Transgenic potatoes expressing glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPD), isolated from the oyster mushroom, Pleurotus sajor-caju, had increased tolerance to salt stress (Jeong et al. 2001). To examine the physiological mechanisms enhancing salt tolerance in GPD transgenic rice plants, the salt tolerance of five GPD transgenic rice lines (T1–T5) derived from Dongjin rice cultivar was tested in a fixed 150-mM saline environment in comparison to two known wild-type rice cultivars, Dongjin (salt sensitive) and Pokali (salt tolerant). Transgenic lines T2, T3, and T5 showed a substantial increase in biomass and relative water content compared to Dongjin. Stomatal conductance and osmotic potential were higher in the GPD transgenic lines and were similar to those in Pokali. The results are discussed based on the comparative physiological response of GPD transgenic lines with those of the salt-sensitive and salt-tolerant rice cultivars.

As one of the most important crop, rice is not only a staple food of half world’s population but a wonderful model plant, which has been leading the evolution and functional genomics study. The next-generation sequencing technology are expediting rice genomic study, by providing a simple but powerful way. In this study, we re-sequenced a core collection of 137 rice accessions from all over the world along with 158 Korean breeding varieties. Finally, 6.3G uniquely mapped reads were obtained, and about 10 million SNPs and ~1.2 million InDels were identified with average sequencing depth of 7.5X. These will help us to maximize our germplasm utilization and assists all the deep research in population dynamics and functional studies. Here, we’d like to show the approaches applied to resequencing data mining and on-going activities.

OsLPS is pollen specific gene that express at late stage of pollen development in rice. Based on microarray database, promoter region of two genes Os03g0106900 and Os03g0106500 were identified. The sequence of 2287bp and 2468bp upstream region of these genes were amplified and designated as OsLPS10 and OsLPS11. These promoters were fused with GUS-GFP reporter gene in a destination vector, pKGWFS7 and introduced into rice (Dongjin cultivar) and Arabidopsis (Col-0). The results of GUS assay showed different pattern of gene expression in pollen of rice and Arabidopsis. In Arabidopsis, the OsLPS10 gene strongly activated in young anther and not expressed in mature pollen. Pollen development analysis revealed GUS expression was detected at unicellular stage and strongest at the bicellular pollen developmental stage. No GUS signal was recorded in mature pollen. In case of OsLPS11, no GUS signal was detected in during pollen development of inflorescent. By contrast, in rice, the GUS expression pattern of OsLPS10 and OsLPS11 exhibited similar. GUS expression was first detectable in the anthers of spikelets at the bicellular stage and intensity increased in tricellular and mature pollen. The GUS signal was not detected in the anthers in unicellular microspores in both genes, OsLPS10 and OsLPS11. The results suggested that these genes were different activity in heterologous plant system, monocot and dicot. Complementation analysis and Cis-regulatory elements will be examined to illuminate the characteristic of these genes

Based on the results of microarray analysis we selected ten candidate genes that express in pollen at the early pollen developmental stage. By PCR amplification, the promoter region of these genes were amplified from rice genomic DNA (Nipponbare) and cloned into the destination pKGWFS7 vector via an entry vector, pDONR201. The characteristic of promoters were evaluated in Arabidopsis thaliana (Col-0) through GUS expression analysis. Fifty T2 plants respectively from each promoter were tested. Whole inflorescence of individual plant was stained with 1mM X-Gluc solution to observe tissue-specific GUS expression patterns. The results showed that all 10 promoters activated in pollen tissues. Among them six promoters expressed at the early developmental stage (unicellular) of pollen and the others expressed at both early (unicellular) and late pollen developmental stage (mature pollen). The results indicated that these promoters would be potential applicable for the studies of pollen function. Currently, we are performing these promoters analysis in rice transgenic plants as well as molecular characterization.

Bakanae disease is one of the most serious and oldest problems of rice production, which was first described in 1828 in Japan (Ito and Kimura 1931). This disease may infect rice plants from the pre-emergence stage to the mature stage, with severe infection of rice seeds resulting poor germination or withering (Iqbal et al. 2011). Under favorable environmental conditions, infected plants have the capacity to produce numerous conidia that subsequently infect proximate healthy plants, resulting in major yield loss (Ou 1985). One hundred sixty nine NILs, YR28297 (BC6F4) generated by five backcrosses of Shingwang with the genetic background of susceptible japonica variety, Ilpum were used for QTL analysis. Rice bakanae disease pathogen, CF283, was mainly used in this study and inoculation and evaluation of bakanae disease was performed with the method of the large-scale screening method developed by Kim et al. (2014). A major QTL for resistance against bakanae disease on chromosome 1 was identified using SSR marker, RM9, which explaining 65 % of the total phenotype variation. The major QTL designated as qBK1 and mapped to a 4.4 Mbp region between RM24 (19.30 Mb) and RM11295 (23.72 Mb). The results of this study are expected to provide useful information toward developing resistant rice lines to this detrimental fungal disease.

A sugary mutant with low total starch and high sugar content was compared with its wild type Sindongjin for grain-filling caryopses. In the present study, developing seeds of Sindongjin and sugary mutant from the 11th day after flowering (DAF) were subjected to RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). A total of 30,385 and 32,243 genes were identified in Sindongjin and sugary mutant. Transcriptomic changes analysis showed that 7,713 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (log2 Fold change ≥1, false discovery rate (FDR) ≤ 0.001) were identified based on our RNA-Seq data, with 7,239 genes up-regulated and 474 down-regulated in the sugary mutant. A large number of DEGs were found related to metabolic, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, plant-pathogen interaction, plant hormone signal transduction and starch/sugar metabolism. Detailed pathway dissection and quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR) demonstrated that most genes involved in sucrose to starch synthesis are up-regulated, whereas the expression of the ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase small subunit (OsAGPS2b) catalyzing the first committed step of starch biosynthesis was specifically inhibited during the grain-filling stage in sugary mutant. Further analysis suggested that the OsAGPS2b is a considerable candidate gene responsible for phenotype of sugary mutant.

“Sooan”, a winter wheat(Triticum aestivum L.) cultivar was developed by the National Institute of Crop Science, RDA. It was derived from the cross “Keumkang/Eunpa//Keumkang” during 1997. “Sooan” was evaluated as “Iksan319” in advance yield trial test in 2006. It was tested in the regional yield trial test between 2007 and 2009. “Sooan” is an awned, semi-dwarf and hard winter wheat, similar to “Keumkang” (check cultivar). The heading and maturing date of “Sooan” were similar to “Keumkang”. “Sooan” had similar test weight (817 g/L) and lower 1,000-grain weigh (43.7g) than “Keumkang” (817 g/L and 46.2g, respectively). “Sooan” showed resistance to winter hardiness and pre-harvest sprouting, which lower withering rate on the low ridge (0.2%) and rate of pre-harvest sprouting (0.2%) than “Keumkang” (9.2 and 25.8%, respectively). “Sooan” showed lower protein content (12.7%), SDS-sedimentation volume (42.0ml) and gluten content (10.5%) than “Keumkang” (13.1%, 57.8ml and 10.8%, respectively). It showed higher lightness (90.08) and lower redness (-1.11) and yellowness (8.80) in flour color than “Keumkang” (89.81, -1.15 and 9.46, respectively). “Sooan” showed higher lightness (81.34) of noodle dough sheet than “Keumkang” (80.28). “Sooan” exhibited lower hardness (3.84N) and similar springiness and cohesiveness of cooked noodles (0.91 and 0.65) compared to “Keumkang” (4.54N, 0.93, and 0.63, respectively). Average yield of “Sooan” in the regional adaptation yield trial test was 5.94 MT/ha in upland and 5.63 MT/ha in paddy field, which was 3% and 8% higher than those of “Keumkang” (579 MT/ha and 520 MT/ha, respectively).

“Joongmo2003”, a winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivar was developed by the National Institute of Crop Science, RDA. It was derived from the cross “SW86054/Keumkang” during 1997. “Joongmo2003” was evaluated as “Iksan318” in advance yield trial test in 2006. It was tested in the regional yield trial test between 2007 and 2009. Its heading date was April 24 in upland and April 21 in paddy filed conditions, which were two days earlier than those of the check cultivar Keumkang, respectively, and Maturing date was June 4 in upland and June 2 in paddy field, one or two days earlier than those of Keumkang, respectively. “Joongmo2003” showed resistance to winter hardiness and pre-harvest sprouting, which lower withering rate on the low ridge (0.3%) and rate of pre-harvest sprouting (18.5%) than “Keumkang” (9.2 and 25.8%, respectively).“Joongmo2003” showed similar protein content (13.2%), lower SDS-sedimentation volume (54.0ml) and higher gluten content (11.7%) than “Keumkang” (13.1%, 57.8ml and 10.8%, respectively). It showed higher lightness (89.85) of flour and noodle dough sheet than “Keumkang” (89.81 and 80.28, respectively). “Joongmo2003” exhibited similar hardness (3.84), springiness and cohesiveness of cooked noodles (0.92 and 0.63) compared to “Keumkang” (4.54N, 0.93, and 0.63, respectively). The average grain yield in the regional yield trial was 5.55MT/ha in upland and 4.85 MT/ha in paddy field, which were 4% and 7% lower than those of the check cultivar, Keumkang, respectively.

“Joongmo2004”, a winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivar was developed by the National Institute of Crop Science, RDA. It was derived from the cross “Bacanora88/Keumkang//Keumkang” during 1996. “Joongmo2004” was evaluated as “Iksan320” in advance yield trial test in 2006. It was tested in the regional yield trial test between 2007 and 2009. Its heading date was April 26 in upland and April 23 in paddy filed conditions, and Maturing date was June 5 in upland and June 4 in paddy field, which were similar to Keumkang, respectively. It showed 830 in number of spikes per m2, 35 of grain number per spike, 44.9g of 1,000 grain weight, and 806g of test weight. “Joongmo2004” showed moderate to Fusarium head blight (Scab) in test of specific character although “Keumkang” is susceptible to scab. “Joongmo2004” had higher flour yield (75.5%) than “Keumkang” (72.5% and 0.42%, respectively). “Joongmo2004” showed similar ash (0.42%), lower protein content (12.3%), SDS-sedimentation volume (43.0ml) and gluten content (10.3%) than “Keumkang” (0.42%, 13.1%, 57.8ml and 10.8%, respectively). It showed higher lightness (89.97), redness (-1.38) and yellowness (10.76) in flour color than “Keumkang” (89.61, -1.15 and 9.46, respectively). “Joongmo2004” exhibited lower hardness (3.50N), similar springiness and higher cohesiveness of cooked noodles (0.92 and 0.65) compared to “Keumkang” (4.54N, 0.93, and 0.63, respectively). The average grain yield in the regional yield trial was 5.17MT/ha in upland and 5.34 MT/ha in paddy field, which were lower 11% and higher 3% than those of the check cultivar, Keumkang, respectively.

“Joongmo2012”, a winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivar was developed by the National Institute of Crop Science, RDA. It was derived from the cross “Sinmichal/Keumkang” during 2006. “Joongmo2012” was evaluated as “Iksan357” in advance yield trial test in 2010. It was tested in the regional yield trial test between 2011 and 2013. Its heading date was May 2 in upland and May 1 in paddy filed conditions, and Maturing date was June 8 in upland and June 8 in paddy field, which were similar to Keumkang, respectively. It showed 628 in number of spikes per m2, 34 of grain number per spike, 47.6g of 1,000 grain weight, and 762g of test weight. “Joongmo2012” showed susceptible to Fusarium head blight (Scab) in test of specific character although “Keumkang” is susceptible to scab. “Joongmo2012” had lower flour yield (68.4%) than “Keumkang” (73.5%, respectively). “Joongmo2012” showed similar ash (0.40%), lower protein content (11.7%), SDSsedimentation volume (39.8ml) and gluten content (8.1%) than “Keumkang” (0.41%, 12.7%, 55.8ml and 9.2%, respectively). It showed higher lightness (92.70) in flour color than “Keumkang” (91.51, respectively). “Joongmo2012” exhibited lower hardness (3.19N), similar springiness and higher cohesiveness of cooked noodles (0.90 and 0.66) compared to “Keumkang” (4.21N, 0.90, and 0.62, respectively). The average grain yield in the regional yield trial was 5.48MT/ha in upland and 4.47 MT/ha in paddy field, which were higher 5% and similar than those of the check cultivar, Keumkang, respectively

Bakanae disease incidence threat is an increasing trend in the top rice growing countries. Despite it is essential to identify the resistant genes and underlying mechanisms of bakanae disease to develop resistant varieties, there are very limited genetic studies on bakanae disease in rice. The indica rice variety Shingwang was selected as resistant donor to bakanae disease. One hundred sixty nine NILs, YR28297 (BC6F4) generated by five backcrosses of Shingwang with the genetic background of susceptible japonica variety, Ilpum were used for QTL analysis. Rice bakanae disease pathogen, CF283, was mainly used in this study and inoculation and evaluation of bakanae disease was performed with the method of the large-scale screening method developed by Kim et al. (2014). The proportion of healthy plants of Shingwang and Ilpum after inoculation was confirmed using bakanae disease pathogen, CF283. While inoculated Ilpum showed thin and yellowish-green phenotype which is typical symptom of Bakanae disease, Shingwang showed similar healthy phenotype with control plants. A major QTL for resistance against bakanae disease on chromosome 1 was identified using SSR marker, RM9, which explaining 65 % of the total phenotype variation. The major QTL designated as qBK1 and mapped to a 4.4 Mbp region between RM24 (19.30 Mb) and RM11295 (23.72 Mb). The information of qBK1 could be useful for improving rice bakanae disease resistance in marker-assisted breeding.

Prevalence of the coronary artery anomaly is approximately 1% of the population who undergo coronary angiography. The anomalous origin of the right coronary artery (RCA) as a branch of the left anterior descending artery (LAD) is a very rare variation of single coronary artery. The anatomic variation has no clinical significance. However, some patterns of congenital coronary artery anomalies can cause clinical manifestations of myocardial ischemia, reducing myocardial perfusion. We report on a case of a 78-year-old man who had anomalous RCA arising from the proximal part of the LAD, which probably caused chest pain.

As the combination of technique and art, environmental facilities have the function to improve the image of urban green space. Among these facilities, some can be designed and arranged reasonably. But to the facilities of sewage, electricity and sanitation and so on, are usually ignored and become the blemish in the green space. Based on the analysis of the status, taking the design of well cover of sewage as an example, the landscape approaches are discussed from form, material, color and artistic technique and so on.

This study explores Korean learners' knowledge of adverb positions in L2 English. A questionnaire of 28 items, constructed based on Ernst's (2002) scope-based theory of adverb positions, was administered to 56 Korean university students and 17 native English speakers. The data analysis revealed the following: 1) The Korean students' knowledge of adverb placement diverged from that of the native speakers in several aspects, possibly due to L1 influence or limited L2 proficiency. 2) Scope reversal errors incurred by incorrect adverb placement were relatively frequent in the learners' responses, with the low and mid proficiency groups exhibiting higher error rates. 3) The scope of manner adverbs was observed to be acquired before that of clausal adverbs, and speech act adverbs before evaluative and subject-oriented adverbs. 4) L1 influence was manifested in the avoidance of the s-final position for manner adverbs and in the interruption of the verb and object by an adverb. The status of the Interface Hypothesis in L2 acquisition (Sorace & Filiaci, 2006) was discussed in light of the results.

The THO/TREX complex mediates the transport of nascent mRNAs from the nucleus towards the cytoplasm in animals, and it has a role in small RNA-dependent processes in plants. Here we describe five mutant alleles of Arabidopsis thaliana THO2, whichencodes a core subunit of the plant THO/TREX complex. tho2 mutants present strong developmental defects resembling those in plants compromised in microRNA (miRNA) activity. In agreement, not only the levels of siRNAs, but also of mature miRNAs were reduced in tho2 mutants. As a consequence miRNA target mRNAs accumulated to higher levels than in wild type. Yeast two hybrid experiments showed that THO2 does not seem to interact with any of the known miRNA biogenesis components, implying a more indirect role of THOs in small RNA biogenesis. We also detected alterations in the splicing pattern of genes encoding Serine/Arginine-rich proteins in tho2 mutants, suggesting a previously unappreciated role of the THO/TREX complex in alternative splicing.

A male gametophyte, or pollen develops in the anther, and its development plays an important male reproductive process in flowering plants. A properly designed transgene construct can help to tailor transgene expression in plants by altering the expression strength, timing, and location. In this process, the promoter plays a pivotal role in controlling transgene expression. In this research, the promoter regions of rice anther/pollen-specific genes, named as OsMSP1 to OsMSP11,were selected from the microarray data sets covering 4 developmental stage of male gametophyte and then used for the construction of vector by Gateway cloning method and transformed into rice and Arabidopsis. All 11 promoters in rice and 9 in Arabidopsis were displayed as anther/pollen-specific/preferential genes by GUS assay and RT-PCR analysis. Three out of 11 promoters showed consistent results with published data. In this study, we demonstrated on eight new anther/pollen-specific or -preferential promoters (OsMSP1, OsMSP2, OsMSP3, OsMSP4, OsMSP5, OsMSP6, OsMSP8, and OsMSP9, which have not been reported before. Although the expression pattern of different genes active in pollen grains is diverse and complex, these experimental results would be helpful to understand the molecular mechanism of regulatory elements in rice microspore/pollen-specific genes.

Amaranths (Amaranthus sp.) are cosmopolitan and include grain, vegetable, ornamental and weed types. Forteen simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to analyze the genetic diversity of 59 accessions of cultivated amaranth from Asian countries. A total of 63 alleles were detected with an average of 4.5 per locus. The averaged values of gene diversity and polymorphism information content (PIC) were 0.35 and 0.33, respectively. Alleles per locus in accessions from South Asia was 4.35, whereas 2.93 and 3.79 alleles per locus were found in Nepal and India, respectively. The mean gene diversity in Central Asia and East Asia was 0.36 and 0.28, respectively, whereas the mean PIC values were 0.27 and 0.22, respectively. The genetic diversity and PIC of the India amaranths were higher than that of other Asian countries. The model-based structure analysis revealed the presence of three subpopulations, which was basically consistent with clustering based on genetic distance. An AMOVA analysis showed that the between-population component of genetic variance was less than 56.16% in contrast to 43.84% for the within-population component. The overall FST value was 0.56, reflecting genetic differentiation within Asian amaranths. These findings could be used for designing effective breeding programs aimed at broadening the genetic bases of commercially grown varieties.

Understanding salt tolerance mechanisms is important for the increase of crop yields, and so, several screening approaches were developed to identify plant genes which are involved in salt tolerance of plants. Here, we transformed the Arabidopsis cDNA library into a salt-sensitive calcineurin (CaN)-deficient (cnbD) yeast mutant and isolated the colonies which can suppress salt-sensitive phenotype of cnbD mutant. Through this functional complementation screen, a total of 34 colonies functionally suppressed the salt-sensitive phenotype of cnbD yeast cells, and sequencing analysis revealed that these are 9 genes, including CaS, AtSUMO1 and AtHB-12. Among these genes, the ectopic expression of CaS gene increased salt tolerance in yeast, and CaS transcript was up-regulated under high salinity conditions. CaS-antisense transgenic plants showed reduced root elongation under 100 mM NaCl treatment compared to the wild type plant, which survived under 150 mM NaCl treatment, whereas CaS-antisense transgenic plant leaves turned yellow under 150 mM NaCl treatment. These results indicate that the expression of CaS gene is important for stress tolerance in yeast and plants.

Development of transgenic plant increasing crop yield or disease resistance is good way to solve the world food shortage. However, the persistence of marker genes in crops leads to serious public concerns about the safety of transgenic crops. In the present study, we developed marker-free transgenic rice inserted high molecular-weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS) gene (Dx5) from the Korean wheat cultivar ‘Jokyeong’ using Agrobacterium-mediated co-transformation method. The Dx5’s own promoter was used for protein expression. Two expression cassettes comprised of separate DNA fragments containing only the Dx5 and hygromycin resistance (HPTII) genes were introduced separately into Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA105 strain for co-infection. Each EHA105 strain harboring Dx5 or HPTII was infected into rice calli at a 3: 1 ratio of EHA105 with Dx5 gene and EHA105 with HPTII gene expressing cassette. Then, among 270 hygromycin-resistant transformants, we obtained 27 transgenic lines inserted with both the Dx5 and HPTII genes into the rice genome. We reconfirmed integration of the Dx5 gene into the rice genome by Southern blot analysis. Wheat Dx5 transcripts in T1 rice seeds were examined with semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Protein expression of the Dx5 was analyzed with Western blot using polyclonal antibody recognising x-type of glutenin subunits in T1 seeds. It was suggested that the protein-processing system was conserved between rice and wheat. Finally, the marker-free plants containing only the Dx5 gene were successfully screened at the T1 generation.