhibiting TAZ binding to 14-3-3 protein

AbstractSelenoprotein W (SelW) is expressed in various tissues, particularly in skeletal muscle. We have previously reported that SelW is up-regulated during C2C12 skeletal muscle differentiation and inhibits binding of 14-3-3 to its target proteins. 14-3-3 reduces myogenic differentiation by inhibiting nuclear translocation of transcriptional co-activator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ). Phosphorylation of TAZ at Ser89 is required for binding to 14-3-3, leading to cytoplasmic retention of TAZ and a delay in myogenic differentiation. Here, we show that myogenic differentiation was delayed in SelW-knockdown C2C12 cells. Down-regulation of SelW also increased TAZ binding to 14-3-3, which eventually resulted in decreasing translocation of TAZ to the nucleus. However, phosphorylation of TAZ at Ser89 was not affected. Although phosphorylation of TAZ at Ser89 was sustained by the phosphatase inhibitor okadaic acid, nuclear translocation of TAZ was increased by ectopic expression of SelW. This result was due to decreased binding of TAZ to 14-3-3. We also found that the interaction between TAZ and MyoD was increased by ectopic expression of SelW. Taken together, these findings strongly demonstrate that SelW enhances C2C12 cell differentiation by inhibiting TAZ binding to 14-3-3

Domestication of Oryza species eco-evolutionarily shapes bacterial and fungal communities in rice seed

Abstract Background Plant-associated microbiomes, which are shaped by host and environmental factors, support their hosts by providing nutrients and attenuating abiotic and biotic stresses. Although host genetic factors involved in plant growth and immunity are known to shape compositions of microbial communities, the effects of host evolution on microbial communities are not well understood. Results We show evidence that both host speciation and domestication shape seed bacterial and fungal community structures. Genome types of rice contributed to compositional variations of both communities, showing a significant phylosymbiosis with microbial composition. Following the domestication, abundance inequality of bacterial and fungal communities also commonly increased. However, composition of bacterial community was relatively conserved, whereas fungal membership was dramatically changed. These domestication effects were further corroborated when analyzed by a random forest model. With these changes, hub taxa of inter-kingdom networks were also shifted from fungi to bacteria by domestication. Furthermore, maternal inheritance of microbiota was revealed as a major path of microbial transmission across generations. Conclusions Our findings show that evolutionary processes stochastically affect overall composition of microbial communities, whereas dramatic changes in environments during domestication contribute to assembly of microbiotas in deterministic ways in rice seed. This study further provides new insights on host evolution and microbiome, the starting point of the holobiome of plants, microbial communities, and surrounding environments. Video Abtract

Novel management of expected post-radiotherapy complications in hepatocellular carcinoma patients: a case report

In recent years, radiotherapy (RT) has been used to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at each stage. This clinical trend has developed with the increasing improvement of RT techniques, which show clinical results comparable to those of other treatment modalities. Intensity-modulated radiotherapy uses a high radiation dose to improve treatment effectiveness. However, the associated radiation toxicity can damage adjacent organs. Radiation-induced gastric damage with gastric ulcers is a complication of RT. This report presents a novel management strategy for preventing post-RT gastric ulcers. We present the case of a 53-year-old male patient diagnosed with HCC, who experienced gastric ulcer after RT. Before the second round of RT, the patient was administered a gas-foaming agent, which was effective in preventing RT complications

Molecular genetic study of novel biomarkers for early diagnosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma

Objectives: Early detection and treatment of an oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is critical because of its rapid growth, frequent lymph-node metastasis, and poor prognosis. However, no clinically-valuable methods of early diagnosis exist, and genetic analysis of OSCCs has yielded no biomarkers. Study D esign: We investigated the expression of genes associated with inflammation in OSCCs via a quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis of microarray data. Tumor and normal tissues from five patients with an OSCC were used for microarray analysis. Differentially-expressed genes, identified using permutation, local pooled error (LPE), t-tests, and significance analysis of microarrays (SAM), were selected as candidate genetic markers. Results: Two groups corresponding to tissue identity were evident, implying that their differentially-expressed genes represented biological differences between tissues. Fifteen genes were identified using the Student’s paired t-test ( p< 0.05) and the SAM, with a false discovery rate of less than 0.02. Based on gene expression, these 15 genes can be used to classify an OSCC. A genetic analysis of functional networks and ontologies, validated by using a qRT-PCR analysis of the tissue samples, identified four genes, ADAM15, CDC7, IL12RB2 and TNFRSF8, that demonstrated excellent concordance with the microarray data. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that four genes (ADAM15, CDC7, IL12RB2 and TNFRSF8) had potential as novel biomarkers for the diagnosis and the treatment of an OSCC