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We screened active compounds from natural marine products able to increase PPARa/c transcriptional activity. Sargaquinoic acid (SQA) and sargahydroquinoic acid (SHQA) from Sargassum yezoense were identified as novel PPARa/c dual agonists. The binding affinity of SQA with PPARc was higher than that of the specific PPARc agonist troglitazone, leading to an activation of PPARc transcriptional activity. In parallel, treatment of 3T3-L1 cells with SQA and SHQA led to an increase in adipocyte differentiation and increased expression of adipogenic marker genes such as aP2, PPARc, resistin, adiponectin, C/EBPa and Glut4. Collectively, our data suggest that SQA and SHQA are novel PPARa/c dual agonists and may be beneficial for reducing insulin resistance through regulation of adipogenesis.

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BackgroundA biofeedback-based balance training system can be used to provide the compromised sensory information to subjects in order to retrain their sensorimotor function. In this study, the design and evaluation of the low-cost, intuitive biofeedback system developed at Gyeongsang National University is extended to provide multimodal biofeedback for balance training by utilization of visual and haptic modalities.MethodsThe system consists of a smartphone attached to the waist of the subject to provide information about tilt of the torso, a personal computer running a purpose built software to process the smartphone data and provide visual biofeedback to the subject by means of a dedicated monitor and a dedicated Phantom Omni® device for haptic biofeedback. For experimental verification of the system, eleven healthy young participants performed balance tasks assuming two distinct postures for 30 s each while acquiring torso tilt. The postures used were the one foot stance and the tandem Romberg stance. For both the postures, the subjects stood on a foam platform which provided a certain amount of ground instability.ResultsPost-experiment data analysis was performed using MATLAB® to analyze reduction in body sway. Analysis parameters based on the projection of trunk tilt information were calculated in order to ascertain the reduction in body sway and improvements in postural control. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed no statistically significant interactions between postures and biofeedback. Post-hoc analysis revealed statistically significant reduction in body sway on provision of biofeedback. Subjects exhibited maximum body sway during no biofeedback trial, followed by either haptic or visual biofeedback and in most of the trials the multimodal biofeedback of visual and haptic together resulted in minimization of body sway, thus indicating that the multimodal biofeedback system worked well to provide significant (p < 0.05) assistance in postural control.ConclusionsA multimodal biofeedback system can offer more customized training methods and hence provide therapists with a comprehensive solution for a diverse array of patients. It is necessary to identify the long-term effects of this novel biofeedback system. In the future, the balance training schemes for individuals with upright balance issues will be studied.

Copine3, a known calcium-dependent membrane binding protein, contains two tandem C2 domains and an A domain. This protein has been shown to interact with receptor tyrosine kinase 2 (ErbB2), but little is known concerning the physiological function of Copine3. To better understand its cellular function, we carried out a yeast two-hybrid screen to find Copine3 binding partners. Among the identified proteins, Jun activation domain-binding protein 1 (Jab1) appears to directly interact with Copine3. This physical interaction between Copine3 and Jab1 as well as the specific binding regions of both proteins were confirmed in vitro and in vivo. Our results also demonstrate that binding of Copine3 to ErbB2 is increased when Jab1 is overexpressed in SKBr3 breast cancer cells. Furthermore, two ErbB2 downstream signaling proteins [phosphatidylinositol 3 (PI3) kinase and protein kinase B (AKT)] were also activated by Jab1 overexpression in these cells. These data suggest that binding of Copine3 and Jab1 regulates, at least to some extent, the ErbB2 signaling pathway. Moreover, overexpression of both Copine3 and Jab1 in SKBr3 cells effectively increased cellular migration. Collectively, our findings indicating that Jab1 enhances the ErbB2 binding ability of Copine3, further activating the ErbB2 signaling pathways involved in breast cancer cell pathogenesis.

Urinary cells can be an ideal source for generating hiPSCs and progenitors, as they are easily accessible, non-invasive, and universally available. We generated human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from the urinary cells of a healthy donor using a Sendai virus-based gene delivery method. The generated hiPSC line, KSCBi001-A, has a normal karyotype (46,XY). The pluripotency and capacity of multilineage differentiation were characterized by comparison with those of a human embryonic stem cell line. This cell line is registered and available from National Stem Cell Bank, Korea National Institute of Health.

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We estimated that the minimum blood GTX-III and GTX-I levels that caused hypotension were between 17.83 and 27.3 ng/mL, and 2.52 and 4.55 ng/mL, respectively.