Freesia is one of the most popular flowers over the world including Korea, due to the fragrance and beauty of the plant flower. The first domestic freesia cultivar ‘Shiny Gold’ was developed by NIHHS, RDA, in 2003, which has yellow double and large petals and strong fragrance. Ten years have passed since ‘Shiny Gold’ was cultivated at floral farms, and the deterioration of cut flower quality and yield are reported from the farms. Virus infection causes a reduction in the quantity and quality of the cut freesia flowers and is one of the most serious problems in Korea. Virus detection was carried by reverse transcription polymer chain reaction (RT-PCR) for FreMV, FreSV, BYMV, CMV, and TRV, as known to infect freesia. FreMV, FreSV, BYMV, and TRV were detected single or multiply, and CMV was not found in the freesia leaves collected from the farms. To produce virus-free freesia, meristem culture of ‘Shiny Gold’ was conducted in MS medium added ribavirin at different concentration. As the increased of ribavirin concentration, the growth of ‘Shiny Gold’ plantlets was inhibited in freesia’Shiny Gold’. The plantlets produced by meristem culture in ‘Shiny Gold’ were virus free at the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) level.

Agastache rugosa, a member of the mint family (Labiatae), is a perennial herb widely distributed in East Asian countries. It is used in traditional medicine for the treatment of cholera, vomiting, and miasma. This study assessed the genetic diversity and population structures on 65 accessions of Korean mint A. rugosa germplasm based on inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. The selected nine ISSR primers produced reproducible polymorphic banding patterns. In total, 126 bands were scored; 119 (94.4%) were polymorphic. The number of bands generated per primer varied from 7 to 18. A minimum of seven bands was generated by primer 874, while a maximum of 18 bands was generated by the primer 844. Six primers (815, 826, 835, 844, 868, and 874) generated 100% polymorphic bands. This was supported by other parameters such as total gene diversity (HT) values, which ranged from 0.112 to 0.330 with a mean of 0.218. The effective number of alleles (NE) ranged from 1.174 to 1.486 with a mean value of 1.351. Nei's genetic diversity (H) mean value was 0.218, and Shannon's information index (I) mean value was 0.343. The high values for total gene diversity, effective number of alleles, Nei's genetic diversity, and Shannon's information index indicated substantial variations within the population. Cluster analysis showed characteristic grouping, which is not in accordance with their geographical affiliation. The implications of the results of this study in developing a strategy for the conservation and breeding of A. rugosa and other medicinal plant germplasm are discussed.

Manganese () is a trace element that is essential for normal physiology, and is predominantly obtained from food. Several lines of evidence, however, demonstrated that overexposure to exerts serious neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity and developmental toxicity, particularly in male. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of 0, 1.0, 3.3, and 10 mg/kg/day doses of on the reproductive organs in the immature female rats. Rats (PND 22; S.D. strain) were exposed to () dissolved in drinking water for 2 weeks. The animals were sacrificed on PND 35, then the tissues were immediately removed and weighed. Histological studies were performed using the uteri tissue samples. Serum LH and FSH levels were measured with the specific ELISA kits. Body weights of the experimental group animals were not significantly different from those of control group animals. However, ovarian tissue weights in 1 mg and 3.3 mg dose groups were significantly lower than those of control animals (p<0.05 and p<0.01, respectively). Uterine tissue weights of 3.3 mg dose groups were significantly lower than those of control animals (p<0.01), while the 1 mg dose and 10 mg dose failed to induce any change in uterine weight. Similarly, only 3.3 mg dose could induce the significant decrease in the oviduct weight compared to the control group (p<0.05). Non-reproductive tissues such as adrenal and kidney failed to respond to all doses of exposure. The uterine histology revealed that the exposure could affect the myometrial cell proliferation particularly in 3.3 mg dose and 10mg dose group. Serum FSH levels were significantly decreased in 1mg dose and 10 mg groups (p<0.05 and p<0.01, respectively). In contrast, treatment with 1 mg dose induced a significant increment of serum LH level (p<0.05). The present study demonstrated that exposure is capable of inducing abnormal development of reproductive tissues, at least to some extent, and altered gonadotropin secretions in immature female rats. Combined with the well-defined actions of this metal on GnRH and prolactin secretion, one can suggest the might be a potential environmental mediator which is involved in the female pubertal process.

Fusarium head blight (FHB), also known as scab, caused mainly by Fusarium graminearum is a devastating disease of wheat in regions that are warm and humid during flowering. In addition to significant yield and quality losses, the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol produced by the pathogen in infected wheat kernels is a serious problem for food and feed safety. Twenty- three Korean cultivars and "Sumai 3", which is a FHB-resistant Chinese cultivar were tested for Type I, Type II resistances of FHB. Three cultivars were identified as resistant in Type I assessment, and two cultivars were resistant in Type II assessment. Genetic variation and relationship among the cultivars were evaluated on the basis of 11 Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) and 29 Sequence Tagged Site (STS) markers that were linked to FHB resistance Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) on chromosome 3BS. One SSR and 7 STS markers detected polymorphisms. Especially, using a STS marker (XSTS3B-57), 32.4% of the variation for Type II FHB resistance could be explained. Genetic relationship among Korean wheat cultivars was generally consistent with their released year. These markers on chromosome 3BS have the potential for accelerating the development of Korean wheat cultivars with improved Fusarium head blight resistance through the use of marker-assisted selection.

The composition and distribution of seed storage proteins are important factors for eating quality such as grain flavor and quality in rice (OryzasativaL.) Rice protein disulfide isomerase (OsPDI) and binding protein (OsBIP) regulate synthesis, stability and sorting of storage proteins. We thus have tried to develop a marker protein for selection of rice cultivars which have different eating quality. Immunoblot analysis revealed that protein levels of OsPDI and OsBIP have no direct correlation with eating quality, suggesting that they may indirectly participate in control of eating quality through their-interacting partners or other regulatory mechanism.

Most vacuolar proteins are synthesized on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) as a proprotein precursor and then transported to vacuoles. In vacuoles, they are converted into the respective mature form. TaVPE1 and TaVPE2 were isolated from the cDNA library that was prepared from the wheat kernels at 16 and 18 days after fertilization (DAF). Additionally, putative TaVPEs (TaVPE3, TaVPE4) were isolated by inverse PCR (IPCR) using GrainGenes database. Each open reading frame (ORF) encodes 495, 497, 495, 456 amino acids, respectively. TaVPEs were closely related in respect to peptide comparisons and their sequence homologies were ranged from 84% to 93%. The TaVPE genes showed various expression patterns in response to exogenous treatment of phytohormones. The transcript of TaVPE1 was detected slightly and steadily after exposure to all phytohormones and the accumulation of TaVPE2 transcript was increased from 24 hours in NaCl treatment. The transcript of TaVPE3 was increased from 48 hours in response to H2O2 and decreased after exogenous application of ABA and salicylic acid. In case of TaVPE4, the transcript of TaVPE4 were weakly detected all time points of each phytohormone treatment.

Two important loci, designated Rhg1 and Rhg4, are responsible for most resistance to soybean cyst nematode (SCN). The objective of this study was to survey single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and to map the SCN-resistant gene, Rhg4, on soybean genetic ma