• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.213-220
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• 2003

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is one of the most widely used analytical tool and is an important module that would benefit from being miniaturized and integrated onto diagnostic or analytical chips. There are potentially two different approaches for the miniaturization of the PCR module: chamber-type and flow-type micro-PCR. These miniaturized PCRs have distinct characteristics and advantages. In this article, we review the necessity of micro-PCR, the materials for the chip fabrication, the surface modification, and characteristics of the two types of micro-PCR. The motivation underlying the development of micro-PCR, the advantages and disadvantages of the various materials used in fabrication and the surface modification methods will be discussed. And finally, the precise features of the two different types of micro-PCR will be compared.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.36-42
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• 2007

Hepatitis B is a serious public health problem leading to chronic infection and liver cancer. Quantitation of circulating hepatitis B virus (HBV) is important for monitoring disease progression and for assessing the response to antiviral therapy. In this study, by using Real-Time PCR and novel Micro-PCR assay method, we measured HBV concentration in the clinical sample. A total of 120 serum samples from patients with HBV infection collected was in Dankook university hospital to compare the detection limit, sensitivity, specificity and reproducibility of the two assay methods. These findings of this study suggest that Micro-PCR and Real-Time PCR assay methods are comparable to each other in there detection limit, sensitivity, and reproducibility for HBV DNA quantitation. However, Micro-PCR assay is more efficient than Real-Time PCR method, because Real-Time PCR is not so time - consuming, technically easy and need to reagent of a small quantity. It will be useful for rapid and reliable clinical diagnosis of HBV in many countries.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.12a
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• pp.115-120
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• 2003

In this work, a continuous-flow micro-PCR system is systematically designed. From the numerical simulation based on the finite volume method, adapting oneself to a new environmental temperature without an external temperature controller is shown to be possible and a cooler as well as a heater is shown to be necessary to obtain three individual temperature zones for polymerase chain reaction. In addition, appropriate geometry of a heat sink for the cooler is determined by using a compact modeling method, the porous medium approach.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.463-467
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• 2004

This paper presents the fabrication possibility of the micro actuator which uses a micro-thermal bubble, generated b micro-heater under pulse heating. The valve-less micropump using the diffuser/nozzle is consists of the lower plate, he middle plate, the upper plate. The lower plate includes the channel and chamber are fabricated on high processability silicon wafer by the DRIE(Deep Reactive Ion Etching) process. The middle plate includes the chamber and diaphragm d the upper plate is the micro-heater. The Micropump is fabricated by bonding process of the three layer. This paper resented the possibility of the PCR chip operation by the fabricated micropump.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.187-192
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• 2011

Abrasive blaster is similar to sand blaster, and effectively removes hard and brittle materials. Exiting abrasive blaster has applied to rough working such as deburring and rough finishing. As the need for machining of ceramics, semiconductor, electronic devices and LCD are increasing, micro abrasive blaster was developed, and became the inevitable technique to micromachining. This paper describes the performance of the micro blaster in MEMS process of glass and succeed in domestically producing complete micro blaster. Diameter of hole and width of line in this etching is 100 ${\mu}m$ ~ 1000 ${\mu}m$. Experimental results showed good performance in micro channel and hole in glass wafer. Therefore, this micro blaster could be effectively applied to the micro machining of semiconductor, micro PCR chip.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.337-342
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• 2005

A silicon-based micro-reactor to amplify small amount of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has been fabricated using micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of DNA requires a precise and rapid temperature control. A Pt sensor is integrated directly in the chamber for real-time temperature measurement and an infrared lamp is used as external heating source for non-contact and rapid heating. In addition to the real-time temperature sensing, PCR needs a rapid thermocycling for effective PCR. For a fast thermal response, the thermal mass of the reactor chamber is minimized by removal of bulk silicon volume around the reactor using double-side KOH etching. The transparent optical property of silicon in the infrared wavelength range provides an efficient absorption of thermal energy into the reacting sample without being absorbed by silicon reactor chamber. It is confirmed that the fabricated micro-reactor could be heated up in less than 30 sec to the denaturation temperature by the external infrared lamp and cooled down in 30 sec to the annealing temperature by passive cooling.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.34.1-34.6
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• 2021

Digital PCR (dPCR) is the third-generation PCR that enables real-time absolute quantification without reference materials. Recently, global diagnosis companies have developed new dPCR equipment. In line with the development, the Lab On An Array (LOAA) dPCR analyzer (Optolane) was launched last year. The LOAA dPCR is a semiconductor chip-based separation PCR type equipment. The LOAA dPCR includes Micro Electro Mechanical System that can be injected by partitioning the target gene into 56 to 20,000 wells. The amount of target gene per wells is digitized to 0 or 1 as the number of well gradually increases to 20,000 wells because its principle follows Poisson distribution, which allows the LOAA dPCR to perform precise absolute quantification. LOAA determined region of interest first prior to dPCR operation. To exclude invalid wells for the quantification, the LOAA dPCR has applied various filtering methods using brightness, slope, baseline, and noise filters. As the coronavirus disease 2019 has now spread around the world, needs for diagnostic equipment of point of care testing (POCT) are increasing. The LOAA dPCR is expected to be suitable for POCT diagnosis due to its compact size and high accuracy. Here, we describe the quantitative principle of the LOAA dPCR and suggest that it can be applied to various fields.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.829-834
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• 2013

Background: MicroRNAs are noncoding RNA molecules that posttranscriptionally regulate gene expression. The aim of this study was to determine the role of microRNA-21 in cholangiocarcinomas and its relationship to cholangiocarcinoma RBE cell capacity for invasion and metastasis. Methods: MicroRNA-21 expression was investigated in 41 cases of cholangiocarcinoma samples by in situ hybridization and real-time PCR. Influence on cholangiocarcinoma cell line invasion and metastasis was analyzed with microRNA-21 transfected cells. In addition, regulation of reversion-inducing-cysteine-rich protein with kazal motifs (RECK) by microRNA-21 was elucidated to identify mechanisms. Results: In situ hybridization and real-time quantitative PCR results for patients with lymph node metastasis or perineural invasion showed significantly high expression of microRNA-21 (P<0.05). There was a dramatic decrease in cholangiocarcinoma cell line invasion and metastasis ability after microRNA-21 knockdown (P<0.05). However, overexpression significantly increased invasion and metastasis (P<0.05). Real-time PCR and Western-blot analysis showed that microRNA-21 could potentially inhibit RECK expression in RBE cells. Survival analysis showed that patients with higher expression levels of microRNA-21 more often had a poor prognosis (P<0.05). Conclusions: MicroRNA-21 may play an important role in cholangiocarcinoma invasion and metastasis, suggesting that MicroRNA-21 should be further evaluated as a biomarker for predicting cholangiocarcinoma prognosis.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.3471-3476
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• 2014

Background: Aberrant expression of the microRNA-29 family is associated with tumorigenesis and cancer progression. As transport carriers, tumor-derived exosomes are released into the extracellular space and regulate multiple functions of target cells. Thus, we assessed the possibility that exosomes could transport microRNA-29c as a carrier and correlations between microRNA-29c and apoptosis of bladder cancer cells. Materials and Methods: A total of 28 cancer and adjacent tissues were examined by immunohistochemistry to detect BCL-2 and MCL-1 expression. Disease was Ta-T1 in 12 patients, T2-T4 in 16, grade 1 in 8, 2 in 8 and 3 in 12. The expression of microRNA-29c in cancer tissues was detected by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (QRT-PCR). An adenovirus containing microRNA-29c was used to infect the BIU-87 human bladder cancer cell line. MicroRNA-29c in exosomes was measured by QRT-PCR. After BIU-87 cells were induced by exosomes-derived microRNA-29c, QRT-PCR was used to detect the level of microRNA-29c. Apoptosis was examined by flow cytometry and BCL-2 and MCL-1 mRNA expressions were assessed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Western blotting was used to determine the protein expression of BCL-2 and MCL-1. Results: The expressions of BCL-2 and MCL-1 protein were remarkably increased in bladder carcinoma (p<0.05), but was found mainly in the basal and suprabasal layers in adjacent tissues. The expression of microRNA-29c in cancer tissues was negatively correlated with the BCL-2 and MCL-1. The expression level of microRNA-29c in exosomes and BIU-87 cells from the experiment group was higher than that in control groups (p<0.05). Exosome-derived microRNA-29c induced apoptosis (p<0.01). Although only BCL-2 was reduced at the mRNA level, both BCL-2 and MCL-1 were reduced at the protein level. Conclusions: Human bladder cancer cells infected by microRNA-29c adenovirus can transport microRNA-29c via exosomes. Moreover, exosome-derived microRNA29c induces apoptosis in bladder cancer cells by down-regulating BCL-2 and MCL-1.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.282-288
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• 2002

Since culture of Helicobacter pylori is relatively insensitive and cumbersome, molecular detection and typing of H. pylori isolates are gaining importance for strain differentiation. In the present study genomic DNA of 42 gastric biopsies and H. pylori isolates from corresponding patients were analyzed and compared by PCR-based RFLP assay. The 1,132-bp product representing an internal portion of ureC gene of H. pylori was amplified by PCR and digested with restriction enzymes HindⅢ, AiuⅠ and PvuⅠ. The HindⅢ, AluⅠ and PvuⅠ digestion produced 4, 7, and 2 distinguishable RFLP patterns respectively from 42-H. pylori isolates. By combining all three restriction enzyme digestions, 15 RFLP patterns were observed. However, when PCR products from 42 gastric biopsy specimens were digested by restriction enzymes HindⅢ, AluⅠ and PvuⅠ, we observed 5, 8 and 2 RFLP patterns, respectively. Patterns from 34 of 42 gastric biopsy specimens matched those of corresponding H. pylori isolates from respective patients. Patterns from the remaining eight biopsy specimens differed and appeared to represent infection with two H. pylori strains. The patterns of one strain from each of these biopsies was identical to that of the isolate from corresponding patients and the second pattern presumably represented the co-infecting strain. From the study, it appears that PCR-based RFLP analysis is a useful primary tool to detect and is distinguish H. pylori strains from gastric biopsy specimens and is superior to culture techniques in the diagnosis of infection with multiple strains of H. pylori.