The ‘R’ principles in laboratory animal experiments / 한국실험동물학회지

Since the Three Rs of replacement, reduction and refinement was proposed by Russel and Birch in 1959, researchers have a moral duty to minimize harm to animals. Even though animal experiments are performed by the Three Rs concept, animal researches which do not comply with international rules and standards are not accepted as well. As animal welfare has been important global issues, the methods to assess animal welfare compromise and distress have been proposed. Humanity is accepted as the goal of the Three Rs, however, another fourth R, ‘Refusal’ of fruitless protocol or ‘Responsibility’ for the experimental animal and social, scientific status of the animal experiments has been proposed. After establishing goals of animal research in a respective society, reliable knowledge can be obtained while improving laboratory animal welfare.

The ‘R’ principles in laboratory animal experiments / 한국실험동물학회지

Since the Three Rs of replacement, reduction and refinement was proposed by Russel and Birch in 1959, researchers have a moral duty to minimize harm to animals. Even though animal experiments are performed by the Three Rs concept, animal researches which do not comply with international rules and standards are not accepted as well. As animal welfare has been important global issues, the methods to assess animal welfare compromise and distress have been proposed. Humanity is accepted as the goal of the Three Rs, however, another fourth R, ‘Refusal’ of fruitless protocol or ‘Responsibility’ for the experimental animal and social, scientific status of the animal experiments has been proposed. After establishing goals of animal research in a respective society, reliable knowledge can be obtained while improving laboratory animal welfare.

Metabolic Pathways Associated with Kimchi, a Traditional Korean Food, Based on In Silico Modeling of Published Data

Kimchi is a traditional Korean food prepared by fermenting vegetables, such as Chinese cabbage and radishes, which are seasoned with various ingredients, including red pepper powder, garlic, ginger, green onion, fermented seafood (Jeotgal), and salt. The various unique microorganisms and bioactive components in kimchi show antioxidant activity and have been associated with an enhanced immune response, as well as anti-cancer and anti-diabetic effects. Red pepper inhibits decay due to microorganisms and prevents food from spoiling. The vast amount of biological information generated by academic and industrial research groups is reflected in a rapidly growing body of scientific literature and expanding data resources. However, the genome, biological pathway, and related disease data are insufficient to explain the health benefits of kimchi because of the varied and heterogeneous data types. Therefore, we have constructed an appropriate semantic data model based on an integrated food knowledge database and analyzed the functional and biological processes associated with kimchi in silico. This complex semantic network of several entities and connections was generalized to answer complex questions, and we demonstrated how specific disease pathways are related to kimchi consumption.

Semantic Modeling for SNPs Associated with Ethnic Disparities in HapMap Samples

Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been emerging out of the efforts to research human diseases and ethnic disparities. A semantic network is needed for in-depth understanding of the impacts of SNPs, because phenotypes are modulated by complex networks, including biochemical and physiological pathways. We identified ethnicity-specific SNPs by eliminating overlapped SNPs from HapMap samples, and the ethnicity-specific SNPs were mapped to the UCSC RefGene lists. Ethnicity-specific genes were identified as follows: 22 genes in the USA (CEU) individuals, 25 genes in the Japanese (JPT) individuals, and 332 genes in the African (YRI) individuals. To analyze the biologically functional implications for ethnicity-specific SNPs, we focused on constructing a semantic network model. Entities for the network represented by "Gene," "Pathway," "Disease," "Chemical," "Drug," "ClinicalTrials," "SNP," and relationships between entity-entity were obtained through curation. Our semantic modeling for ethnicity-specific SNPs showed interesting results in the three categories, including three diseases ("AIDS-associated nephropathy," "Hypertension," and "Pelvic infection"), one drug ("Methylphenidate"), and five pathways ("Hemostasis," "Systemic lupus erythematosus," "Prostate cancer," "Hepatitis C virus," and "Rheumatoid arthritis"). We found ethnicity-specific genes using the semantic modeling, and the majority of our findings was consistent with the previous studies - that an understanding of genetic variability explained ethnicity-specific disparities.