Plant breeding is based on understanding genetics and mechanical systems to improve crop production. During the last century, conventional plant breeding, mostly based in the evaluation at the phenotypic level, had been successful in increasing crop yields. Within the last two decades there has been significant crop improvement due to the application of molecular genetics and genomics to improve efficiency and accuracy in plant breeding. One of the key global challenges of the 21st century is the production of enough food for an ever increasing world population. Agricultural productivity needs to be increased while addressing the issues of scarcity of arable land and water, impact of changing climate and preservation of natural resources. Improvement of crop yields on limited agricultural resources requires concerted efforts using scientific and technological advances in multiple disciplines. Multidisciplinary approaches are being conducted to enhance crop improvement and meet resource needs. This session will address new plant breeding paradigms through the integration of multiple perspectives. The paradigm shift has occurred through the integration of five key components for crop improvement: 1) continued improvement of genomic tools, 2) information technology including open source data, 3) advanced analytical methods such as mathematical modeling and simulation, 4) adaption of non-crop information, and 5) increased importance of breeding operation enhancement.

Crop produce comes from seeds. It is important to have elite seeds for cultivation and harvesting. There are two major types of seeds in the seed market: F1 hybrid seeds and open-pollinated seeds (OP, traditionally pollinated). Farmers in developed countries plant F1 hybrid in most cases, while farmers in developing countries plant mainly OP. In fact, 60-70% of seeds planted in India and China are OP because OP is significantly cheaper. There are several reasons why the seed industry is important. First is for global food security. Based on the fact that the global population continues to increase steadily, additional productivity of 70% will be required to feed the global population by the year 2050. Second, seeds were traditionally used as food, both fresh and feed, but have now become materials for future industries of medicine, pharmaceutics, functional foods, energy, and may other applications. Third, new breeding programs based on biotechnology have changed the seed market dramatically. These programs are highly competitive and indeed play a major role, not only in the reduction of breeding time, the development of various genetic sources, the enhancement of purity and cost-saving, but also for the selection of value-added varieties. In Korea, F1 breeding began 65 years ago and the breeding programs for several vegetables and rice are in the top class worldwide. In addition, for the first time in 1999, a private seed company in Korea employed biotechnology for the purpose of crop breeding to develop platform technologies that could be utilized in the breeding practice. The major achievement so far is the development of DNA markers associated with resistance to disease, tolerance to the environment, and functional aspects. The application of genotyping has made many services possible, such as the purity control of F1 and inbred lines, variety verification, MAS (marker assisted selection), and MAB (marker assisted backcrossing). In addition, cell fusion and DH technologies have helped breeders to solve breeding limitations. There have been many cases of successful crop transformations, however, no GM varieties have been successfully commercialized in Korea. I bet this is inevitable, though. And it should be, because Korea imports lots of GM products, equivalent to $3 billion every year. More seed production and higher crop quality require new R&D strategies for breeding practices in the seed industry. Thanks to genomics information with big data and anti-GMO policies, new technologies are on the horizon, including genomic breeding, genome editing, in silico breeding and NBT (new plant breeding technology). I am going to talk more about the direction and strategy of R&D for crop breeding.

The size of the global seed market and the volume of seed trading have rapidly increased in the 21st century where the total market size by 2012 was approximately 45 billion USD, of which 79% were field crops, 17% were vegetables and 4% were forage and turf. While the volume of the trade and the market as a whole expanded, the share of the market also changed as the top 9 largest seed companies controlled 62% of the market in 2012 as opposed to just 17% in 1996. As for the regional status of the market size, North America and Asia-Pacific regions had 69% of the total market worth in 2014. The changes in the seed market led to various adjustments in the seed trading regulations where the protective behaviors of major players affected the entire market. Asia Seed Co., Ltd. is a vegetable seed company founded in 1992 and is thriving each year in exporting new hybrid vegetable seeds to clients around the world. As a second mover to the saturated market that is dominated by a few companies with large shares, the company has set up four major strategies to compete in the global market. First and the most important strategy is to increase investment in R&D portion and strengthen it. In most types of businesses, investing in R&D is the key to success. Especially in the vegetable seed industry, the competitiveness of a company is decided by the variety of its seeds that result from the R&D department. The second strategy is the localization and incorporation of the company. Globally, vegetable crops vary while the domestic Korean varieties are not even known in other countries. To overcome this problem, it is important to open branches and subsidiaries to enter the market with local types of varieties that will appeal to customers and farmers. In relationship to R&D investment, Asia Seed Co., Ltd. has already set up a breeding system in India and keep expanding to other nations as well. The third strategy is to develop new materials for both the niche market and new possibilities. The last strategy is to have manpower training system that is required in all other industries. In order to assess the performance of our hybrid seeds, trained managers will need to travel and visit plots to acquire the results of trial and offer instructions when they are not satisfactory. Moreover, it is essential for collecting genetic materials from around the globe in order to develop better hybrids for the future of the company. Seed exporting, while difficult, can be a charming and lucrative business. With enthusiasm in dealing with challenges and opportunities, I will contribute more ideas and know-hows on how the company deals with those choices and possibilities.

Plant development represents a balance between phenotypic stability and plasticity in response to genetic and environmental perturbations. This balance was termed canalization - the property of a developmental process of being to some extent modifiable but to some extent resistant to modification. In light of global climatic changes and the need to maintain our current crop productivity rates we aim to better understand the factors that regulate phenotypic canalization. We explored the pattern of canalization of 16 “homologous” traits in 31 varieties of tomato, pepper, eggplant, melon, watermelon, sunflower and maize. We found remarkable similarity in trait canalization patterns where those associated with reproduction and yield were plastic and the rest were consistently stable in all crops. For a particular genotype the highest variation was found for seed number produced per plant while single seed weight was the most stable trait for all entries. These conserved ancestral canalization patterns in higher plants indicated that tomato is as good a system as any to investigate the genetic basis of canalization. Meta analysis of 20 years of “historic” tomato data which is publically available via ‘Phenome Networks’ led to the identification of a number of quantitative trait loci (QTL) of Solanum pennellii origin that affected yield stability. In some hybrids heterosis was shown to be a factor that induced yield stability, an observation that is well documented in modern agriculture. Validation of the effect of these historic QTL was done using a new experimental design that generates multiple estimates of the coefficient of variation of traits as well as their reaction norms in optimal and water stress environments. For example, the introgression line IL10-2-2 did not affect mean yield but doubled its stability in three years of consecutive trials as well as in fine mapping analysis. This 2 Mbp genomic segment is the first QTL identified for yield stability in any plant and we hope that further studies of stable and plastic genotypes will allow us to address the long-standing question of the genetic basis of Waddindton’s theory of canalization.

Next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies provide a fast and easy way to understand the plant genomes, transcriptomes, regulatory elements and their interactions. About a decade ago, rice was the only crop that whole genome sequence information was publicly available but today many agricultural crops including maize, soybean, tomato, potato, cotton have been sequenced and many more will be available. Moreover newly developed method such as Genotyping-By-Sequencing (GBS) allows efficiently collecting sequence information from hundreds of individuals in population to identify genetic variations, detect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and develop molecular markers. Coupled with high-throughput phenotyping, the accumulated genomic information will be effectively utilized in crop improvement by genomics-assisted breeding, genome-wide association mapping (GWAS) and genomic selection (GS). Rice is one of the important staple crops providing daily nutrition to more than a half of the world population. The genus Oryza consists of 23 species including two domesticated rice and it has been classified into 10 distinct genome types, represented by six diploids (A, B, C, E, F, and G) and four allotetraploids (BBCC, CCDD, HHJJ, and HHKK). It shows wide ranges of phenotypic variations to biotic and abiotic stress thus is considered a genetic reservoir of unique allelic variation for rice improvement. International collaborative efforts have been focused on generating the Oryza genomics resources including reference genome, transcriptome, smallRNAs, methylome and resequencing of many accessions to collect genetic variations and better understand the 15 MY evolution of Oryza. The Oryza genomic resources will be a backbone to layer various omics data to catalogue more genetic variations within and between Oryza species and the untapped genetic diversities existing in wild Oryza species will be finally translated to crop improvement.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of non-coding RNAs approximately 21-nt in length which play important roles in regulating gene expression in plants. Although many miRNA studies have focused on a few model plants, miRNAs and their target genes remain largely unknown in hot pepper (Capsicum annuum), one of the most important crops cultivated worldwide. We here employed high-throughput sequencing to comprehensively identify small RNAs and their targets in pepper. From these, we identified several novel targets of miRNAs, including the major de novo methylation enzyme involved in RNA-directed DNA methylation in plants. Furthermore, we identified several highly abundant 22-nt miRNA families that target conserved domains in NB-LRRs. We showed that transient co-expression of the miRNA with NB-LRRs, resulted in the attenuation of the hypersenstive responses in Nicotiana benthamiana, suggesting that interaction between miRNA family and disease resistance proteins is likely to serve as a conserved trigger for defense mechanism in Solanaceae. This work provides the first reliable draft of the small RNA transcriptome in pepper that offers an expanded picture of miRNAs in relation to NB-LRR regulation, providing a basis for understanding the functional roles of miRNAs in disease resistance.

Genome editing that allows targeted mutagenesis in higher eukaryotic cells and organisms is broadly useful in biology, biotechnology, and medicine. We have developed zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and Cas9 RNA-guided engineered nucleases (RGENs), derived from the type II CRISPR/Cas prokaryotic adaptive immune system, to cleave chromosomal DNA in a targeted manner, producing DNA double-strand breaks in cells, the repair of which via endogenous systems gives rise to targeted genome modifications. The Cas9 protein, when complexed with small guide RNAs (sgRNAs), recognizes and cleaves target DNA sequences complementary to the guide RNAs in vivo, inducing targeted genome modifications at high frequencies in cultured cells and whole organisms. Despite broad interest in RNA-guided genome editing, RGENs are limited by off-target mutations. Here, we show that off-target effects of RGENs can be reduced below the detection limits of deep sequencing by choosing unique target sequences in the genome and modifying both guide RNA and Cas9. Furthermore, we deliver purified recombinant Cas9 protein complexed with sgRNAs (RGEN ribonucleoproteins (RNPs)) to animal embryos and cultured human cells including hard-to-transfect pluripotent stem cells to achieve highly efficient RNA-guided genome editing in cells and whole organisms. RGEN RNPs cleave chromosomal DNA almost immediately after delivery and are degraded rapidly in cells, reducing off-target effects and mosaicism.

The world population is projected to reach to 9.6 billion people by 2050. With increasing population and improving living standards, the demand for food is accelerating. In order to meet increasing demand for food while the arable land and other resources are decreasing, agriculture needs all the tools available to sustainably increase crop yields. Development of effective GM traits to protect crops from abiotic and biotic stressors is a critical aspect of sustainable yield improvement. Efficient identification of traits and rapid integration of the traits into commercial elite germplasm requires robust and rapid traits testing. Monsanto have developed numerous high-throughput phenotyping platforms to support rapid trait identification and integration. Selected phenotyping platforms will be reviewed to gain understanding on how they are utilized for trait phenotyping.

Many spectral imaging technologies are available to nondestructive means to assess plant status including abiotic and biotic stress conditions. In recent years, ARS has developed various sensing and instrumentation technologies for agricultural applications. These include hyperspectral imaging for visible/near-infrared (NIR) reflectance and fluorescence imaging, and multispectral laser-induced fluorescence imaging. Hyperspectral imagery is a fusion of imaging and traditional spectroscopy. We recently expanded the hyperspectral capabilities to include rapid macro-scale Raman chemical imaging. The current state of the art of imaging technologies and their potential applications for characterization of the plant status are presented.

Fusarium wilt (FW), caused by the soil-borne fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum is a serious disease in cruciferous plants, including the radish (Raphanus sativus). To identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) or gene(s) conferring resistance to FW, we constructed a genetic map of R. sativus using an F2 mapping population derived by crossing the inbred lines ‘835’ (susceptible) and ‘B2’ (resistant). A total of 220 markers distributed in 9 linkage groups (LGs) were mapped in the Raphanus genome, covering a distance of 1041.5 cM with an average distance between adjacent markers of 4.7 cM. Comparative analysis of the R. sativus genome with that of Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica rapa revealed 21 and 22 conserved syntenic regions, respectively. QTL mapping detected a total of 8 loci conferring FW resistance that were distributed on 4 LGs, namely, 2, 3, 6, and 7 of the Raphanus genome. Of the detected QTL, 3 QTLs (2 on LG 3 and 1 on LG 7) were constitutively detected throughout the 2-years experiment. QTL analysis of LG 3, flanked by ACMP0609 and cnu_mBRPGM0085, showed a comparatively higher logarithm of the odds (LOD) value and percentage of phenotypic variation. Synteny analysis using the linked markers to this QTL showed homology to A. thaliana chromosome 3, which contains disease-resistance gene clusters, suggesting conservation of resistance genes between them.

Blackleg disease caused by Leptosphaeria maculans, is the most devastating disease of Brassica germplam worldwide that causes million tonnes of crop losses per year throughout the world. To date, a total of 12 race-specific resistance genes of Brassica napus to L. maculans have been reported but linkage mapping analysis reveals that all of those loci are located in A genome i.e., in B. rapa chromosomes. B. oleracea has high ancestral synteny with B. rapa through their evolution. We believe that presence of qualitative resistance is possible in B. oleracea germplasm. The present study was therefore planned to find out any race-specific qualitative resistance gene present in C genome of B. oleracea. A total of 16 microsatellite markers were used which are linked to seven different Rlm and Lep genes of B. napus to screen 32 inbred lines of cabbage. Primers were designed based on homology assessment in corresponding nucleotide sequence available in Bolbase (a B. oleracea genome database, http://www.ocri-genomics.org/bolbase/index.html), located in B. oleracea scaffolds/chromosomes. Out of 16 SSR markers, 13 were found polymorphic which indicates possible existence of resistant genes in cabbage lines. The inbred lines are then assessed against two L. maculans stains with known avirulent genes. Some inbred lines were hypersensitive against gene-specific virulent strains of L. maculans that confirmed existence of Rlm1, Rlm2, Rlm4, LepR3 and LepR4 in the cabbage lines. In this way we were able to select out resistant and susceptible lines against each resistant gene. The gene-specific polymorphic SSR marker regions were cloned and sequenced and candidate SNPs were identified for confirmation of their functionality.

Onion and other Allium vegetables have been valued since antiquity for their pungent flavor and aroma. Modern science has confirmed traditional benefits that the organosulfur compounds that impart flavor also confer significant human health benefits such as reduced blood clotting and antimicrobial properties. Glucose, fructose and sucrose comprises majority of onion bulb dry matter content. The sugars, pyruvic acid accumulation and transcript level of some transcription factors involved in the biosynthesis of high sugars and pyruvic acid. These profiles were compared with two different lines 36101 (early) and 36122(Late) of bulb onion (Allium cepa L.) growing under drought and photoperiod condition using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Quantitative real time PCR using FT genes. We identified the gene AcFT4 was responsible for early and late bulb intiation in the onion lines. The cultivar lines 36101and 36122 were used to identify potential genes controlling pungency and sugar. The comparative analysis of two lines showed significant positive phenotypic and genetic correlations. Sugar and pungency profile showed significant difference between two lines. FT gene expression and pungency level was high in onion lines during drought stress. In this study, we proposed the biochemical characterization of two line and genes involved in the bulb formation were also studied. There is a correlation between sugars and pungency level during the drought stress. These results could be presumably used as useful information to obtain onion varieties rich in sugars and pungency.

The TIFY family is composed of a plant-specific group of genes with diversity of functions. This family represents four subfamily of proteins viz. ZML, TIFY, PPD and JASMONATE ZIM-domain (JAZ) proteins. TIFY proteins especially, JAZ proteins have been reported to perform different biological processes, such as developmental and stresses and hormone responses in Arabidopsis and rice. However, there is no information about this family genes in Brassicaceae. This study identifies 36 TIFY genes in Brassica rapa, an economically important crop species from this family. An extensive in silico analysis through phylogenetic grouping, protein motif organization and intron-exon distribution also confirmed 4 subfamilies of BrTIFY proteins. Out of 35 BrTIFY genes, we identified 21 under JAZ subfamily besides 7 TIFY, 6 ZML and 2 PPD. An extensive expression profiling of 21 BrTIFY JAZs both in tissues and organs of B. rapa revealed differential expression patterns. Almost all the BrTIFY JAZs predominantly expressed in leaves and flower buds. Besides, in a flower stage specific expression analysis we observed 14 BrTIFY JAZs with constitutive expression patterns. This indicates BrTIFY proteins have a strong involvement in the development of B. rapa flowers. Our protein interaction study also reveals the strong association of these proteins with the fertility and defense processes of B. rapa. To elucidate the stress responsiveness of BrTIFY genes, we analyzed the low temperature-treated whole-genome microarray data set and found almost all the BrTIFY JAZs were having variable transcript abundance in two contrasting inbred lines of B. rapa. Subsequently, all 21 BrTIFY JAZs were validated in response to cold stress in the same two lines via qPCR, where 9 genes were found to show up- regulation. And, a high and differential qPCR expression pattern of all the BrTIFY JAZs was also recorded against JA. Additionally, BrTIFY JAZs were tested against salt, drought, Fusarium, ABA and SA treatments and a considerable number of genes were found to be induced. The extensive annotation and transcriptome profiling reported in this study will be useful for understanding the involvement of TIFY genes in stress resistance and different developmental functions, which ultimately provides the basis for functional characterization and exploitation of the candidate genes for genetic engineering of B. rapa.

Bulb onion (Allium cepa) is one of the second most widely cultivated and consumed vegetable crops in the world. During winter where the temperature can be as low, plant could get cold injury and limit the production of bulb onion. However, the genomic resources available for bulb onion are still very limited. To date, no studies about heritably durable cold and freezing tolerance were carried out in bulb onion genotypes using high-throughput sequencing technology was applied. We sequenced cold (2°C) freezing (-5 and -15°C) treated and control (25°C) samples of contrasting genotypes of A. cepa lines and obtained 4,52,194,370 total high quality reads. After de novo assembly reads were assembled into 54,047 genes finally generated with an average length of 1,331 bp. Based on the similarity search aligning all genes with known public non-redundant (NR) database, including Swiss-prot, KEGG and COG. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were investigated using FPKM method. Overall, 92,862 genes were differentially regulated in all libraries were identified. Additionally, increase our understanding of the DEGs, we performed GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses. Based on FDR<=0.01 value in cold freezing tolerant line candidate genes were selected and discussed. Finally 25 candidate genes were examined using qRT-PCR were differentially regulated and known to be associated with cold and freezing stresses. Moreover, in silico prediction of putative molecular marker 4,437 SSRs and 6,076 SNPs. Our study is the first to provide the transcriptome sequence resource of Allium spp., for cold and freezing stress. We identified large set of genes to determine its DEGs profile under cold and freezing condition using two different genotypes. These data provides a valuable resource of genetic and genomic studies of Allium spp.

Anthocyanins are responsible for vivid colors of flowers, fruits and vegetative tissues and biosynthesis of it is primarily controlled by several structural and regulatory genes. The regulatory mechanism of this pathway is still unknown. This study identified 19 transcription factors of Brassica rapa and investigated their regulatory function in anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway genes and cold and/or freezing tolerance in B. rapa. Expression analysis of these genes in the pigmented and non-pigmented portion of leaves of different lines of B. rapa revealed that BrMYB2-2 and BrTT8 showed responses contrasting with anthocyanin accumulation and cold stress. Sequences of these genes were analyzed and compared with similar gene sequences from other species and a high degree of homology with their respective functions was found. Co-regulated cis -elements were found in promoters of BrPAL1, BrCHS, BrF3H1, BrF3’H1, BrFLS, BrBAN, BrDFR8, BrANS1, and BrMYB2-2 and BrTT8 had binding sites of the promoters of those structural genes. Thus, the above results suggest the association of BrMYB2-2 and BrTT8 with regulation of anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway genes and cold and freezing stress tolerance and might be useful resources for development of cold resistant Brassica crops with desirable colors as well.

The depletion of stratospheric ozone has resulted in increased amount of ultraviolet-B radiation (UV-B: 280-320 nm) reaching the Earth’s surface and could cause significant biological effect in plants. In this study, putative quantitative trait loci (QTL), which is responsible to UV-B resistance in soybean, was identified using recently developed high-density 180K Axiom SoyaSNP genotyping array. A population of 115 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a cross between susceptible Keunolkong and resistant Iksan 10 was analyzed. A total 8,970 polymorphic SNP markers were used to construct linkage map. The both parents and RILs were grown with supplemental UV-B radiation in a greenhouse condition. Three categories of UV-B induced morphological damage, degree of leaf chlorosis, leaf shape change, and total plant damage were evaluated. Using composite interval mapping analysis, one major QTL associated with all of the phenotypic traits was detected on 7.7cM of soybean chromosome 7 with 22 of LOD score accounting for about 60% of phenotypic variance. Also, the allele from Iksan 10 were responsible for the UV-B resistance. Thus, the UV-B resistance QTL on chromosome 7 from Iksan 10 was designated to qUVBR1, corresponding to 30kb on the Williams 82 genome assembly (Glyma2.0) including 7 candidate genes. This result could be useful in breeding for new foxglove aphid resistant soybean cultivars. In addition, these results provided useful information not only for marker-assisted selection for UV-B resistance soybean, but also for the future identification of putative candidate genes, responsible for UV-B resistance in soybean.

The number of spikelets per panicle in rice is determined by characters of the panicle such as the number of primary branches (PB) and secondary branches (SB) and panicle length (PL). It is a quantitative traits controlled by several genes. In this study, the nucleotide polymorphism and haplotype diversity of coding region of genes related to number of spikelets per panicle (SPP), including APO1, APO2, FON1, DEP1, GN1a, GHD8, HD1, and SP1, were analyzed using 45 varieties which showed significant phenotypic variations for PL, PB, SB and SPP. Significant correlations were observed among all the panicle traits. A total of 151 polymorphisms, including 114 SNPs and 26 indels were detected in coding region of 8 genes which constructed 52 haplotypes. Neutrality tests revealed that population subdivision event or balancing selection occurred in locus of APO2, FON1, and HD1 whereas no significant deviation from neutrality was detected in the other genes, suggesting a neutral evolution. Based on the results of GLM association analysis, 34 polymorphic sites in 6 genes were significantly related with the 4 panicle related-traits.

Seed weight (SW), often expressed as 100-seed weight (HSW), is an important yield component in soybean and has been found to show positive correlation with seed yield. It is shown to behave as a quantitative trait controlled by many loci that are largely unclear. In this study, we represent the identification of chromosomal regions controlling the seed weight in soybean. We used a Recombinant Inbred Line (RIL) population, consisting of 188 lines derived from a cross of a wild soybean PI483463 (HSW: 0.85g) and a cultivated soybean cultivar Hutcheson (HSW: 14.05g) to identify the chromosomal regions controlling the SW trait. The population, along with parental samples and check, William82 (HSW: 21.2g) was grown for four years and phenotype data was recorded postharvest. A total of 535 SNP and 16 SSR markers, polymorphic between the parents were employed to genotype the RILs using Golden gate assay to develop the linkage map. Whole genome QTL scanning identified a total of 17 QTLs, spanning 10 chromosomes for the 100-seed weight. All these QTLs explained phenotypic variation (PV) in the range of 3.77 to 12.33%. Of the 17 QTLs, 2 QTLs qSWA1-1 and qSWD2-1, found to be the consistent QTLs, expressing in all the four environments. The QTL qSWD2-1 explained highest contribution to the total PV with 10.04 -12.23 %. The remaining 15 QTLs were identified in at least one environment with PV ranging up to 10.39%. The findings from this study will provide useful information to understand the genetic and molecular basis of SW and facilitate further genomic research leading to the yield improvements in soybean.

Plants strictly regulate the uptake and distribution of Zinc (Zn), which is essential for growth and development. Arabidopsis thaliana plant cadmium resistance 2 (AtPCR2), a protein containing a placenta-specific 8 domain (PLAC8), is specifically expressed in the vascular tissue and epidermis of roots and is thought to act as a Zn efflux transporter (Song et al. 2010). Proteins containing PLAC8 domain function as major organ size regulators in Solanum lycopersicum and Zea may, and putative metal ion transporters in Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza sativa and Brassica juncea. But, there are no reports which showed that the protein containing PALC8 have the function both of seed size regulation and metal homeostasis. In our study, we found that plant cadmium resistance 1 (PCR1) influences on both Zn accumulation and grain weight in rice. The expression of OsPCR1 is elevated in developing seeds of introgression line for GW2, which encodes a protein known to regulate grain weight. Grain weight of OsPCR1 knockout and knockdown lines decreased than the wild type, while OsPCR1 overexpression lines produced heavier grains. Furthermore, the grains of OsPCR1 knockdown lines exhibited substantially higher Zn and lower Cd concentrations than the control. We identified some variation in the OsPCR1 amino acid sequence between the japonica and indica rice types using 15 different rice varieties. Japonica-type PCR1 had a shorter N-terminus than did PCR1 in the other rice types. Furthermore, japonica-type grains accumulated less Zn than did indica-type grains. Our study suggests that rice PCR1 maintains metal ion homeostasis and grain weight and might have been selected for during domestication.

초롱꽃과 더덕속 식물인 더덕과 만삼의 종자 발아 특성 조사로 종자입모율 향상을 위한 재배기술 개발의 기초 자료로 활용하고자 온도별 종자발아실험, 식물생장조정제 처리 효과구명, 종자 보관에 따른 발아율 등을 조사하였다. 실험에 사용한 재료중 더덕 종자는 강원도 농업기술원 산채연구소에서 2013년 가을에 채종한 종자를 분양 받아 사용하였고, 만삼 종자는 강원도 정선 재배농가에서 2013년 가을에 채종한 종자를 분양 받아 풍선법으로 정선한 후 종자봉투에 봉입 후 실험실(20℃)에 두어 실험할 때마다 꺼내어 사용하였다. 저온처리 온도는 5℃의 냉장고를 사용하여 1주, 2주, 4주간 저온처리 후 각각 20, 25, 30℃의 항온조건으로 옮겨 매일 발아 상태를 조사하였다. 발아 촉진 목적으로 사용된 식물생장조정제는 3종으로 GA3는 정량 후 증류수에 넣어 교반하여 사용하였고, BAP와 키네틴은 용액 상태로 구입하여 시험 농도로 희석하여 사용하였다. 온도별 발아시험 결과 더덕은 20℃에서, 만삼은 15℃에서 각각 89%의 높은 발아율을 보였으며 30℃에서 더덕은 27%, 만삼은 2%의 낮은 발아율을 보였다. 5℃의 조건에서 더덕은 2주간, 만삼은 4주간 처리 후에 20, 25, 30℃에서 평균 발아율이 향상되었다. 더덕은 저온처리 기간에 배의 발달이 있었고 저온처리기간과 배의 발달과는 고도로 유의한 정의 상관관계가 있었다. 더덕과 만삼은 고온일수록 발아율이 저하되는 경향이 있었다. 만삼에서 GA3 처리농도와 발아율은 고도로 유의한 정의 상관관계를 보였다. 2주간 저온 처리 후 500ppm 복합처리에서 95%의 높은 발아율을 나타내었다. 그러나 더덕은 GA3 처리 후 발아율이 증가되지 않았다. 더덕, 만삼 종자에 사이토키닌 처리에서 처리농도와 발아율과는 고도로 유의한 부의 상관관계를 보였고 발아가 전혀 되지 않는 경우도 있었다. 더덕과 만삼 종자는 상온에서 1년간 보관 후 발아율이 크게 하락하였으나 저온냉장고에서 1년간 보관 후 더덕과 만삼의 발아율은 각각 75%, 79%로 높았다.