Cave-dwelling springtail studies in Korea initiated during 1960s by the Japanese Collembola researcher, R. Yosii, and comprehensive taxonomic studies on Korean Collembola were conducted by B. H. Lee during 1970-1990s wherein the new family Gulgastruridae was established using the type species Gulgastrura reticulosa from the Gossidonggul cave in Gangwon-do, South Korea. Eight families of cave-dwelling Collembola are known in Korea, and the family Tomoceridae is the most abundant and diverse group of cave-dwelling Collembola with 11 known species belonging to 4 genera in Korea. In this study, 12 species of Korean Tomoceridae are reviewed, and 1 new species from the genus Plutomurus and 2 new species from the genus Tomocerus are described.

Background : Cucuma longa L., in the family Zingiberaceae, is distributed in tropical and/or sub-tropical regions mainly in India and China. This species is commonly called tumeric, powder is used as medicinal herbs and/or flavor enhancer. It has been cultivated in southern region mainly Jindo. However, it might be possible to extend cultivation region due to rise in average temperature. In order to select superior lines, agronomic characteristics is commonly used. Because this is not the ultimate solution, the DNA marker approach has benefited the modern plant breeding. Therefore an easy approach by using one kind of primer have been developed from random amplification of polymorphic DNA sequences (RAPD) to discriminate effectively between different cultivars of Cucuma species Methods and Results : DNAs were extracted from the harvested roots of Cucuma sp. using DNeasy plant Mini kit (Qiagen, Hilen, Germany). These plants cultivated from GARES (Hamyang) and used for PCR amplification. The relative concentration of the extracted DNA was estimated Nano Drop ND-1000 (NanoDrop Technologies, Wklmington, De, USA) and final DNA concentration was adjusted to 5.5 ng/㎕. In this study 9 primer pairs were tested on 8 Cucuma sp. These primers showed polymorphism in Cucuma sp. The cluster dendogram showed that the similarity coefficients ranged from 0.68 to 0.87, CUR02 turned out to be CUR11, and CUR16 is similar to CUR17. Conclusion : These finding could be used for further research on cultivar development by using molecular breeding techniques and for conservation of the genetic diversity of Cucuma species. These data on polymorphism difference based on RAPD will be give us invaluable breeding information by selection of superior lines.

Background : Yam absorbs nutrition and water through water absorptive root generated from head of rhizome. Round-shaped yam (RSY, Dioscorea opposita) and tropical round-shaped yam (TRSY, Dioscorea alata)are more sensitive to drought because of shorter head of rhizome and shallower root compared to long yam or short yam. This study was conducted to elucidate the effect of irrigation on RSY and TRSY yam at 205 in Institute of Bioresources Research, GBARES. Methods and Results : Tuber of RSY and TRSY were cut as 40 g, and dust-coating sterilized with lime. Seedlings were grown in heating wire installed seed bed from 25. March to 16. April. Experimental field were fertilized 2,000 kg compost, 34 kg N2, 28 kg P2O5, and 28 kg K2O. All amount of compost and P2O5 treated as basal fertilizer. N2 and K2O treated 14 and 10 kg of basal fertilizer, and 20 and 18 kg of additional fertilizer, respectively. Tillage, installation of drop-watering tapes, and covering black PE film with 60×25 cm spacing holes on 120 cm row were conducted. 20 L per m2 was irrigated 7 days interval except rainy day from middle of May to late of September. RSY had high emergence rate in early stage due to irrigation, while TRSY had no difference. Irrigation was not effective on total number of tuber but number of marketable tuber (over 200 g). Marketable tuber yield of RSY according to irrigation was increased 89% as 1,147 kg per 10 a. And tuber with irrigation was 73 g heavier. Tuber yield and marketable tuber yield of TRSY as affected by irrigation were respectively 2,611 and 1,715 kg per 10 a compared to control, 1,462 and 428 kg. And irrigated tuber was 66 g heavier. Conclusion : TRSY had more effective on irrigation than RSY. Both of yam had significant increased marketable tuber yield due to irrigation. Therefore RSY and TRSY are necessarily irrigated because of those absorptive characteristics, short head of tuber and shallow root.

This study is to survey the ultrastructure of gamete cells and micropyle of pre-fertilized and post-fertilized eggs after HCG hormone treatment by transmission and scanning electron microscopy (TEM and SEM) in E. akaara, E. bruneus and E. septemfasciatus. These fishes are economical importance species for Jeju coastal area resources. In spite of its an importance resources, details studies on the ultrastructural aspects of gamete cells for its reproductive biology have not been undertaken. Morphological features of ovulation process have been studied during its normal occurrence in the reproductive cycle of these fish by light microscopy. Moreover, it has been studied for many years to induce spawning by environmental factors (day length, water temperature etc) or injection of HCG for ovulation in these species. Studies on the micropyle was mainly focused on the eggs of insects, fresh water and a few sea water fishes. Micropylar structure of fish displays morphological characteristics of interspecies-specific by inhabitant environment and spawning feature. On the other hand, it is an importance cue for a taxonomical indicator and identification fish eggs. SEM studies were performed on growing and mature oocytes obtained by stripping and cannulation from 3 grouper species sampled between July and August in spawning season. The outer layer of chorion of preovulatory growing stage oocytes could be divided into four layers; zona pellucida, follicular cell layers consisted of granulosa and thecal cells layer and the most outer ovigerous lamella. Ovulation process of mature stage oocytes initiated by rupture of ovigerous lamella and ovulated by contraction of follicular cell layers. Besides, the micropylar shape of ripe stage oocytes in E. akaara, E. bruneus and E. septemfasciatus presented volcano or crateriform-like cylindrical form. Internal structure of micropylar vestibule displayed cylindrical clockwise 8 or 10 spiral arrangement structure in these species. The micropyle diameter and apparatus at the animal pole differ significantly among the 3 species. The difference in their diameters suggests species-specific in the correlation between spermatozoal head size and micropylar diameter for polyspermy prevention and hybridization during fertilization. Besides, after artificial fertilization, the vestibule morphologically transformed into dom-shape and pillar-shape for fertilization cone formation. Pores of various sizes in the 3 grouper species were somewhat regularly distributed in concentric circles only around the micropyle. In particular, large pores had numerous gill filament-shaped projections connected to oolemma. These structures are suggested to be related to gas exchange, osmoregulation, and micronutrient influx or efflux between eggs and water during fertilization and egg development. In addition, spermatozoa ultrastructure was examined in 3 grouper species. TEM investigation revealed that, in all species, spermatozoa display a round head, a nucleus containing highly condensed, filamentous chromatin clusters, no acrosome, a short midpieces consisting of numerous mitochondria and the proximal and distal centrioles and a flagellum exhibiting the typical axoneme structure (9+2). Especial, both E. akaara and E. bruneus display regular laternal fins in flagella, but in E. septemfasciatus, no fins in flagella with hook shape tails.

Seed storage proteins of different solubility were extracted and denatured subunits of each protein were evaluated with malting barley quality parameters. Its been known that each subunit of seed storage protein encoded by each gene and subunit profiles were highly related to end-use quality in cereals. The purpose of this study is to provide selection criteria for high quality malting barleys with aid of bichemical-genetic information. Total 13 regional test lines and three locations (Naju, Jinju, and Jeju) were incorporated in this study. Albumin and hordein were extracted, denatured, and separated in 12% SDS-PAGE. Presence and absence of subunits of each protein were scored. Dendrogram (using XLSTAT program) was constructed to evaluated the relatedness of lines. The correlation between band profiles and quality test were assessed through Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC) for statistics analysis. Hordein subunits can be classified into four groups, A, B, C, and D group. In general, hordein fractions contribute higher than albumine to determine malting quality. Specific molecular weight ranges (97.4-31.0, 66.2-31.0, and 45.0-31.0 kDa) of subunits were highly correlated with malting barley quality parameters. The subunit information would be directly incorporated in providing selection criteria for high quality malting barley in the malting barley breeding program.

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.

Tributyltin chloride (TBTCI) is an organotin compounds that have been widely used as antifouling agents and bioaccumulated in the food chain. TBTCI has been known to induce imposex in female gastropods. There are several reports that TBTCI increased testosterone level and inhibited the conversion of testosterone to estradiol by the aromatase cytochrome P450 enzyme. In this studies, we investigated the effects of TBTCI on steroidogenesis in testes, We dosed to 4-week-old Spragus-Dawleys (SD) male rats with TSTCI (0, 1, 5, 10, and 20mg/kg/day) daily by gavage for 14 days. TBTCI significantly decreased the weights of seminal vesicle, prostate, cowper's gland and LABC at 10 and 20mg/kg/day but significantly Increased the weights of liver at 10 and 20mg/kg/day and adrenals at 20mg/kg/day. mRNA levels of steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) and P450 aromatase were decreased and mRNA levels of cytochrome P450 17-hydroxylase/ lyase (P450c17) were increased by TBTCI. TBTCI significantly increased serum testosterone level in dose-dependent manner. From above results, we found that TBTCI altered mRNA levels of enzymes related steroidogenesis, weights of organs and serum testosterone levels. This suggests that change of hormone levels may be due to alteration of mRNA levels of steroidogenic enzyme in testes, but further studies are necessary to investigate hormone levels in testis organ in order to find a relation of enzyme related to steroidogenesis with hormone levels. This work was supported by the Korea FDA Grant KFDA-03131-EDS-010.