Ricinus communis, belongs to the family Euphorbiaceae, has been known as medicinal plants for treatment of inflammation, tumors, antidiabetic, hepatoprotective and laxative. Compared to many pharmacological studies, the effect of R. communis extract on regulating adipogenesis as therapeutic drug for treating obesity has not been reported. R. communis extract (RCE) was investigated to determine its effects on the adipogenesis by monitoring the status of Wnt/β-catenin signaling and factors involving the differentiation of adipocytes. The differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells monitored by Oil Red O staining was inhibited in concentration dependent manner by RCE. The luciferase activity of HEK 293-TOP cells containing pTOPFlash with Tcf4 response element-luciferase gene was increased approximately 2-folds by the treatment of RCE at concentrations of 100 μg/mL compared to the control. Activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway by RCE was further confirmed by immunocytochemical analysis which shows an increment of nuclear localization of β-catenin. In addition, safety of RCE was verified through performing neural stem cell morphology assay. Among the identified flavonoids in RCE, isoquercitrin was the most abundant. Therefore, these results indicate that the adipocyte differentiation was significantly reduced by isoquercitrin in R. communis. In this study, RCE suppresses the adipogenesis of 3T3-L1 cells via the activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling.

Background : Recently, ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer.) berry has been used as a health-promoting supplements. Also, Mulberries (Morus alba L.) fruit have been used in traditional herbal medicine to treat and prevent diabetes. In this study, we measured the cytotoxicity after fermentation of the extracts in Panax Ginseng Berry and Mulberry Fruit. Methods and Results : The extracts were prepared by decoction for 3 hours in distilled water (100 g/L). The dried extract was then dissolved in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) in preparation for use. Cell viability was examined by an MTT assay. RAW 264.7 cells were seeded at 1 × 104/mL densities in 96-well plates. Each grouping had a non-treated group as the control. The extracts were added to each well and incubated for 24 hours at 37°C and 5% CO2. The MTT solutions (5 mg/mL) were added to each well, and the cells were cultured for another 2 hours. The supernatant was then discarded, and 100 μL of dimethyl sulfoxide was added to each well. The optical density was read at 540 nm. Conclusion : Probiotics and prebiotics modulate the composition of human and domestic animal gut microbiota. The beneficial effects may result from suppression of harmful microorganisms or stimulation of organisms which contribute in a positive way to the nutrition and health of human and domestic animal. Recently, fermentation using microorganisms for the production of more effective compounds has been extensively studied. In particular, the novel pharmacological effects of a new compound generated by fermentation have been reported. Some previous studies have demonstrated that Fermented herbal medicine extract showed better bioactivity than normal herbal Plants extract when used at the same concentration.

The appearance and physicochemical characteristics of a native jujube (called Yak jujube) and Bokjo jujube were compared in this study. Our results revealed that the native jujube had smaller size, lower hardness, and higher contents of sugar, crude protein, crude fat, crude ash, dietary fiber, and calcium contents, when compared to that of Bokjo jujube. Therefore, native jujube is softer and sweeter, with higher general nutrient content, despite being smaller than that of Bokjo jujube.

Although most natural disaster related studies conducted in Korea recently have been related to typhoons or severe rainstorms, the occurrence frequency of disasters due to windstorms or rainstorms is also high. To reduce the strong wind damage caused by strong windstorms due to climate change, basic studies of strong winds are necessary. Therefore, in this study, the types and representative cases of windstorms that were observed to have been higher than 14 m/s, which is the criterion for strong-wind warnings from the Korea Meteorological Administration, were selected from among those windstorm cases that occurred on the Korean Peninsula for 10 years to conduct a statistical analysis of them and determine their synoptic meteorological characteristics. The cases of windstorms occurring on the Korean Peninsula were divided into six weather patterns according to the locations of the anticyclones/cyclones. Among these types, the SH type, which occurs when Siberian Highs expand into the Korean Peninsula, showed the highest occurrence frequency, accounting for at least the majority of the entire occurrence frequency of windstorms together with that of the EC type, which occurs when cyclones develop on the East Sea, and there was no clear yearly trend of the occurrence frequencies of windstorms. The monthly occurrence frequencies of windstorms were formed mainly by typhoons in the summer and the Siberian Highs in the winter, and the months with the highest windstorm occurrence frequencies were December and January, in which mainly the SH and EC type windstorms occurred. March showed the next highest occurrence frequency with10 times, and SH windstorms occurred the most frequently in March, followed by the CC, SC, and EC types of windstorms, in order of precedence. Therefore, attention to these types of windstorms is required. Countermeasures against storm and flood damage in Korea targeting the summer should be re-reviewed together with pre-disaster prevention plans, because cases of storm and flood damage due to windstorms occur more frequently than those due to typhoons, and they occur throughout the year.

An important worldwide plant source of dietary protein and oil, modern breeding and improvement of soybean is suffered from a narrow cultivated germplasm relative to other crop species likely because of underuse of wild soybeans as breeding resources. SNP genotyping array is regarded as a promising tool for dissecting wild and cultivated germplasms to find important adaptive genes by high-density genetic mapping and genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Here, we present the establishment of a large soybean SNP array and its use for diversity analysis and high density linkage mapping. More than 4 million high-quality SNPs identified from 16 high-depth and 31 low-depth soybean genome resequencing data were used to select 180,961 SNPs for the AxiomÒ SoyaSNP array. Our validation analysis for a set of 222 diverse soybean lines showed that a total of 171,161markers were of good quality for genotyping. Of the converted SNPs, 82.6% 82.6% SNPs had a marker spacing of less than 9 kb and 17.4% SNPs greater than 9 kb with the 297 inter-SNP spacings of >100 kb and with 812 kb of the largest spacing, thereby suggesting that our array is likely suitable for GWAS of soybean germplasm. This array is being used to construct high-density genetic map in populations generated from intermatings of two cultivated and two wild soybeans, with an objective to confirm large structural variations of chromosomes using the ultra-high-density maps

The objective of this study was to evaluate grain appearance and cooked rice taste preferred by Africans for the rice ecotype of one Japonica variety, one Indica variety, and two varieties of Tongil type as compared with Korean’s preference. The preferred grain appearance by Africans who have participated as panelists was in the order of grain length, aroma, and shape, while Korean preferred rice quality in the order of appearance(head rice) and grain length. Africans preferred imported Indica rice from Thailand the most, while Korean preferred Japonica Haimi the most. Overall, African preferred aromatic rice with long grain, while Korean preferred short grain rice with high head rice ratio. In the evaluation of cooked rice taste, there was no significant statistical difference between varieties preferred by Africans. Whereas, Koreans showed clear preference in the order of Haiami > Dasan 1 = Hanareum > Indica rice. The preference analysis results of cooked rice taste subjected to Japonica and Indica which showed clear preference by Koreans revealed that Africans from Cameroon, DR Congo, and Tanzania preferred Haimai. Meanwhile, the Africans from Uganda, Mali, and Nigeria preferred imported Indica rice from Thailand. The Africans from Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, and Sudan showed similar preference among Japonica and Indica varieties. The study results indicated that Africans had different preference of cooked rice taste for eco-type rice varieties by different nations. It is regarded that additional research would be conducted to evaluate cooked rice taste by the appropriate numbers of panelists from various field and by the various rice varieties including rice variety preferred by different African countries.

Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] is one of the world’s most major crops as not only an important source of oil and protein, but also secondary metabolites. Intake of soybean is associated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis, as well as cancer, including breast and colon cancers. Seventy soybeans germplasms collected from 4 different countries, America (6 varieties), China (15 varieties), Japan (16 varieties), and Korea (33 varieties), were distributed by Chungbuk National University (Cheongju, Chungbuk, Korea) and cultivated in Konkuk University farm. This study investigated the isoflavones in seventy soybeans according to 4 different origins (America, China, Japan and Korea). Between 4 different origins, Korea showed highest concentrations of total isoflavones (1292.6 ± 438.6 ㎍ g-1) and China showed the lowest concentrations of total isoflavones (843.8 ± 365.7 ㎍ g-1). The total isoflavone contents in soybean of America and China ranged from 572.3 ㎍ g-1 to 2001.9 ㎍ g-1 and from 275.8 ㎍ g-1 to 1521.8 ㎍ g-1, respectively. And the isoflavone contents of Japan and Korea ranged from 473.3 ㎍ g-1 to 2314.6 ㎍ g-1 and from 419.0 ㎍ g-1 to 3010.7 ㎍ g-1, respectively. Malonylgenistin (356.9 ± 158.8 ㎍ g-1) was the major isoflavones among 12 isoflavones. Specially, glycoside and malonylglycosides constituted 49.2 % and 45.3 % of total isoflavones in soybeans, respectively.

The high temperature due to climate change may result in the intensification of several drought and heat stress on crops including potato. These abiotic stress affect on potato development staages; sprout development, tuber initiation and maturation. Potatoes need moderate amounts of nitrogen and cool night for good tuber growth. Especially, high temperature in soil will delay tuber initiation and induce malformation. Therefore, to identify quickly heat tolerant lines and breeding potato lines adapt to high temperature in the field are needed. The objectives of this study were as follows; To apply in vitro screening method for identifying potato lines adapted to high temperature conditions. To verify these results under field assays carried out under natural high temperature field conditions. We used in vitro screening methods with breeding lines from Intranational Potato Center(CIP) under three temperature regime, 18℃, 25℃ and 30℃. All breeding liens had some genotype that produced microtubers at 18℃ and 25℃, with a clear tendency for lower percentage of tuberization at the high temperature. To verify in vitro screening methods for heat tolerance lines, we carried out natural high temperature filed evaluation at Tacna, La Molina and Sanramon in Peru. The results of both the in vitro test and the field assay showed clear relationship and similar expression of tuberization percentage. This finding supports the use of the in vitro assay as a rapid screening methods that represents performance at the field level. But the correlation between performance of the breeding lines under the in vitro and field condions was low. This could be due to differential response to breeding lines to characteristics of the field environment, such as soil salinity, drought, which were not represented in the in vitro assay.

본 연구에서는 감태 효소 추출물과 그것의 폴리페놀 추출물의 화장품 원료로서의 효능을 알아보기 위하여 항산화, 항당화, 미백, 항염 효과와 관련된 실험을 실시하였다. 감태 효소 추출물과 폴리페놀 추출물은 강력한 라디컬 소거능을 가지고 있으며 BSA/Glucose 시스템에서 최종당화생성물의 형성을 저해하는 항당화 활성과 타이로시네이즈 저해를 통한 우수한 미백력을 가지고 있음을 확인하였다. 또한 두 추출물 모두 세포 내에서 PGE2와 NO 생성 저해를 통한 항염 효과를 나타내었다. 이러한 결과를 종합해 볼 때, 감태 효소 추출물과 그 폴리페놀추출물은 화장품 원료로서의 응용 가능성이 있을 것으로 사료된다.