Background : Native oak tree species dominated the deciduous forests of South Korea. The acorns of them represent the main food source for wildlife species as well as human being, and they have 28 species. We analyzed and compared to the antioxidants including total phenolics and functional nutrients components among the acorns of nine kinds of oak trees (Quercus acutissima, Q. aliena, Q. mongolica, Q. variabilis, Q. serrata, Q, palustris, Q. rubra, Q. glauca, and Q. acuta). Methods and Results : Acorns were collected from each tree species, which were grown in a seed orchard. Contents of both total phenolic content (TPC) in acorns of Q. serrata were higher than others. Interestingly, Q. serrata contained the highest amount of water soluble tannins and the lowest levels of water insoluble tannins among 9 oak species, resulting that acorns of Q. serrata had the lowest proportion of insoluble tannins. Among 9 oak species tested, Q. aliena acorns contained the highest levels of total flavonoids content (TFC). Conclusion : Our result showed that nutritional composition of acorns was significantly different between oak species, indicating that tastes or nutritional values might be different as well among major oak species in Korea.

Rice bran has been reckoned as a potential source of edible oil contained 15-20 % of oil, in its natural state, also contains several constituents of potential significance in diet and health. Interest has focused primarily upon gamma-oryzanol, tocotrienols, and tocopherols, all of which demonstrate antioxidant properties. We analyzed the transcriptome profiles for rice grain from high and low oil content lines at the early milky stage using the Illumina sequencing method. This analysis indicated that many transcripts showed different expressions level between high and low oil content rice. The functional classification of those genes indicated their connection with various metabolic pathways, oil transport, signal transduction, transcriptional regulation, and other processes. The results obtained here will enable to understand how changes in oil concentration or availability are interpreted into adaptive responses in early milky stage of rice. Based on the functional annotation of the differentially expressed genes, the possible processes that regulate these expressed transcripts in rice grain was further analyzed. The candidate transcripts may provide genetic resources that may be useful in the improvement of oil contents of rice.

Iron is an essential mineral found in every cell of the human body to make the oxygen-carrying proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin. More than 2 billion people face Fe deficiency. Rice can be a potentially valuable source to supplement that mineral since it is staple food for two-thirds of the world’s population. To bring the nutritional level of the milled product up to that of the whole grain (brown), rice should be enriched with thiamin, niacin and iron. Also iron has important role that absorption from the photosynthetic cells proceeds, chlorophyll synthesis and the growth process of the plant. Orthologous genes, which are homologous genes that diverged after a speciation event, generally maintain a similar function in different species. We applied a McDonald-Kreitman Test (MKT) to examine more than 10,000 orthologous genes between rice (Oryza sativa) and Brachypodium (outgroup) based on different phenotypic groups. This analysis was undertaken to find fast evolutionary genes in rice iron uptake. Three groups were separated based on the phenotype and each group was examined with the outgroup for MKT. Fast evolutionary genes that have a positive selection with FDR ≤ 0.05 were detected at each groups. Annotation of these genes were conducted and the predicted functions were also discussed here. And also, the association study between the candidate gene related to iron uptake phenotype was performed. These results support that using this orthologous based method, we may find some important candidate genes underlying the ion uptake in rice.

Zinc (Zn) deficiency is one of the important abiotic factors limiting rice productivity world-wide and also a widespread nutritional disorder affecting human health. Zinc is one of the most important essential micronutrient for human About thirty percentage world’s population doesn’t still get enough zinc through their diets. As a staple food of over half world’s population, rice should take the responsibility to provide much more zinc in the future. We analyzed the transcriptome profiles for rice grain from high zinc content and low zinc content lines at the early milky stage using the Illumina Sequencing method. The analysis results for the sequencing data indicated that many transcripts showed different expressions between high zinc content and low zinc content in early milky stage of rice and RT-qPCR analyses confirmed the expression patterns of selected transcripts. Functional analysis of the differentially expressed transcripts indicated that genes have functional annotation and their functions are mainly involved in oxidation-reduction, metabolic, transport , transcript regulation, defense response and photosynthetic processes. Based on the functional annotation of the differentially expressed genes, the possible process that regulates these differentially expressed transcripts in rice grain responding to Zinc at the early milky stage was further analyzed. The functional classification of those genes indicated their connection with various metabolic pathways, Zinc transport, signal transduction, transcriptional regulation, and other processes related to growth and development in early milky stage of rice. Using Illumina sequencing technology, the differences between the transcriptomes of high zinc content and low zinc content lines the early milky stage was described here for the first time. The candidate transcripts may provide genetic resources that may be useful in the improvement of Zinc concentration of rice. The model proposed here is based on differences in expression and transcription between two rice lines. In addition, the model may support future studies on the molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to Zinc.

The chloroplast (cp) is an organelle with its own genome encoding a number of cp-specific components. The membrane-bound organelles are mainly involved in the photosynthetic conversion of atmospheric CO2 into carbohydrates in which light energy is stored as chemical energy. Resequencing technology via next-generation sequencing has recently been successfully applied which results the field of cp genome characterization is growing fast. Here, we report the complete sequence of the chloroplast genome of Capsicum frutescens, a species of chili pepper. The total length of the genome is 156,817 bp, and the overall GC content is 37.7%. A pair of 51,584-bp inverted repeats (IRs) is separated by a small (17,853 bp) and a large (87,380 bp) single-copy region. The C. frutescens chloroplast genome encodes 103 unique genes, including 79 protein-coding genes, 20 tRNA genes, and four rRNA genes. Of these, 19 genes are duplicated in the IRs and 18 genes contain one or two introns. Comparative analysis with reference cp genome revealed 125 simple sequence repeat (SSR) motif and 34 variants, mostly located in the non-coding regions. These microsatellite markers will facilitate the studies of genetic diversity, population genetic structure, and sustainable conservation for C. frutescens.

Chloroplast (cp) genome sequences provide a valuable source for DNA barcoding. Molecular phylogenetic studies have concentrated on DNA sequencing of conserved gene loci. However, this approach is time consuming and more difficult to implement when gene organization differs among species. Here we report the complete re-sequencing of the cp genome of Capsicum pepper (Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum) using the Illumina platform. The total length of the cp genome is 156,817 bp with a 37.7% overall GC content. A pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 50,284 bp were separated by a small single copy (SSC; 18,948 bp) and a large single copy (LSC; 87,446 bp). The number of cp genes in C. annuum var. glabriusculum is the same as that in other Capsicum species. Variations in the lengths of LSC, SSC and IR regions were the main contributors to the size variation in the cp genome of this species. A total of 125 simple sequence repeat (SSR) and 48 insertions or deletions variants were found by sequence alignment of Capsicum cp genome. These findings provide a foundation for further investigation of cp genome evolution in Capsicum and other higher plants.

Rice germplasm collections continue to grow in number and size around the world. Since maintaining and screening such massive resources remain as a great challenge, it is important to establish piratical ways to manage them. A core collection, by definition, refers to a subset of entire population but preserves most of the possible genetic diversity, enhancing the efficiency for germplasm utilizations. Here we reports the whole genome resequencing of the 137 Korean rice core set (KRICE_CORE) that represents 25,604 rice germplasms deposited in Korean genebank of Rural Development Administration (RDA). We implemented the Illumna HiSeq 2000 and 2500 platform to produce short reads and then assembled those with 9.8x depth using Nipponbare as a reference. Comparisons of the sequences with the reference genome yield more than 15 million(M) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 1.3M insertion/deletion (INDELs). Phylogenetic and population analyses using 2,046,529 high quality SNPs successfully assigned each rice accessions to the relevant subgroups, suggesting those SNPs comprehensively capture evolutionary signatures accumulated in rice subpopulations. Furthermore, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for 4 exemplary agronomic traits from the KRIC_CORE manifest the utility of KRICE_CORE, identifying previously defined gene or novel genetic polymorphisms that potentially regulate the important phenotypes. This study provides strong evidences that the size of KRICE_CORE is small but contains such a high genetic and functional diversity across the genome. Thus those resequencing results will be useful for future breeding, functional and evolutionary studies in the post-genomic era.