Publications by authors named "Wanil Kim"

Background: Fractional carbon dioxide (CO) lasers are commonly used in dermatological resurfacing, offering precise ablation and controlled dermal remodeling. Although clinical outcomes vary with the energy and pulse settings, comparative morphometric and histometric data on power-dependent tissue interactions are limited.

Objective: To evaluate and compare fractional CO laser-induced microscopic thermal zones (MTZs) ablation characteristics at peak powers of 30 W and 40 W using an ex vivo porcine skin model.

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Oxidative stress plays a critical role in skin aging and in various dermatological disorders by promoting inflammation, apoptosis, and cellular dysfunction. Among reactive oxygen species (ROS), hydrogen peroxide (HO) readily penetrates cell membranes, triggering oxidative damage. This study investigated the protective effects of the (Makino) Ling ex Kitam.

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Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease of joint tissue characterized by the breaking down of cartilage and resulting changes in synovium and bone. Mechanics and biology interact in a feed-forward manner in that imbalanced joint loading leads to tissue degeneration and vice versa. Amid numerous genetic factors, the Secretory Leukocyte Protease Inhibitor () gene encodes a protein that plays a crucial role in inhibiting proteases, modulating inflammation, promoting tissue repair, and regulating immune responses.

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Background: Oxidative stress is a key contributor to the pathological mechanisms that underpin various neurodegenerative diseases. Hydrogen peroxide (HO) is a well-known inducer of oxidative stress, which produces highly reactive hydroxyl radicals, resulting in cellular injury. The identification of bioactive compounds with potential neuroprotective properties is crucial for the development of novel therapeutic strategies.

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Introduction: The human skin, comprising the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous fat layers, serves as a critical barrier against external stimuli. The integrity of this barrier function is essential for preventing skin damage and diseases. When compromised, it can lead to various dermatological issues.

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Resistance to apoptosis-inducing drugs frequently occurs in cancer cells, limiting their usefulness in ongoing cancer treatment. Despite ongoing efforts to overcome drug resistance, a definitive solution remains elusive. However, autophagy inhibition has been shown to enhance the effectiveness of some anticancer drugs and is a possible strategy for overcoming drug resistance.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Neuralgic amyotrophy (NA) is a rare condition characterized by sudden shoulder pain followed by weakness in the arm, primarily affecting the upper brachial plexus, and can often mimic cervical radiculopathy due to its similar symptoms.
  • - A 76-year-old male developed NA after hip surgery, experiencing shoulder pain and arm weakness; diagnostic imaging confirmed brachial plexopathy and unique signs of NA including a focal constriction at the suprascapular nerve.
  • - Treatment for NA involved corticosteroids and physical therapy, leading to significant recovery in shoulder muscle strength within a month, highlighting the importance of recognizing NA's distinct features for accurate diagnosis.
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Osteoarthritis is a prevalent musculoskeletal disease that involves cartilage degradation, subchondral bone remodeling, and synovial inflammation and ultimately causes physical disability. Common risk factors for osteoarthritis include age, sex, obesity, and genetic predispositions. Treatment includes nonpharmaceutical and pharmacological approaches; however, disease-modifying osteoarthritis drugs remain undeveloped.

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The liver is vulnerable to various hepatotoxins, including carbon tetrachloride (CCl), which induces oxidative stress and apoptosis by producing reactive oxygen species (ROS) and activating the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. Cereblon (CRBN), a multifunctional protein implicated in various cellular processes, functions in the pathogenesis of various diseases; however, its function in liver injury remains unknown. We established a CRBN-knockout (KO) HepG2 cell line and examined its effect on CCl-induced hepatocellular damage.

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Given that the skin is the largest tissue in the human body, performing external barrier functions with innate and adaptive immunity and undergoing substantial changes during aging, it is under investigation as a major target of various bioactive molecules. In the present study, we examined the biological activity of the senolytic piperlongumine by analyzing alterations in mRNA expression of notable skin genes using transformed aneuploid immortal epidermal keratinocytes, HaCaT cells. We observed that piperlongumine increased the mRNA expression of genes playing critical roles in skin barrier function.

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Article Synopsis
  • Alcohol is a big problem that can harm people's health and cause social issues, especially affecting the liver, which can lead to serious diseases.
  • Scientists created a special device that releases alcohol slowly over time to study how liver cells react to it, making sure the alcohol amount stays the same.
  • This device helps researchers learn more about how drinking too much alcohol can damage the liver, and it could lead to better ways to understand and treat alcohol-related health problems in the future.
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Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) can be diagnosed to characterize the microorganisms constituting a biofilm, which is an essential procedure for proper treatment. The gold standard method for detecting and identifying the causative microorganism is culture of microorganisms from patients-derived sample.; however, this method takes a long time and has low sensitivity.

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Breast cancer is a common tumor type among women, with a high fatality due to metastasis. Metastasis suppressors encode proteins that inhibit the metastatic cascade independent of the primary tumor growth. Raf kinase inhibitory protein (RKIP) is one of the promising metastasis suppressor candidates.

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Interest in foods that promote inner beauty increases with increases in exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays and with improvements in quality of life. This study was performed to evaluate the efficacy of fermented and aged mountain-cultivated ginseng sprouts (FAMCGSs), which have higher anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects compared to mountain-cultivated ginseng sprouts (MCGSs), as an inner beauty enhancing food. The effect of orally administered FAMCGSs on UV type B (UVB) radiation-induced skin aging was investigated in a hairless mouse model through analyzing skin parameters including epidermal thickness, transepidermal water loss (TEWL), roughness, moisture, elasticity, and collagen contents.

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Autophagy is a degradative process to remove damaged or unnecessary cellular components, and it has been implicated in many biological processes during cell survival and death [...

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Circadian rhythm regulates physiological cycles of awareness and sleepiness. Melatonin production is primarily regulated by circadian regulation of gene expression and is involved in sleep homeostasis. If the circadian rhythm is abnormal, sleep disorders, such as insomnia and several other diseases, can occur.

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Oxidative stress has been demonstrated to play a pivotal role in the pathological processes of many neurodegenerative diseases. In the present study, we demonstrated that Makino extract (CBME) suppresses oxidative stress-induced neurotoxicity in human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells and elucidated the underlying molecular mechanism. Our observations revealed that CBME effectively protected neuronal cells against HO-induced cell death by preventing caspase-3 activation, Bax upregulation, Bcl-2 downregulation, activation of three mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) and NF-κB phosphorylation, and iNOS induction.

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Rationale: Spontaneous retroperitoneal hematomas due to anticoagulant therapy rarely occur. Retroperitoneal hematomas can cause severe pain in the groin, quadriceps femoris muscle weakness, hemodynamic instability, and abdominal distension. They rarely cause compressive neuropathy of the femoral nerve transversing the iliacus muscle.

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Backgound: Autophagy controls levels of cellular components during normal and stress conditions; thus, it is a pivotal process for the maintenance of cell homeostasis. In cancer, autophagy protects cells from cancerous transformations that can result from genomic instability induced by reactive oxygen species or other damaged components, but it can also promote cancer survival by providing essential nutrients during the metabolic stress condition of cancer progression. However, the molecular mechanism underlying autophagy-dependent regulation of the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) and metastasis is still elusive.

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Rationale: Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a painful condition classified as type I or II depending on the absence or presence of nerve injury, respectively. Injury to the lateral dorsal cutaneous nerve (LDCN), a branch of the sural nerve, is a rare occurrence observed after a sprain or procedures conducted on the lateral side of the ankle.

Patient Concerns: A 38-year-old female, who had undergone prolotherapy for a sprain in the lateral side of the left ankle 3 months ago, presented with persistent causalgia and dysesthesia around the injection site.

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Drug screening strategies focus on quantifying the phenotypic effects of different compounds on biological systems. High-throughput technologies have the potential to understand further the mechanisms by which these drugs produce the desired outcome. Reverse causal reasoning integrates existing biological knowledge and measurements of gene and protein abundances to infer their function.

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Many diseases that involve malignant tumors in the elderly affect the quality of human life; therefore, the relationship between aging and pathogenesis in geriatric diseases must be under-stood to develop appropriate treatments for these diseases. Recent reports have shown that epigenetic regulation caused by changes in the local chromatin structure plays an essential role in aging. This review provides an overview of the roles of telomere shortening on genomic structural changes during an age-dependent shift in gene expression.

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Chlorogenic acid is one of the most abundant polyphenols found in human diet. It is well-documented that chlorogenic acid has a significant impact on human cells, especially in the regulation of inflammation and metabolic processes. However, its role in regulating skin functions, especially with respect to the dermal collagen network or epidermal skin barrier, has not yet been elucidated.

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