The efficiency of in vitro regeneration of four clones of Populus euramericana, Canada blanc, Eugenii, I-45/51, and Wisconsin #5, was examined. Cytokinins and the combinations with auxins affected the rate of regeneration from the explants of root segments, stem internodes, and leaf discs. Overall, BA and the combination with auxins were effective in root segments and leaf discs of the Canada blanc clone, whereas zeatin and the combination with auxins were important in stem internodes of the Wisconsin #5 clone. The highest number of shoots averaging 17.6 ± 0.47 from root segments in the Canada blanc clone,18.2 ± 3.0 from stem internodes in the Wisconsin #5 clone, and 17.8 ± 1.92 from leaf discs in the Canada blanc clone were obtained with 2.0 mg/1 BA, 2.0 mg/l zeatin combined with 0.2 mg/l IAA, and 0.5 mg/l BA combined with 0.05 mg/l 2,4-D, respectively. In particular, the addition of 2,4-D into cytokinin medium promoted shoot proliferation.

Intraspecific genetic diversity of sixteen accessions of Mogolian Alliums including fifteen species was investigated using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. Twenty three out of forty primers revealed scorable polymorphism. A total of 440 RAPD markers were generated on the 16 accessions of Mongolian Alliums. Among 440 RAPDs assayed, 439 were polymorphic with a mean polymorphic rate of 99.7%. Unweighted pair-group method using an arithmetic average (UPGMA) cluster analysis using RAPD data separated the 16 Allium accessions into two broad groups at similarity index 0.70. The clustering of the species was closely related with previous classification between A. altaicum and A. fistulosum. In addition, a high genetic similarity was showed between A. cepa and A. tagar.

Four major naturally populated areas around the Jindong valley in Inje-Gun, Gangwon province for wild Pyrus ussuriensis, Malus sieboldii, and Malus baccata are mostly located on the southeast side of the mountains at 630-745m in altitude at sea level and are in very good sunny areas. The total of 77 taxa dividing into 32 families, 58 genera, 65 species, and 12 varieties has been inhabited in these areas. Most of these plants are heliophytes, which love sunshine, but some of rhizo-plants such as Sasa borealis, climbing plants such as Actinidia arguta and Celastrus orbiculatus, or naturalized plants like Bidens frondosa are also shown. These areas have been continually destroyed, so it is possibly thought that the second transition has been progressed. The index of species diversity of plant groups in these areas is 0.672∼1.465 based on the Shannon-Wiener's method, but its index for the area that rhizo-plants like Sasa borealis are growing as an under planting decreases relatively. In this study, the oldest plant of Pyrus ussuriensis in Korea, which is 120cm in diameter at breast height (DBH), 19m in tree height and 25m in width, has been found.

This study was conducted to investigate the β-glucan contents and their characteristics of winter cereals according to particle sizes and milling recoveries. Sieved fractions differed in their average contents of β-glucans, and the coarse fraction had higher contents of β-glucan than finely milled fractions. In all winter cereals, the β-glucan contents of raw flours were higher than those of their brans, and the highest β-glucan contents of every cereals were observed at 100 mesh 〉 or 100-140 mesh fractions except the Chalssalbori fractions which showed the higest β-glucan contents (12.9%) at 140-200 mesh fraction. As compared with the β-glucan content of Chalbori among the various milling recoveries, the β-glucan was distributed more evenly throughout the endosperm but β-glucan content in bran of Chalbori was only 1.5%. However, β-glucan content of Chalssalbori (hull-less waxy barley) was the highest in the subaleurone region (8.2%) and declined slightly toward inner layers of grain. This results suggest that β-glucan distribution between high (Chalbori) and low β-glucan barley (Chalssalbori) may explain the difference in milling performance of barley. On the other hand, β-glucan contents of two rye varieties (Chilbohomil, Chunchoohomil) were lower than those of two waxy barley varieties, and the higest β-glucan contents were observed at the 60% milling recoveries. In all winter cereals, the L-values (lightness) of raw flours were higher than those of brans. And the L-values of barley varieties were higher than those of oat and rye varieties. As the particle sizes and milling recovery ratios were decreased, the L-value were increased. The a-values (redness) in brans of every winter cereals were higher than those of every particle size flours and every milling ratio fractions, and this tendency was observed in the b-values (yellowness) of every particle size of cereal flours. The L and b-value of barley, the b-value of oat, and L, a, b-value of rye have the significant relationship with the β-glucan contents, respectively. This results represent the fact that β-glucans affected the color of the flours and pounded grains of winter cereals.

Today information is important for man and total fields. Science field is not exception. Currently information age things of information is only useful for man and total industry. So bioinformation is necessary of biodiversity in broadly wide and detailed information. Among information, bioinformation of biodiversity is important and utilization of living things. Among them, the mushroom(higher fungi) are an important part in ecosystem as a decomposer responsible for recycling materials. Many living things today, however, have endangered by environmental pollution and ecological destruction. The higher fungi also are not exception. Mushroom has been used for food sources, pharmacy and forests resources from ancient times. Among biodiversity, database of mushroom is very necessary for university, institute and industry. This DB contains four items of native mushroom(higher fungi) from Korea. first item contain species, genus, family, order class, ad division according to the classification. Second item contain pharmaceutical purpose, food source, culture, toxic, anti-cancer of the application. Third item contain symbiosis, rotten trees of the ecological resources. Fourth item contain geographical distribution and illustrated literature. Information system is also available using KRISTAL II for searches on the WEB in URL http://ruby. kisti. re. kr/∼mushroom.

The wild Pyrus plants belong to the deciduous woody plants in Rosaceae family. Most are cultivated for fruit productions, but some for ornamental plants. There are 5 Pyrus species including Pyrus ussuriensis and 8 varieties cultivated in Korea. In Korea, these plants are populated near villages or on the hills, and they are easily propagated since their fruit are very juicy and quite big in size. Plant breeding to get improved cultivars is not difficult because the Pyrus plants are easy to cross breeding among its genus. Because not only this reason but there have been shown lots of variation in wild groups, the Pyrus plants inhabited in Korea are excellent deciduous woody plants and favorable fruit trees to develop ornamental plants. It is necessary to develop many kinds of fruit trees and ornamental trees containing genetically different character, so that it will be satisfied for many different people's taste and demands. Collecting lots of wild plant resource with diverse genes is necessary for plant breeding.

A major portion of drugs used in Ayurvedic system of medicine which has been practiced since the early human civilization in Indian subcontinent were of plant origin. It should be noted that 70% of the population in this region depends on Ayurveda for their medical treatment and 60% of the drug resources are obtained from the Himalayan region. Therefore, Nepal becomes a potential source of plant drug resource since it occupies a major portion of the Himalaya. In the present paper, in general a current status of medicinal plant resources of Himalayan region especially Nepal will be discussed. In addition to this, a typical example of antidiabetic activity of Shilajit will be taken for the discussion. Shilajit is one of the crucial elements in several formulations including those of Rasayana, a therapy in Ayurveda, which has been practiced in the prevention of ageing and mental disorder. Although, Shilajit is widely used for the treatment of diabetes, no satisfactory scientific reports are available up to now. The crude Shilajit in the market is a dark brown or black rock-like substance collected from the Himalayan region with a strong smell of cow's stale urine. In our studies, Shilajit (collected in the central Himalayan region) prevented the diabetes in nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice model. Shilajit also prevented the diabetes in the rats against the action of multiple low-dose (10 mg/kg, i.v., 5 times) of streptozotocin. On the other hand, Shilajit did not show antioxidative activity. The preventive action of Shilajit on diabetes is mainly focused on the Thl and Th2 cell activities, since Th2 cells activity was found to be significantly upregulated. Shilajit, however, showed a mild action in controlling the blood sugar level in young, old, and mild diabetic rats, but not in the severe diabetic rats. It also stimulated the nitric oxide production in macrophages. Based on these evidences, the antidiabetic activities of Shilajit appear to be immunomodulative probably by protecting or strengthening insulin-producing b-cells in the pancreas. Further systematic research on constituents of Shilajit and its quality evaluation is necessary to enable the use of natural medicines in the treatment of diabetes.

Hibiscus cannabinus, Cassia fistula and Abutilon indicum are medicinally important plants in India. Tissue culture studies have done for efficient propagation and for crop improvement in these three plants. Various explants were tried for callus induction, somatic embryogenesis and organagenesis with manipulation in culture media. Calli and somatic embryos were induced from hypocotyl explants in Hibiscus cannabinus, while in Cassia fistula and Abutilon indicum it could be obtained from leaf explants.

We tried to introduce two forsythia genes related in lignan biosynthesis, dirigent protein and pinoresinol/lariciresinol (Ph) reductase, into potatoes for accumulation of lignans in transgenic potatoes. We made binary vectors overexpressing dirigent protein gene and P/L reductase gene driven by a CaMV35S promoter and transformed into potatoes via Agrobacterium mediated transformation. And in order to control the metabolic flux of lignan biosynthesis pathway, we tried to inhibit chalcone synthase genes of potatoes by antisense inhibition technique also. We tried to use PCR screening method for selection of transgenic plants of different vectors. We tried to determine and compare lignan contents from different transgenic potato lines.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the causative agent of AIDS, still continues to spread rapidly in the world population, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia. At present, two kinds of therapeutic approaches are used for treatment of AIDS. One is to target HIV reverse transcriptase, which is responsible for the viral genome transcription. The other is to inhibit HIV pretense PR, which is essential for the processing of viral proteins. Drug combinations based on these approaches can reduce the blood virus to an undetectable level. However, a small amount of virus may lurk inside the immune cells in a dormant state. Another major obstacle of long-term treatment of the disease is remarkable mutation in HIV. Most of the clinical chemotherapeutic agents have one or more of these problems. High cost and harmful side-effects further reduced the desirability of these drugs. In the course our studies on development of anti-HIV agents from natural products, we investigated various crude drugs for their inhibitory activity against HIV-induced cytopathic effects (CPE) in culture cells, HIV-pretense (PR), HIV-reverse transcriptase (RT) including ribonuclease H (RNase H), and HIV integrase (INT). In the present paper, some inhibitory substances relating to the development of anti-HIV agents are reported.

Medicinal plants were screened for the inhibitory effects on human immunodeficiency virus type 1 pretense. Of the extracts tested, the strong inhibitory effects were observed in the acetone extracts of the pericarp of Camellia japonica. Camelliatannin H from the pericarp of C. japonica showed a potent inhibitory activity on HIV-1 pretense. Effects of the extract and compound from leaves of Zanthoxylum piperitum on the enzyme activities were investigated in the liver of bromobenzene-treated rats. The methanol extract and protocatechuic acid isolated from Z. pipetitum reduced the activity of aniline hydroxylase that increased by bromobenzene, while did not affect the activities of aminopyrin N-demethylase and glutathione S-transferase. The extract and protocatechuic acid recovered significantly the activity of epoxide hydrolase decreased by bromobenzene.

It was reported in our Previous paper that the fermented products from Gloeostereum incarnatum strongly inhibit the growth of six kinds of bacteria in human bodies. In this paper the appropriated conditions of immersing culture for the strain 8 903 of Gloeostereum incarnatum was analysed. And the output of the hypha and fermentative product was determined or compared. The prelimenaryresults showed that the appropriated conditions for the growth of Gloeostereum incarnatum are: (1)culture medium:glucose 3%; protein peoptne 0.2%; soybeancake power 1% yeast power 0.3%; KH2PO40.05%; MgSO4 0.03%; CaCO3 0.01%; vitamin Bl 0.001%; befor sterilization pH Value of six should be maintained; (2) temperature; 27f ~28f ; (3) time; about 200 hours; (4) ventilation; (30%∼50%)/min. The sigh of the end culture are: pH coming down about 4: remnant glucoses less 1%; amino nitrogens about 20%; time about eight days. In the aforementioned conditions, the output of fermentative product achieve to 2.5∼3g/L.