Earticle

There is a growing worldwide interest in the potential of marine biomass as an environmentally friendly and economically sustainable resource. Due to the great lack of comprehensive information about domestic seaweed resources, this study aimed to analyze the existing literature on the production and types of domestic seaweed species. Based on this data the possibilities of industrial use of domestic seaweed for the production of biofuels and bioplastics had been assessed. Our review took into account the seaweed species on domestic coasts as well as the species currently in great production via seaweed farming. Due to their wide distribution, their status as farmed crops, and the likelihood of securing their reliable supply, Codium fragile, Hizikia fuciformis, and Gelidium amansii were deemed to be the most appropriate candidates for domestic industrial use. The industrial potential of seaweed biomass was also explored by comparing the predicted amount of biomass necessary to replace current gasoline and plastics use with currently available farming space. The results of our study imply that once a steady and adequate supply of the proper kinds of seaweed can be secured through seaweed farming, there is a great potential for the development of new seaweed-based biofuels and bioplastics industries in Korea.

The penetration of outside material into skin is not easy. It is since the skin, which is a very hard barrier, protects the body against outside chemical and physical stimulation. Microneedle system which can help improve drug penetration into skin is advancing variously in transdermal drug delivery system (TDDS) in the field of skin care. After inserting microneedle into skin by using electrical or artificial forces, it makes microhole and drug penetration easily and induces natural skin rejuvenation. Diffusion and penetration of drug by optical and electrical force of microneedle is better for fast and effective TDDS. This is more developed than the traditional method such as the manual stamp, roller, and meso gun. The drug absorbed into dermal layer by microneedle helps revive and repair damaged skin. In the future, utilization of microneedle for skin care will progress constantly because of its human-friendly biodegradable materials and the development of the no pain microneedle.

Solid dispersion is one of well-established pharmaceutical techniques to improve the dissolution and consequent bioavailability of poorly water soluble drugs. It is defined as a dispersion of drug in an inert carrier matrix. Solid dispersions can be classified into three generations according to the carrier used in the system. First and second generations consist of crystalline and amorphous substances, respectively. Third generation carriers are surfactant, mixture of polymer and surfactants, and mixture of polymers. Solid dispersions can be generallyprepared by melting method and solvent method. While melting method requires high temperature to melt carrier and dissolve drug, solvent method utilizes solvent to dissolve the components. The improvement in dissolution through solid dispersions is attributed to reduction in drug particle size, improvement in wettability, and/or formation of amorphous state. The primary characteristics of solid dispersions, the presenceof drug in amorphous state, could be determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), and fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). In spite of the significant improvement in dissolution by solid dispersion technique, some drawbacks have limited the commercial application of solid dispersions. Thus, further studies should be conducted in a direction to improve the congeniality to commercialization.

PEGylation, the attachment of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to proteins, is currently main technology for improving efficacy of protein drugs. This technology can prolong the plasma half-life, augment the in vivo stability, and diminish the immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins. Therefore, PEGylated proteins have the enhanced therapeutic efficacy and the reduced undesirable effects versus their native therapeutics. Since the first PEGylated protein product appeared on the market in the early 1990s, currently ten PEGylated protein products have been launched. These marketed drug products have proved the applicability and safety of the PEGylation technology. This review presents overview of PEGylation technology and addresses characteristics of PEGylation methods applied for the development of several protein drugs.

Phytases are hydrolytic enzymes that catalyze the sequential hydrolysis of phytic acid (myo-inositol-1,2,3,4,5,6- hexakisphosphate) to myo-inositols with lower numbers of phosphate groups. Two types of phytases have been identified which initiate hydrolysis of the phytic acid at either the 3- or 6- position of the inositol ring. In the present investigation, a mathematical model was proposed and computed to estimate maximum enzyme reaction rate constants which fit the experimental data obtained by other authors. Although the data points were scattered to some extent, good agreement was found between the model and the experiment data. It appears that the maximum rate constants of removal of the first, second, and third phosphate groups were not equal. Also there was neither a steady trend upward or downward in the rate constants with the stepwise hydrolysis reactions.

This study was carried out to establish the optimum condition of cell disruption with a sonicator for the detection of the spore, Bacillus anthracis Δ-sterne for the purpose of developing automatic fluorometer. The efficiency of sonication on the Δ-sterne spore disruption was very weak. The Δ-sterne spore with zirconia bead showed greater disruption than the Δ-sterne spore alone when sonificated. The volumn of the zirconia bead added in the spore solution has little effect on the disruption efficiency. The detection limit of the Δ-sterne spore with zirconia bead and the Δ-sterne spore alone was 106 CFU/mL and 5 × 107 CFU/mL respectively, when sample was sonicated for 20 seconds with a sonicator probe of 13 mm diameter.

We investigated the optimal surface aeration rate during bioethanol production from the hydrolysate of seaweed Sargassum sagamianum using Pichia stipitis. It was observed that, when the working volume was 880 mL in 2.5-L lab-fermentor, the surface aeration rates of 30 to 100 mL/min were the optimal values for bioethanol production, in which this surface aeration rate corresponded to less than 0.05 (1/min) as the oxygen transfer rate coefficient (kLa). In addition, during repeated-batch operation was carried out, we examined whether those surface aeration rates were the optimal for bioethanol production. It was also observed that the surface aeration rates of 30 to 100 mL/min in the working volume of 880 mL were the optimal values in terms of the cumulative bioethanol producrion and bioethanol yield. On the basis of the oxygen transfer rate coefficient it is probable that those surface aeration rates will be applied to the large-scale bioethanol production from the hydrolysate of seaweed Sargassum sagamianum.

Ulva pertusa is one of the worst pollutant like a waste vinyl after agriculture and caused bad smell at seashore in Jejudo and south area of korean peninsular. For favorable environmental utilization of Ulva pertusa, it could be applied for ethanol production with its acid hydrolysate. The components of hydrolysate included fermentable sugar of glucose, xylose, mannose, galactose, and higher amounts of unfermentable rhamnose. Fermentable sugars were converted to ethanol with S. cerevisiae, also xylose to ethanol with P. stipitis, their maximun ethanol production at optimum conditions were 462 μg/mL and 475 μg/mL, respectively. While, rhamnose cannot be changed to ethanol with S. cerevisiae or P. stipitis, alone. Combination of S. cerevisiae and P. stipitis can convert rhamnose to ethanol, because P.stipitis degradaded rhamnose to pyruvate, and then S. cerevisiae convert to ethanol, at optimum conditions, ethanol reached to 782 μg/mL (30.24%) that is higher than that of 2 strain alone from 500 mg of dried Ulva pertusa contained 2586.45 μg/mL of reduced sugars. Ulva pertusa can be utilized for renewal energy insted of environmenatal enemy.

The convenient derivatization method of chiral amino alcohols as 9-anthraldimine Schiff base derivatives for chiral resolution was developed and the liquid chromatographic enantiomer separation of chiral amino alcohols as 9-anthraldimine derivatives was investigated on several coated and covalently bonded polysaccharide-derived chiral stationary phases (CSPs). In general, the performance of Chiralcel OD-H (or Chiralcel OD) (α = 1.24-2.89), the coated CSP derived from cellulose derivative was superior to the other CSPs for resolution of 9-anthraldimine derivatives of several amino alcohols. The results of enantioseparation depending on the structure of 9-anthraldimine analytes like the steric bulky group and the polar moiety etc were discussed. The analytical method was applied to measure the enantiomeric purity of commercially available chiral amino alcohols. It is expected that the convenient analytical method will be very efficient for determination of enantiomeric purity of amino alcohols as 9-anthraldimine Schiff base derivatives with strong UV absorption.

Ethanol production using glycerol as a carbon source was performed by Enterobacter aerogenes immobilized on calcium alginate beads. To improve the ethanol production, the optimal conditions such as loading amount of immobilized cells and glycerol concentration were investigated. The optimal loading amount of immobilized cells and glycerol concentration were 10 mL of calcium alginate bead and 10 g/L, respectively. Consequently, glycerol consumption rate, ethanol concentration and yield were 0.32 g/L · h, 3.38 g/L and 0.43 g/g on the batch production, respectively. Continuous production of ethanol was successfully achieved using two types of immobilized cell reactors (continuous stirred tank reactor and packed bed reactor) from 10 g/L of glycerol. In the continuous stirred tank reactor, glycerol consumption, ethanol concentration, specific productivity and yield were 9.8 g, 4.67 g/L, 1.17 g/L · h, 0.48 g/g, respectively. The concentration of produced ethanol was 38-44% higher comparison to batch fermentation, and continuous stirred tank reactor showed better performance than packed bed reactor.

In this study, gemcitabine-loaded methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(L-lactide) (MPEG-PLLA) microparticles with different PEG block lengths were prepared by a W/O/W double emulsion technique. The present study focuses on the investigation of the influence of various preparative parameters such as the ratio of internal water phase and oil phase, polymer concentration, solvent composition of organic phase and salt concentration of external water phase on the morphology and encapsulation efficiency of the microparticles. The microparticles fabricated at high volume ratios of internal water phase to oil phase and at high polymer concentrations showed a relatively high encapsulation efficiency and low porosity. When a dichloromethane/ethyl acetate mixture was used as solvent, both the encapsulation efficiency and drug loading of the microparticles decreased as the level of ethyl acetate increased. The addition of a salt (NaCl) to the external water phase significantly improved the encapsulation efficiency up to 40%, and the microparticles became more spherical with their size and porosity decreased.

This work is focused on the possibility of marine biomass Codium fragile as renewable resources for production of levulinic acid. In an effort to optimize the reaction conditions of levulinic acid production from Codium fragile, response surface methodology was applied. A total of 18 individual experiments were designed to investigate the effect of reaction temperature, catalyst amount, and reaction time. As a result, 4.26 g/L levulinic acid from Codium fragile was produced in the condition of 160.7℃ of reaction temperature, 3.9% of sulfuric acid, and 39.1 min of reaction time. This result will provide the useful information for chemical production from marine resource.

In this study, we investigated the effect of reaction factors on enzymatic hydrolysis of Hizikia fusiforme, which is brown algae in marine biomass resource, using commercial enzymes. The composition of H. fusiforme is 38.9% of reducing sugar, 4.8% of moisture, 17.8% of ash, and 38.5% of others. In the condition of 1-5% substrate, the increase of substrate concentration enhanced the increase of reducing sugar formation; however, the hydrolysis yield did not increase after 24 h. After reaction of 75 h, conversion yield of reducing sugar were obtained to 16.45%, 17.99%, and 14.55% at 1, 2.5, and 5% substrate, respectively. As a result of effect of enzyme amount, the formation of reducing sugar did not show considerable change at 1% substrate. However, in the condition of 2.5% substrate, the great change of reducing sugar formation was observed by the increase of enzyme amount. The conversion yields of reducing sugar were obtained to 18.77% and 22.83% at 1% and 2.5% substrate with 30% enzyme, respectively. As a result of heat treatment of biomass, the high yield was obtained in 2.5% substrate and the yields were increased to 0.06-7.2% by the heat treatment. This result will provide the basic information for production process of biofuels and chemicals from marine biomass H. fusiforme.

The detection of biomarkers is an important issue for disease diagnosis. However, many systems are not suitable to detect the biomarker itself directly. For direct detection of biomarker proteins in human serum, a new affinity-capture method using aptamers combined with the mass spectrometry was suggested. Since signals from protein samples cannot be amplified, modified chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and subsequent cross-linking with formaldehyde between aptamers and target proteins were used not to lose the captured target proteins, which allowed us to perform a harsh washing step to remove the non-specifically bound proteins. As a model system, a thrombin aptamer was used as a bait and thrombin as a target protein. Using our modified ChIP and affinity-capture method, non-specific binding proteins on the beads decreased significantly, suggesting that our new method is efficient and can be applied to developing diagnosis systems for various biomarkers.

This study was carried out to investigate the effects of agitation, aeration and scale-up on the mycelial growth, exo-polysaccharide (EPS) production, and mycelial morphology in the liquid culture of Ganoderma lucidum. A correlation between roughness and operating variables was also studied to scale-up the liquid culture of G. lucidum in a jar fermenter. When the agitation speed or aeration rate increased, the morphological form was changed from rough pellet to smooth pellet form. Increase of the agitation and aeration reduced the mycelial roughness. On the other hand, in the case of pellet size, it was not affected by aeration. The higher EPS production was obtained at approximately 17% of roughness and mycelial pellet size of 3～5 mm. The morphology at each fermenter was closely correlated with kLa value, and it was found that similarity of morphology would be used as a criteria of scale-up for liquid culture of G. lucidum.