"Runt-related transcription factor (RUNX) 3 is well known as a developmental regulators, as well as candidate tumor suppressor gene in human breast cancer, gastric cancer, esophageal cancer, and so on. The present study was aimed to analyze the expression of RUNX3 protein in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) from Korean patients. The immunohistochemical stain was performed with 14 normal oral mucosa (NOM) and 25 OSCCs, and statistical analysis was carried out to find out the correlation between the expression of RUNX and clinicopathological parameters of OSCC patients. In OSCC, the expression of RUNX3 protein was found to increase more than in NOM. Moreover, in the univariate correlation analysis, the gender, regional lymph node metastasis, and histopathologic differentiation of OSCC patients were positively correlated with the expression of RUNX3 (p<0.05). These results indicate that RUNX3 can play a role as an oncogene in OSCC, in contrast to some reports on RUNX3 in other human cancers. In addition, RUNX3 may be considered as new malignant biomarker of OSCC."

"Taraxaci Herba has long been used in herbal medicine for their choleretic, anti-heumatic and diuretic properties. In the present study, we investigated the effects of origin plants of Taraxaci Herba, Taraxacum coreanum Nakai, as an anti-inflammatory agent in lipopolysaccharide(LPS)-induced microglial activation in BV2 cells. NNMBS273, the EtOH extracts of roots T. coreanum was examined for anti-neuronal inflammatory activity as new drug development. The roots of T. coreanum, showed the potent anti-neuroinflammatory effects on LPS-induced inflammation in microglial BV2 cells. The anti-inflammatory effects of NNMBS273, the EtOH extracts of roots T. coreanum was demonstrated by the suppression of pro-inflammatory mediators, including pro-inflammatory enzymes (inducible nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase-2) and cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1β). These results suggest that the roots T. coreanum may be a promising candidate for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases related to neuroinflammation."

"This study was carried out to investigate antibiotic resistances of 181 isolates in Staphylococcus aureus isolated from 450 specimens which were a General Hospital personnel in Cheonan province. Of the 181 isolates, 89 isolates (49.2%) were methicillin resistant and 92 isolates were susceptible. They were resistant to penicillin (80.1%), clindamycin (18.8%), oxacillin (49.2%), cefepime (28.2%), cefotetan (34.3%), ampicillin (66.3%), gentamicin (27.6%), tetracycline (17.7%) and erythromycine (43.1%), also. In resistant rates of the 89 MRSA, 5 antibiotics were more than 50%, but in those of the 92 MSSA, only 1 antibiotics was. Also they showed very highly multi-drug resistance patterns to 15 antibiotics as follow : One hundred and forty five isolates(82.3%) showed antibiotic resistance to more than one kind of the 15 kinds antibiotics. In the multiple resistant patterns, one drug resistant isolates were 18 isolates (9.9%), 2 drugs 29 (16.0%), 3 drugs 21 (11.6%), 4 drugs 29 (16.0%), and more than 5 drugs were 52 isolates (28.7%). The number of more than 5 drugs resistant strains in MSSA were only 1 strain, but those in MRSA were 51 isolates (57.3%). Forty five isolates (24.9%) produced enterotoxin serotype C and all MRSA."

"As the exfoliated keratinocytes (EKs) in oral mucosa are aging and degenerating cells, of which cytoplasms are almost replaced by cross-linked keratin materials. Consequently, the EKs become apoptotic with nuclear lysis. A question is arisen what is the biological role of these EKs in oral cavity? Are they simply degrading as aging keratinocytes or do they have some essential function still remained in the exfoliated status? The buccal smear samples from ten healthy adult subjects were observed under scanning electron microscope. On the outer surface of the EKs the features of bacterial adhesion were explored. The microorganisms attached on the surface of EKs were much deformed, shrunken and teared. Only a few microorganisms were found on the EK surface, aggregated focally. The attached microorganisms were gradually fused on the cell membrane of EKs, and subsequently endocytosed. Resultantly, many round endocytotic concave cavities similar size to the cocci were remained on the surface of EKs similar to the sequels of caveolae endocytosis. These data indicate that the degenerating EKs can actively engulf microorganisms attached on their cell surface via the processes of caveolae endocytosis. Therefore, it is presumed that the oral EKs still play a role for endocytotic scavenging of oral microorganisms using the denatured cell bodies themselves, which become highly adherent to oral microorganisms and still function for caveolae endocytosis in mixed saliva environment."

"Glutamate-induced oxidative injury contributes to neuronal degeneration in many central nervous system (CNS) diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and ischemia. Inducible heme oxygenase (HO)-1 acts against oxidants that are thought to play a role in the pathogenesis of these diseases. The EtOH extracts of Viola mandshurica (NNMBS274), Viola patrinii (NNMBS275) and Viola papilionacea Pursh (NNMBS276), origin plants of Violae Herba, showed the potent neuroprotective effects on glutamate-induced neurotoxicity. Among them, NNMBS275, the extract of V. patrinii possessed the protective effects against glutamate toxicity by inducing the expression of heme oxygenase (HO)-1 in the mouse hippocampal HT22 cells. These results suggest that extracts of V. patrinii could be the effective candidates for the treatment of ROS-related neurological diseases. Furthermore, it is suggested that the protective effects of V. patrinii extract due to inducing the expression of HO-1 as an antioxidant/cytoprotective target."

"Plasminogen activators(PA) such as urokinase(uPA) and tissue type plasminogen activators(tPA), physiologically catalyze the conversion of the plasminogen to the wide spectrum proteinase plasmin. Because uPA and tPA are involved in cell growth, differentiation and migration of oral cancer, oral epithelial carcinogenesis including transformation of precancerous lesion into oral squamous cell carcinoma with PA is very interesting. It is important to prevent precancerous condition from transfoming into oral squamous cell carcinoma by the inhibitory effect of various drug. It is well known that cyclosporine A(CsA) as immunosuppressive properties exerts anti-cancer effects. Recently it is widely accepted that cultured immortalized oral keratinocyte (IHOK) is considered as an intermediate stage of oral carcinogenesis and used as precancerous condition in vitro. Thus it was thought that it might be interesting to investigate CsA effect on PA expression of IHOK.IHOK was cultured under KBM bullet kit at 37℃ under 95% CO2 incubator. Subconfluent IHOK cells was treated at different CsA concentration. uPA and tPA protein expression from cultured IHOK cell line has been detected by ELISA analysis in the CsA-treated samples. uPA expression of IHOK was higher than that of NHOK, while tPA was similar to that of NHOK. After CsA treatment, CsA might not effect the expression of uPA of IHOK, while showed a little effect on tPA of IHOK. It suggested that CsA had no effect in uPA expression of IHOK although uPA could be used as a marker for precancerous lesion."

"This report describes a case of odontogenic cyst with keratinization and dysplastic change of lining epithelium, which showed the manifestation of inflammatory radicular cyst, clinically. A 28-year-old man complained of dull pain in the right mandibular molar region. Radiographically a well-defined oval cystic lesion with non-vital teeth, a common finding in radicular cyst, was observed. Microscopically, the lining epithelium of the cyst demonstrated both keratinization and severe epithelial dysplasia. Atypical findings such as hyperchromatic nuclei, increase of N/C ratio and drop shaped rege ridge were observed in the lining epithelium. However, definite invasion into fibrous connective tissue was not found. Immunohistochemically, the dysplastic lining epithelium was highly positive for proliferative marker, Ki-67. Based on the dysplastic changes of lining epithelium, this periapical lesion would be considered to be signs of malignant change. From this case, we conclude that definitive diagnosis by microscopical examination should be made, even if the periapical lesion would be clinically considered as inflammatory radicular cyst."

"Human pituitary tumor transforming gene 1 (PTTG1), which is a newly identified proto-oncogene, is highly expressed in normal pituitary tissues containing proliferating cells and in several cancers. Also, PTTG1 has been known as a securin to involve in the regulation of cell-cycle and in the progression of tumor. But the effect of PTTG1 in oral squamous cell carcinoma (oral SCC) has not been studied yet. The objective of this study is to analyze the expression of PTTG1 in oral SCC cell lines (YD-10B and YD-15) and to evaluate the effect of PTTG1 on oral SCC cell lines for the migration effect by PTTG1 siRNA treatment. Western blot, migration assay, and zymography were performed to evaluate the effects of PTTG1 on the expression of MMP-2/-9 and migration activity after PTTG1 siRNA treatment. PTTG1 was expressed in oral SCC cells lines, otherwise, significantly decreased after PTTG1 siRNA treatment. There is no difference in expression of MMP-2 regardless of PTTG1 siRNA treatment. However, the enzyme activity of MMP-9 was significantly decreased. In addition, the migration activities of oral SCC cells were significantly decreased after PTTG1 siRNA treatment (p<0.001). These results suggested that the down-regulated PTTG1 could inhibit the migration of human oral SCC cells through the low MMP-9 expressions. Therefore, these findings provide a useful guideline for the migration mechanism of oral SCC depend on PTTG1 expression."

"Pleomorphic adenoma (PA) is the most common benign salivary gland tumor. It is biphasic and is characterized by an admixture of epithelial and spindle-shaped myoepithelial cells in a variable background stroma. Epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma (EMC) is a malignant biphasic salivary gland tumor typically composed of clear myoepithelial cells that surround epithelial-lined ducts resembling intercalated ducts. The differential diagnosis between the two tumor may be occasionally encountered because of the shared histophatologic feature. And then, it would be more reliable to differentiate the tumors based on biological behavior such as the expression of distinct intermediate filaments such as cytokeratin, invasiveness- related molecules, and the growth factor receptor to aberrantly facilitate the tumor growth, and the growth fraction of tumors. Therefore, from the 10 cases of PA and 6 cases of EMC, we immunohistochemically examined the differential expression of the cytokine 7 and 14, matrix metalloproteinase-9, C-KIT, and Ki-67 between the two tumor. At the results, there were significant differences of CK7 expression in non-luminal cells (P=0.000) and CK14 expression in luminal and non-luminal cells of the both tumors (P=0.025 and P=0.000, respectively). In the comparison of the biologic behavior, a significantly increased expression of MMP-9, C-KIT and Ki-67 was found in the cases of EMC when compared to those of PA (P=0.043, P=0.011, and P=0.000, respectively). In conclusion, the differences of CK expression in luminal and non-luminal cells between PA and EMC seem to reflect the difference of the origin and the level of the maturation of the tumor cell. Increased expression of MMP-9, C-KIT, and Ki-67 in EMC may represent more aggressive biologic behavior of the tumor compared with benign salivary tumor such as PA. Our results may be helpful to understand the histiogenesis of the two tumors and the difference of biologic behavior and to differentiate them when the limited specimen was submitted. Further study of many more cases of EMC is needed to validate the usefulness of these molecules as the diagnostic aid."

"Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common cancer of oral cancers. Recent data suggest that chemokines could be essential players in carcinogenesis and that tumor cells express chemokine receptors and use chemokines to metastasize to the target organ in many malignancies in humans. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that expression of SNPs in chemokine, CXCL1 and CXCL2 correlates with oral squamous cell carcinomas in Korean population. The CXCL1 and CXCL2 genotypes were determined in 21 subjects with oral squamous cell carcinoma and 90 control subjects without oral squamous cell carcinoma. The genotypes were determined by direct sequencing. The genotype distribution and allele frequency within the OSCC patients were not significantly different from those of control subjects. But among OSCC subjects, there was significant difference of CXCL1 gene in the degree of nuclear aberration. These findings suggest that CXCL1 -442C/T polymorphism and CXCL2 -264T/C polymorphism are not related to the development of OSCC but polymorphism of CXCL1 gene might have a relation with progression of OSCC in Korean population."

"Human β- defensin-2 (hBD-2) is an antimicrobial peptide which is produced by epithelial cells after stimulation with microorganisms or inflammatory mediators. However, little is known as to whether the LPS and nicotine induces the expression of hBD-2 in periodontal ligament (PDL) cells. The purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of MAPKs pathway of nicotine and LPS-induced hBD-2 expression in PDL cells. The maximal expression of hBD-2 was observed in nicotine 5 mM and LPS 1 μg/ml treated PDL cells. Nicotine and LPS induced the phosphorylation of p38, c-Jun N-terminal kinase 1 and 2 (JNK1/2), and extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) MAPK. ERK1/2 inhibitor SB203580, p38 inhibitor PD98059, and JNK inhibitor SP600125, blocked the effects of nicotine and LPS on hBD-2 upregulation in PDL cells. These results collectively suggest that hBD-2 is up-regulated in nicotine and LPS-treated PDL cells through activation of p38, ERK and JNK MAPKs pathway. Our data regarding the up-regulation of hBD-2 may help us to understand the antimicrobial mechanism in periodontal disease."

"Cancer cells are often found in an ischemic condition due to the rapid outgrowth of their vascular supply, and these cells are expected to develop an increased potential for local invasive growth. Since the first steps are characterized by increased motility and invasiveness, expression of molecules involved in cellular adhesion to extracellular matrix (ECM) is increased in the process of cancer cell invasion and metastasis. In this work we explored the molecular characteristics and its regulatory mechanism of hypoxic oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cells. Our experiment identified that hypoxia increases α5 integrin protein levels through phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway in OSCC cells."