Mucormycosis generally presents as an acute infection manifesting in rhinocerebral, pulmonary, gastrointestinal, cutaneous, or disseminated forms. Fungal invasion to the arteries can reduce blood supply by thrombi formation inside the blood vessels, leading to necrosis. Fungal infection usually initiates in the upper turbinate, paranasal sinus, or less commonly in the palate or pharynx. Here we report an unusual case of mucormycosis in the maxilla of a 75-year-old man and present a review of the literature.

Mushrooms are considered not only as food but also for source of physiologically beneficial medicines. The culinarymedicinal mushrooms may important role in the prevention of age-associated neurological dysfunctions, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Hericium erinaceus (H. erinaceus), is edible mushrooms, is a parasitic fungus that grows hanging off of logs and trees and well established candidate for brain and nerve health. H. erinaceus contains high amounts of antioxidants, beta-glucan, polysaccharides and a potent catalyst for brain tissue regeneration and helps to improve memory and cognitive functions. Its fruiting bodies and the fungal mycelia exhibit various pharmacological activities, including the enhancement of the immune system, antitumor, hypoglycemic and anti-aging properties. H. erinaceus stimulates the synthesis of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) which is the primary protein nutrient responsible for enhancing and repairing neurological disorders. Especially hericenones and erinacines isolated from its fruitin body stimulate NGF, synthesis. This fungus is also utilized to regulate blood levels of glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol. H. erinaceus can be considered as useful therapeutic agents in the management and/or treatment of neurodegeneration diseases. However, this review focuses on in vitro, in vivo and clinical trials for neurodegerative disease.

Muscle satellite cell (SC) is responsible for postnatal muscle growth, repair, and regeneration. Satellite cell is an im-portant source of multi-potent stem cell process and differentiation into adipogenic, myogenic, and osteoblastogenic. The objective of this study was to identify alter of transcriptome during differentiation in porcine satellite cell and to elevated transcriptome at different stages of postnatal development to gain insight into the differences in differ-entiated PSC. We used RNA-seq technique to investigate the transcriptomes during differentiation in pig muscle. Sequence reads were obtained from Illumina HiSeq2000. Differentially expressed genes (DEG) were detected by EdgeR. Gene ontology (GO) terms are powerful tool for unification among representation genes or products. In study of GO biological terms, functional annotation clustering involved in cell cycle, apoptosis, extracellular matrix, phosphoryla- tion, proteolysis, and cell signaling in differences stage. Taken together, these results would be contributed to a better understanding of muscle biology and processes underlying differentiation. Our results suggest that the source of DEGs could be better understanding of the mechanism of muscle differentiation and transdifferentiation.

Satellite cells were derived from muscular tissue in postnatal pig. Satellite cell is an important to growth and development in animal tissues or organs. However, the progress underlying induced differentiation is not clear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the morphologic and the transcriptome changes in porcine satellite cell (PSC) treated with insulin, rosiglitazone, or dexamethasone respectively. PSC was obtained from postnatal muscle tissue. In study 1, for study the effect of insulin and FBS on the differentiated satellite cells, cells were cultured at absence or presence of insulin treated with FBS. Total RNA was extracted for determining the expression levels of myo-genic PAX3, PAX7, Myf5, MyoD, and myogenin genes by real-time PCR. Myogenic genes decreased expression levels of mRNA in treated with insulin. In study 2, in order to clarify the relationship between rosiglitazone and lipid in differentiated satellite cells, we further examined the effect of FBS on lipid accumulation in the presence or absence of the rosiglitazone and lipid. Significant differences were observed between rosiglitazone and lipid by FBS. The mRNA of FABP4 and PPARγ increased in rosiglitazone treatment. In study 3, we examined the effect of dexame-thasone on osteogenic differentiation in PSC. The mRNA was increased osteoblasotgenic ALP and ON genes treated with dexamethasone in 2% FBS. Dexamethasone induces osteoblastogenesis in differentiated PSC. Taken together, in differentiated PSCs, FABP4 and PPARγ increased to rosiglitazone. Whereas, no differences to FBS and lipid. These results were not comparable with previous reports. Our results suggest that adipogenic, myogenic, and osteoblasto-genic could be isolated from porcine skeletal muscle, and identify culture conditions which optimize proliferation and differentiation formation of PSC.

Muscular satellite cell (SC), which is stem cell of postnatal pig, is an important for study of differentiation into adipogenesis, myogenesis, and osteoblastogenesis. In this study, we isolated and examined from pig muscle tissue to determine capacity in proliferate, differentiate, and expression of various genes. Porcine satellite cells (PSC) were isolated from semimembranosus (SM) muscles of 90∼100 days old pigs according to standard conditions. The cell proliferation increased in multi-potent cell by Masson’s, oil red O, and Alizarin red staining respectively. We per-formed the expression levels of differentiation related genes using real-time PCR. We found that the differentiation into adipocyte increased expression levels of both fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4) and peroxisome proliferator- acti-vated receptor gamma (PPARγ) genes (p<0.01). Myocyte increased the expression levels of the myosin heavy chain (MHC), myogenic factor 5 (Myf5), myogenic regulatory factor (MyoD), and Myogenic factor 4 (myogenin) (p<0.01). Osteo-blast increased the expression levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) (p<0.01). Finally, porcine satellite cells were indu-ced to differentiate towards adipogenic, myogenic, and osteoblastogenic lineages. Our results suggest that muscle satellite cell in porcine may influence cell fate. Understanding the progression of PSC may lead to improved strat-egies for augmenting meat quality.

Most traditional genome sequencing projects involving infectious viruses include culturing and purification of the virus. This can present difficulties as an analysis of multiple populations from multiple locations may be required to acquire sufficient amount of high-quality DNA for sequence analysis. The electrophoretic method provides a strategy whereby the genomic DNA sequences of the Korean isolate of Pieris rapae granulovirus (PiraGV-K) were analyzed by purifying it from host DNA by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, thus simplifying sampling and labor time. The genomic DNA of infected P. rapae was embedded in agarose plugs, digested with a restriction nuclease and methylase, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was used to separate PiraGV-K DNA from the DNA of P. rapae, followed by mapping of fosmid clones of the separated viral DNA. The double-stranded circular genome of PiraGV-K encodes 120 open reading frames (ORFs), covering 92% of the sequenced genome. BLAST and ORF arrangement showed the presence of 78 homologs to other genes in the database. The mean overall amino acid identity of PiraGV-K ORFs was highest with the Chinese isolate of PiraGV (~99%), followed up with Choristoneura occidentalis ORFs at 58%. PiraGV-K ORFs were grouped, according to function, into 10 genes involved in transcription, 11 involved in replication, 25 structural protein genes, and 15 auxiliary genes. Genes for Chitinase (ORF 10) and cathepsin (ORF11), involved in the liquefaction of the host, were found in the genome. The recovery of PiraGV-K DNA genome by pulse-field electrophoretic separation from host genomic DNA had several advantages, compared with its isolation from particles harvested as virions or inclusions from the P. rapae host. We have sequenced and analyzed the 108,658 bp PiraGV-K genome purified by the pulsed field electrophoretic method. The method appears to be applicable to the analysis of genomes of large viruses. The chitinase, identified by PiraGV-K genome sequence, was functionally characterized by quantitative PCR, Western blot analysis, immunohistochemistry and transmission electron microscopy.

Effective treatment for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) requires administration of appropriate empirical therapy based on etiologic, clinical, and radiological fea- tures. However, in Korea, CAP is poorly characterized, and data on viral CAP are particularly sparse. Therefore, im- proper use of antibiotics is common, and is detrimental the potential for development of bacterial. Thus, we investigated clinical and radiological findings for discrimination of viral CAP from bacterial CAP. Etiologic, clinical, and radiologi- cal data from 467 patients with CAP at Chungbuk National University Hospital from October 2010 to September 2011 were analyzed retrospectively. Viruses were identified in 23 cases (11.4%); the influenza virus A was the most common virus detected (N=18, 25.4%), followed by the respiratory syncytial virus A (N=14, 17.9%). Bacteria were identified in 48 cases (23.8%); Streptococcus-pneumonia was the most common (N=24, 25.5%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (N=20, 21.3%). Depending on hospitalization time, the fol- lowing significant differences were observed between viral and bacterial CAP: on admission, (1) high fever (≥ 38.5°C), (2) purulent sputum, (3) white blood cell count, (4) C- reactive protein levels, (5) and bilateral lung involvement on chest X-ray were higher in bacterial CAP; and at discharge, (1) duration of high fever and (2) radiologic improvement within three days were higher in viral CAP. Regarding sea- sonal patterns, both viruses and bacteria have been identi- fied with relative frequency in the winter season. This study described the etiological, clinical, and radiological findings of viral and bacterial CAP. Conduct of additional large- scale, prospective investigations will be required in order to improve the appropriate treatment of CAP.

Beauveria bassiana isolates have been used in integrated pest management, but little consideration has been given to the studies on fungal gene expressions and their functions. In this work, to determine the functions of genes, B. bassiana ERL1170 was transformed by restriction enzyme-mediated integration method, where pABeG with bar gene was used as a transformation vector. Among seven hundred of transformants, morphologically different ERL1170-pABeG-#160 transformant, particularly dysfunctional in conidiogenesis. The transformant had yellow hyphal growth on fourth strength Sabouraud dextrose agar (SDA/4) and produced very small amount of conidia (<1.0×105 conidia/cm2 agar) in 7 days, whereas wild type had white mycelial growth and significantly greater conidia (3.6×106 conidia/cm2 agar). Additionally under microscopic observation, hyphae of #160 seemed like indian club, compared to the straight forms of wild type hyphae. The next work is figure out possible genes contributing the conidiogenesis of B. bassiana.

The silkworm (Bombyx mori), as an industrial insect, possesses a high economic value. Casual discrimination and accumulated genetic information of silkworm varieties are essential ground for the practical utilization and long-term conservation. In this study, nine available microsatellite loci were successfully genotyped from ~50 silkworm strains preserved in Korea. According to genotyping analysis, we obtained 3 ~ 16 alleles per locus, with an average of 7.4, the observed heterozygosity ranging from 0.04 to 0.98, and the polymorphic information content (PIC) ranging from 0.06 to 0.88, revealing that some loci are highly variable. Among 54 strains 13 strains were casually identified by the presence of 17 strain-specific apomorphic alleles. Furthermore, 30 among remaining strains contained strain-specific allele combinations that are also apomorphic to each strain, allowing us to discriminate each of these from other strains by genotyping of multiple loci. These results collectively suggest that the silkworm microsatellite DNA is actually and potentially important molecular marker for the discrimination of the silkworm strains that are preserved as hundreds in Korea, as more loci are genotyped.

The Black Soldier Fly (BSF, Hermetia illucens) was widely distributed throughout Korea. This insect was mainly found in the vicinity of and in cattle sheds, manure sheds, living waste dump grounds, and food waste dump grounds. This fly is a kind of a beneficial fly because BSF adults do not go into houses, they do not regurgitate on human food, they do not bite, bother or pester humans in any way and they are not associated in any way with the transmission of disease. But their greatest attribute lies their ability to eat and digest raw waste. They can devour, for example, a large, raw, Irish potato and others in just a few hours. Unlike many other flies, since the BSF larvae have very powerful mouth parts and digestive enzymes, they can ingest raw waste far more efficiently than any other known species of fly. On this study, to investigate whether feeding strategy of the BSF larvae involves extra-oral digestion or not, and to better understand this process, the salivary glands and a few tissue from the BSF were dissected and subjected to morphological and preliminary enzyme characterization.

Varroa destructor is an ecto-parasite mite and worldwide pest of the honey bee Apis mellifera L. The pyrethroid tau-fluvalinate (Apistan), an acaricide that is tolerated by honey bees, has been used for varroa mite control since the mid 1980s. Even though various resistances to tau-fluvalinate in varroa mites have been reported from Europe, Israel, and USA, the nature of tau-fluvalinate resistance in varroa mites in Korea has never been investigated. To investigate and understand tau-fluvalinate resistance in varroa mites in Korea, we conducted bioassay in several apiaries located different regions in Korea. To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the difference of tau-fluvalinate resistances in varroa mites, partial genomic DNA fragments of a voltage-sensitive sodium channel gene from varroa mites were cloned and sequenced, since tau-fluvalinate is known to act on the sodium channels directly. Two novel mutations in sodium channels of varroa mites were present in eight apiaries. Two mutations might be a geographical polymorphism of sodium channel of varroa mites in Korea.

Bumblebees are important pollinators in greenhouse and have colonized all parts of the World. In Korea, the value of bumblebees is increasing as pollinator. However, the more recent use of reared colonies may ultimately allow pathogens to spread to peripheral areas for bumblebees. Generally, bumblebees are hosts to a large number of parasites which are mites, flies, protozoa, fungi, virus and bacteria. For most of these, very little is known about their effects against host insect, epidemiology or evolutionary ecology. So, we report pathogenic bacteria isolated from Bombus terrestris and B. ignitus at first time in Korea. Bacillus fusiformis and Klebsiella oxytoca are isolated from B. terrestris and confirmed with 16S rRNA gene nucleotide comparison in NCBI genebank. Pathogenicity of B. fusiformis was 35~40% against B. terrestris. Pantoea dispersa and K. oxytoca are isolated from B. ignitus and confirmed with 16S rRNA gene nucleotide comparison in NCBI genebank. Pathogenicity of these species were 35~40% against B. ignitus. These pathogenicity are considered as low-level.

Embryonic germ (EG) cells are undifferentiated stem cells isolated from cultured primordial germ cells (PGC). These cells share many characteristics with embryonic stem cells including morphology and pluripotency. Undifferentiated porcine EG cell lines demonstrating capacities of differentiation both in vitro and in vivo have been established. Since EG cells can be cultured indefinitely in an undifferentiated state, whereas somatic cells in primary culture are often unstable and have limited lifespan, EG cells may provide inexhaustible source of karyoplasts in nuclear transfer (NT). In this study the efficiencies of NT using porcine EG and fetal fibroblast cells were compared. Two different techniques were used to perform NT. With conventional NT procedure (Roslin method) involving fusion of donor cells with enucleated oocytes, the rates of development to the blastocyst stage in EG and somatic cell NT were 16.8% (59/351) and 14.5% (98/677), respectively. In piezo-driven microinjection (Honolulu method) of donor nuclei into enucleated oocytes, the rates of blastocyst formation in EG and somatic cell NT were 11.9% (15/126) and 9.4% (9/96), respectively. Regardless of NT methods used in this study, EG cell NT gave rise to comparable rate of blastocyst development to somatic cell NT. Overall, EG cells can be used as karyoplast donor in NT procedure, and embryos can be produced by EG cell NT that may be used as an alternative to conventional somatic cell NT.