Antimicrobial peptides represent an essential alternative first line of defense. Naturally occurring molecules associated with the innate immune system in disease-bearing vectors such as mosquito, tick could be the target for searching more potent and effective agents to combat against the pathogens resistant to conventionally used antibiotics. Recently, we explored expression of a defensinlike peptide, longicin from the hard tick Haemaphysalis longicornis. Longicin and one of its synthetic partial analog (P4) displayed antimicrobial/fungicidal/parasiticidal activity and, therefore, proposed to be a chemotherapeutic compounds against tick-borne disease organisms. Structural characterization of antimicrobial peptides is very important to understand the peptide activity. In addition, harmful side effects such as lysis of red blood cells or cytotoxicity towards mammalian host cells commonly associated with antimicrobial peptides as potential therapeutic agent should also be elucidated. In this study, we analyzed some structural features using bioinformatics tool, CD Spectroscopy, and also determined cytolytic activity of P4 peptide. According to the chemicophysical characteristics, the P4 is suggested to be a cationic peptide with hydrophobic and amphipathic character. The predicted secondary structure indicated the existence of β-sheet which was also observed in modelled tertiary structure. CD spectroscopy results also revealed the existence of a β-sheet and changes of helical content in the presence of membrane-mimic condition. These structural observations on P4 suggest that the antimicrobial activity could be due to the well developed β-sheet. In addition, sequence homology search showed that antimicrobial molecule identified in other ticks and in organisms have the P4 analogous domain at their C-terminal, which indicates P4 as a conserved antimicrobial domain. The peptide P4 also showed less cytolytic activity against various cell lines or erythrocytes of various species. The data presented here strongly suggests that the peptide P4 could be developed as future therapeutic agent against tick-borne microorganisms.

The life cycle of ticks is characterized by alternate off-host and on-host conditions. The life span is estimated at several years and most ixodid ticks spend more than 95% of their life off the host. They seem to have a unique strategy to endure the off-host state for a long period. By electron microscopy, isolation membrane-, autophagosome- and autolysosome-like structures were found in the midgut epithelial cells of unfed ticks. Therefore, we focused on autophagy which is well-conserved from yeast to higher eukaryotes and induced by starvation. We have identified homologues of autophagy-related (ATG) genes (ATG3, ATG4 and ATG8) from cDNA libraries of the 3-host tick Haemaphysalis longicornis. Each expression profile of H. longicornis ATG (HlATG) genes and HlAtg proteins at the stages of nymph and adult were examined by real-time PCR and immunoblotting. Moreover, autophagy is known to be induced by inactivation of target of rapamycin (TOR), a phosphatidylinositol kinase. To examine the effect of TOR function on the expression of HlAtg protein(s), rapamycin, a specific inhibitor of the signal transduction mediated by TOR, was injected to unfed adults. It was revealed that the expression of HlAtg protein(s) was enhanced in response to the rapamycin. This result indicates that tick have the nutrient-sensitive TOR signaling pathway which regulate autophagy.

아가, 청자, 대원의 세 가지 콩 품종이 톱다리개미허리노린재의 발육과 생식이 미치는 영향을 실내에서 비교하였고, 또한 이 세 가지 품종 간에 야외 발생소장을 비교하였다. 실내 실험에서 약충의 발육기간은 아가, 청자, 대원콩에서 각각 평균 14.5, 14.0, 14.6일이였고, 약충의 사망률은 각각 40.0, 51.3, 55.7%였다. 발육기간에서는 통계적 차이가 없었지만, 사망률에서는 아가콩에서 유의하게 다른 두 품종보다 낮았다. 성충의 생식능력으로 7일 동안 암컷이 산란한 알의 총 개수의 평균은 각각 67.8, 68.0, 67.7개였으며 통계적 차이는 없었다. 야외조사는 안동시 풍산면 소재 친환경 인증 포장에서 아가, 청자, 대원을 각각 3반복의 라틴방각법으로 배치하여 재배하였다. 7월 13일부터 10일 간격으로 8회 동안 알, 약충, 성충의 수를 각 처리구에서 임의로 30주를 조사하였다. 조사기간 전체 동안 발생 수는 알의 개수가 아가, 청자, 대원콩에서 각각 평균 18.3, 23.0, 23.7개, 약충은 각각 평균 8.0, 11.3, 17.3마리, 성충은 각각 평균 7.3, 21.3, 15.7마리가 조사되었다. 톱다리개미허리노린재의 알과 약충에서는 통계적인 차이가 없었지만, 성충은 아가에서 가장 적게 발생하였다. 이상의 결과로 새로운 품종인 아가콩은 다른 두 품종에 비해 톱다리개미허리노린재의 유충 생존율을 높였지만 성충의 발생은 다른 두 품종에 비해 적음을 알 수 있었다.

Cellulose nanofibers from microfibril cellulose (MFC) was prepared by hydrobromic acid (HBr) treatment at different concentrations. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite films at various loading level of nanofibers were manufactured by a film casting method. The analysis of degree of polymerization (DP), crystallinity (Xc) and molecular weight (Mw) of cellulose after acid treatment was conducted. The mechanical and thermal properties of the cellulose nanofibers reinforced PVA films were characterized using tensile tests and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The DP and Mw of MFC by HBr hydrolysis considerably decreased, but Xc showed no significant change. After acid hydrolysis, the diameter of cellulose nanofibers was in the range of 100 to 200 nm. The thermal stability of the films was steadily improved with the increase of nanofiber loading. There was a significant increase in the tensile strength of PVA composite films with the increase in MFC loading. Finally, 5 wt.% nanofiber loading exhibited the highest tensile strength and thermal stability of PVA composite films.

We have demonstrated the feasibility of using electrospinning method to fabricate long and continuous composite nanofiber sheets of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) incorporated with zinc oxide (ZnO). Such PAN/ZnO composite nanofiber sheets represent an important step toward utilizing carbon nanofibers (CNFs) as materials to achieve remarkably enhanced physico-chemical properties. In an attempt to derive these advantages, we have used a variety of techniques such as field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) to obtain quantitative data on the materials. The CNFs produced are in the diameter range of 100 to 350 nm after carbonization at 1000℃. Electrical conductivity of the random CNFs was increased by increasing the concentration of ZnO. A dramatic improvement in porosity and specific surface area of the CNFs was a clear evidence of the novelty of the method used. This study indicated that the optimal ZnO concentration of 3 wt% is enough to produce CNFs having enhanced electrical and physico-chemical properties.

To detect exoplanets and study pulsation of K giant stars, we have observed precise RV (radial velocity) of about 55 early K giant (K0 - K4) stars brighter than V = 5 magnitude since 2003 by using BOES, a high resolution Echelle spectrograph attached to the 1.8 m telescope at BOAO (Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory). We detected periodic RV variation of KO III star β Gem (HD 62509) with a period P=596.6 ± 2.3 days and a semi-amplitude K=44.8 ± 0.7 ms-1 If we adopt 1.7 M⊙ for the mass of β Gem, this yields the minimum mass of the companion m sin i = 2.64 M Jupiter results agree well with Hatzes et al. (2006) and Reffert et al. (2006), and confirm their discovery of a planetary object around β Gem. We also confirmed about 192 minutes short period stellar oscillation found by Hatzes and Zechmeister (2007). This is the first report of exoplanet detection using BOES and demonstrates that the RV observation using BOES is accurate and stable enough to detect exoplanets around bright K giant stars.

Ooencyrtus nezarae Ishii (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) is a gregarious egg parasitoid of Riptortus clavatus Thunberg (Hemiptera: Alydidae) and also attack three other stink bugs in soybean fields. In a previous study the refrigerated R. clavatus eggs were supplemented in soybean fields and found to enhance the parasitism by Gryon japonicum (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae), a sympatric solitary parasitoid of R. clavatus, but not by O. nezarae. Therefore, the R. clavatus eggs refrigerated for 0, 15, 30, 60 and 120 days were evaluated for the parasitization by O. nezarae in the laboratory. The number of parasitized host eggs, number of adult parasitoids emerged, immature mortality, sex ratio, development time, adult longevity, and size of the parasitoids were examined for the parasitoids exposed to or emerged from the refrigerated host eggs. All the attributes examined were not affected by the refrigeration of host eggs for up to 60 days. In addition, refrigeration did not change the reproduction capacity of the emerged adult parasitoids nor the biological attributes of their offsprings. In the evaluation of post-refrigeration period of the host eggs, O. nezarae parasitized the eggs successfully for the first 4 days after the refrigeration at 26.3ºC and 78.7% RH conditions. Since O. nezarae can parasitize the eggs of R. clavatus that were refrigerated up to 60 days, the underlying reason for the no-change in parasitism by O. nezarae in the field supplemented with refrigerated host eggs is in further investigation.