Background: Static hamstring stretching exercises have been widely used to improve flexibility of the hamstring muscles. However, few studies have examined the influence of standing static hamstring stretching (e.g., jack-knife stretching) on movements of the lumbopelvic–hip complex. Objectives: To examine the short-term effects of jack-knife stretching on movements of the lumbopelvic–hip complex. Design: Case series. Methods: Fourteen participants with hamstring tightness (8 male, 6 female) were recruited. Participants performed jack-knife stretching for 150 s. Before and after stretching, participants performed the finger-to-floor distance (FFD), sit and reach (SRT), active knee extension (AKE), passive straight leg raising (PSLA), and active straight leg raising (ASLR) tests as well as pelvic tilt while standing to identify the effects of stretching. Results: There were significant improvements in the FFD, SRT, AKE, PSLA, and ASLR tests after stretching. However, pelvic tilt angle while standing did not significantly change. Conclusion: Jack-knife stretching can be a useful exercise to improve flexibility of the hamstring muscles, but not pelvic alignment while standing.

The occurrence of exotic weeds and their influx into farmlands due to climate change poses many problems. Therefore, it is necessary to generate a prediction model for the occurrence pattern of these exotic weeds based on scientific evidence and devise prevention measures. The photosynthetic apparatus is known as the most temperaturesensitive component of a plant cell and its initial response to temperature stress is to inhibit the activation of photosystem II. This study investigated the potential of OJIP transients in assessing temperature stress in exotic weeds. The four exotic weeds currently flowing into Korean farmlands include Amaranthus spinosus, Conyza bonariensis, Crassocephalum crepidioides, and Amaranthus viridis. These weeds were treated at 5°C, 10°C, 15°C, 20°C, 25°C, 30°C, 35°C, and 40°C and the OJIP curves and JIP parameters were measured and analyzed. The results showed that heat and chilling stress affected the photosystem II (PSII) electron transport of A. spinosus, whereas C. crepidioides and A. viridis were more affected by high-temperature stress than by low-temperature stress. Lastly, C. bonariensis showed resistance to both high and low-temperature stress. The results of this study suggest that OJIP transients and JIP parameters can be used to analyze damage to the photosynthetic apparatus by temperature stress and that they can serve as sensitive indicators for the occurrence pattern of exotic weeds.

The genus Petroderma never been reported from the coast of Korea. In this study, our collection from Chaeseokang is matched with P. maculiforme morphologically. Petroderma maculiforme is characterized by having small irregular light to dark brown crusts, a basal layer of irregularly shaped cells giving rise to erect parallel filaments which easily separate with pressure, single chromatophore per cell, small spherical to cylindrical unilocular sporangia in a terminal position, and plurilocular sporangia narrower than erect filaments or wider and shorter than erect filaments in a terminal position. In addition, Hineksia sordida was also collected from Korea. It is mostly epiphytic and characterized by uniseriate filamentous thalli forming loose tangled masses, sparse and spiral branching, some long lateral branches, rhizoids occurring throughout the plant, plurilocular and unilocular sporangia scattered on separate plants. Our molecular analyses based on the rbcL gene reveal that our samples of P. maculiforme and H. sordida are nested within the clades of Petroderma and Hincksia, respectively. Therefore P. maculiforme and H. sordida are reported as new records from Korea based on morphological and molecular analyses.

The congenital head anomalies are most often used to describe defects in the eyes, mouth, nose, skull, and or brain. The faulty embryogenesis most likely found to be associated with abnormal genetic or epigenetic causes during pregnancy. Eventually it leads to congenital anomalies. Rabbit-headed Lamb (RH) is a disorder in sheep breeding that is characterized by some deformities in the head and the face. A dead –day old- crossbred white Najdi lamb with a deformed face and head was reported to be born in the current case. The external and physical examination revealed a deformed skull and facial region with a unilateral eye, fused mouth, piglike nose, and patent skull with the brain coming out from left eye orbit. Additionally, the lamb was very skinny with unusual long extremities. This is the first report of this syndrome that describes such deformities in a stillbirth Najdi breed lamb.

Canine parvovirus (CPV) remains a leading infectious cause of death in canines, especially in young puppies. Though vaccination is being carried out regularly, immunization failures occur, and puppies may be exposed to infection. Virus-like particles (VLPs) act like a subunit vaccine, mimicking the structure of authentic viruses. Therefore, VLPs have the potential to be used as vaccine candidates. Since Viral Protein 2 (VP2), a major structural protein of CPV, is the crucial antigen for CPV, the purpose of this study was to produce a recombinant VP2 of new canine parvovirus-2a using the baculovirus expression system in SF9 insect cells. The results revealed that recombinant VP2 assembles to form VLPs with antigenic properties similar to those of natural CPV, the recombinant VLP can produce a hemagglutination assay (HA) titer (1:210) in SF9 cells. Expression of the recombinant 6-His-tagged VP2 in SF9 cells was confirmed by western blotting. These findings suggest that the recombinant VP2 expressed in this study could be used as an efficient subunit vaccine against CPV infection.

Porcine parvovirus 2 (PPV2) was recently detected in the Republic of Korea. This paper reports two near-complete genome sequences of PPV2 identified for the first time in the lung tissue of aborted pig fetuses.

Influenza A virus (IAV) causes respiratory disease in birds and mammals, including pigs and humans. Infection by IAV in pigs increases not only economic losses in the swine industry but also the emergence of novel IAV variants via gene reassortment, which is important due to the susceptibility of both birds and humans to IAV. This study provides serological data obtained during a study to detect IAV infections in pigs in the Republic of Korea during 2018 and 2019. A total of 1,559 samples were collected from 74 domestic pig farms. Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assays were performed using the A/Swine/Korea/25-13(H1N1), A/Swine/Korea/E102 (H1N2), and A/Swine/Korea/Cy10/2007 (H3N2) viruses as antigens. The HI assay results showed that 266 of the 1,559 samples were seropositive (17.0%). Among these, H1N1, H1N2, and H3N2 comprised 7.3% (114), 6.0% (93), and 8.8% (137) of the 1,559 samples, respectively. Co-infections of H1N1/H1N2, H1N1/H3N2, H1N2/H3N2 and H1N1/H1N2/H3N2 were observed in 2.1% (31), 1.5% (23), 1.5% (24), and 0.8% (13) of the 1,559 samples, respectively. Interestingly, IAV infections were detected in all nine provinces of the country.

In this study, antibody responses after vaccination against equine influenza were investigated among 1,591 horses in the Republic of Korea using the hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test. Equine influenza has not occurred since 2011 and a commercial vaccine against H3N8 has been used. The equine influenza virus, A/equine/South Africa/4/03 (H3N8), was used as the antigen in the HI assay. The mean seropositive rate was 90.5% in 2019. Except for stallion whose seropositive rate was 78.5%, all seropositive rates of other horse types were over 90%. Regionally, except for Gangwon-do and Jeju-do whose seropositive rates were 89.0% and 87.1%, all seropositive rates in other provinces were over 90%. In the future, more through vaccination against equine influenza needs to be done based on this investigation result.

Runt related transcription factors (RUNX), a family of well-known transcription factors, play key regulatory roles in diverse biological processes, such as proliferation, differentiation, and DNA repair. Of RUNX family, RUNX3 is the least well characterized of the three family members. Nevertheless, the role of RUNX3 as a key regulator in essential biological pathways has been reported and inactivation of RUNX3 leads to a variety of disease, such as cancer, via regulation of Wnt signaling and K-ras mutations in many mammalian tissues. Recent studies using RUNX3-deficient cells and mice revealed an association with hematopoiesis and hypersensitivity to granulocytecolony stimulating factor. Nevertheless, protein dynamics associated with RUNX3 remain poorly understood. In the present study, we performed a large-scale protein study from Runx3 knockout (KO) mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) using a stable isotope labeling by amino acids (SILAC)-based quantitative proteomics approach. The results showed that 67 proteins were significantly up and downregulated after Runx3 KO. Bioinformatic analyses that revealed that these proteins have diverse biological functions, such as substances transport and cellular structure. Thus, our results enhance our current understanding of the function of RUNX3 in mESCs and suggest potential roles for RUNX proteins in diverse diseases. Additionally, our results can be used as a database to help us understand the mechanism of action of RUNX3.