During the larval development process of insects, juvenile hormone (JH) is essential for regulating various aspects of larval life, including growth, reproduction, and behavior, throughout their larval stage. The larval stage of Spodoptera frugiperda, when it consumes plant-derived metabolites, develops into pupae, but these pupae are unable to molt successfully. In this way, plant-derived metabolites contain or produce inhibitors of juvenile hormone, thereby disrupting the development of insect larvae and making them vulnerable to harm. Therefore, in this study, we established an in vitro screening system using yeast cells transformed with the Met-SRC juvenile hormone receptor of S. frugiperda. Through this system, we were able to identify juvenile hormone disruptors from plant-derived metabolites and confirm their developmental inhibitory effects on the larvae of S. frugiperda.

Insect infestation leads to huge loss of agricultural products and transmission of vector-borne diseases causing millions of deaths per annum. Juvenile hormone (JH) controls the development and reproduction of insects, therefore the grouth of insects can be inhibited by interfering the action of JH. Based on this, we developed a novel insect species-specific screening system to identify juvenile hormone antagonists (JHANs) from natural origin. These compounds can disrupt JH-mediated insect development by interfering the binding of a heterodimer, steroid receptor coactivator (SRC), with its partner protein, the methoprene-tolerant (Met) JH receptor. This screening system could be used as a new tool to develop eco-friendly and species-specific insecticides.

6-Gingerol exerts anti-tumor effects in various cancer cell models. We evaluated the effect of 6-gingerol on the growth of MCF-7 breast cancer cells and MCF-10A breast epithelial cells to determine whether any growth-inhibitory effects found were attributable to apoptosis, and to elucidate the underlying mechanism of action. 6-Gingerol inhibited the viability of both cell lines in a dose- and time-dependent manner; however, the degree of inhibition was greater in MCF-7 than MCF-10A cells. By flow cytometry, induction of dose- and time-dependent apoptosis was found, and the magnitude of apoptosis was also markedly greater in MCF-7 than MCF-10A cells. Expression of caspase-3 and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) was observed in MCF-7 cells treated with 6-gingerol, and further cleavage of PARP occurred in these cells. We suggest that 6-gingerol induces apoptosis in human breast cancer cells mainly by promoting caspase-3 expression and subsequent degradation of PARP.

The Plant Extract Bank was established by 21 Century Frontier R&D Program. It has began selling a research plant extract samples to support many Korean scientists since 2001. The plant extracts were tested for insecticidal activities. A total of 19,100 ethanolic and methanolic extracts of differentplant species from 23 nations including Costa Rica, Philippines, India and South Africa were evaluated for their larvicidal activities against Aedes aegypti, the major vector of dangue, dangue hemorhagic fever and yellow fever. The larval mortalities were observed 24h after treating the larvae to the extracts. At 500 ppm, 754 extracts showed >80% larval mortality in the 24h exposure. Among the extracts tested, the highest larval mortality was observed in the methanol extracts of Piper guianense, P. nigrum, P. mocropodum, P. sem-immersum, P. magen and P. pubicatulm.

Insects impact human health through vector-borne diseases and cause major economic loses through damaging crops and stored agricultural products. Insect-specific growth regulators (IGR) represent attractive control agents because of their safety to the environment and humans. Here, we report identification of plant compounds that are antagonists of the insect-specific juvenile hormone (PJHANs), using the yeast two hybrid system transformed with the mosquito JH receptor as a reporter assay. We show that these compounds act by inhibiting larval growth and reproduction in mosquitoes. We also demonstrate that PJHANs affect the JH receptor, Methoprene-tolerant (Met), by disrupting its complex with CYCLE, formation of which is required for mediating JH action. We isolated five diterpene secondary metabolites with JH antagonist activity from two plants, Lindera erythrocarpa and Solidago serotina. They are effective in causing mortality of mosquito larvae at relatively low LD50 values. Two of these diterprenes affect Met function, leading to reduction in expression of Met target genes and causing retardation of follicle development in mosquito ovaries. Developing potent compounds counteracting JHaction (JH antagonists) would find a wider range of control applications. However, so far such JH antagonists have not been developed. Here, we report the discovery of potent JH antagonists in plants, which represents an innate resistance mechanism of plants against insect herbivores. These newly discovered plant JH antagonist compounds could be used as the starting material for developing novel insecticides.

Prostate cancer is a leading cause of death among the aging men. Surgical or radio therapy is effective when the cancer is confined to the prostate gland but once the cancer spreads beyond the pelvis, even chemotherapy and hormonal ablation therapy fails in curing this disease. Our previous studies have shown that β-glucan induces apoptosis in prostate cancer cells. Cellular viability of these cells treated with β-glucan was measured by MTT assay. β-glucan induced dose- and time-dependent inhibition of cell viability in LNCaP cancer cells. In flow cytometry analysis, β-glucan induced dose- and timedependent apoptotic activities in LNCaP cancer cells. In addition, increased of expression caspase-3, caspase-9, Bax, and cytochrome C but decreased of expression Bcl-2 was observed in LNCaP cells treated with β-glucan. These results suggest that β-glucan induces apoptosis in LNCaP human prostate cancer cells mediated mainly through the increased of expression caspase-3, -9, Bax, cytochrome C and decreased of expression Bcl-2.

본 연구에서는 팥의 꼬투리와 줄기를 가해하는 Ostrinia속 해충에 대해 종 동정 과정을 기술하였고, 사육하면서 관찰된 발육특성들을 보고 하였다. 수컷의 생식기는 3-lobed uncus 형태였으며, 가운뎃다리 종아리마디에는 털을 많이 갖는 것으로 나타났다. 미토콘드리아 cytochrome oxidase I (COI)과 II (COII) 유전자의 부분 염기서열은 콩줄기명나방(O. scapulalis), 큰섬들명나방(O. zaguliaevi), 큰조명나방(O. zealis bipatrialis)들에 대해 일본과 중국에서 보고된 서열들과 100% 일치를 보이는 종은 없었다. 기주식물 범위는 국내외 보고들 간에 일치하지 않았다. 암컷 성페로몬샘 추출물의 가스크로마토그래피 분석에서 큰섬들명나방과 큰조명나방의 성페로몬 성분인 (Z)-9-tetradecenyl acetate는 검출되지 않았다. 이상의 결과들을 종합하여 고려하였을 때, 본 연구의 팥 해충을 가해하는 곤충 종은 콩줄기명나방(O. scapulalis)일 것으로 추정되었다. 가을 야외에서 채집된 유충들을 야외조건에서 보관하였을 때, 이듬해 6월과 7월 사이에 성충들이 우화하였는데, 이 결과로부터 본 곤충 종은 말령 유충 단계에서 겨울휴면을 하는 것으로 추정되었다. 이외에 반합성 인공사료를 이용하여 실내 사육이 가능하였다.

This study was conducted to identify an insect species in Genus Ostrinia (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) that gave serious damage to the red bean, Vigna angularis. The species has ever been described as O. zaguliaevi in the previous presentation (Jung et al., 2010). Because, however, inconsistent information has been recognized for the species, we reviewed characteristics in morphological, molecular and sex pheromone levels, and host-range. Male genitalia had 3-lobed uncus and tibia of midleg showed massive type. The morphology indicated that the species might be one of O. zaguliaevi, O. scapulalis and O. zealis. Partial nucleotide sequences of cytochrome oxidase subunit Ⅰ(COⅠ) and Ⅱ genes were not identical with those of the 3 species in GenBank, respectively. The deduced amino acid sequence of COⅠ was not identical with that of O. zealis. In the 23 analyses that sex pheromones were checked, (Z)-9-tetradecenyl acetate, which was reported in the sex pheromone components of both O. zaguliaevi and O. zealis, was not detected at all. An intensive study in Japan has reported that the feeding habit of O. scapulalis is polyphagous, while that of O. zaguliaevi is monophagous (only in Petasites japonicus) (Ishikawa et al., 1999). After considering all these information, we concluded that it is reasonable to decide that the insect species in the red bean in Korea is O. scapulalis.

A total of 5,000 ethanolic and methanolic extracts of different plant species from 23 nations including Costa Rica, Vietnam, Philippines, India, South Africa, Pakistan and Peru were evaluated for their larvicidal activities against Aedes aegypti, the major vector of dangue, dangue hemorhagic fever and yellow fever. The larval mortalities were observed 24h after treating the larvae to the extracts. At 500 ppm, 179 extracts showed >80% larval mortality in the 24h exposure. Among the extracts tested, the highest larval mortality was observed in the extracts of Piper guianense, Piper nigrum, Piper mocropodum, Piper sem-immersum, Piper magen and Piper pubicatulum. The LC50 value of extract P. guianense, P. nigrum, P. mocropodum, P. sem-immersum, P. magen and P. pubicatulum were 8.84, 11.48, 8.84, 13.86, 9.48 and 10.12 ppm against Ae. aegypti. It is suggested that P. guianense, P. nigrum, P. mocropodum, P. sem-immersum, P. magen and P. pubicatulum can be developed as potent larvicidal agents against Ae. aegypti.

DNA barcoding uses a 650 bp segment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene as the basis for an identification system for members of the animal kingdom and some other groups of eukaryotes. PCR amplification of the barcode region is a key step in the analytical chain, but it sometimes fails because of a lack of homology between the standard primer sets and target DNA. Two forward PCR primers were developed following analysis of all known arthropod mitochondrial genome arrangements and sequence alignment of the tRNA-W gene which was usually located within 200 bp upstream of the COI gene. These two primers were combined with a standard reverse primer (LepR1) to produce a cocktail which generated a barcode amplicon from 125 of 141 species that included representatives of 121 different families of Hexapoda. High quality sequences were recovered from 79% of the species including groups, such as scale insects, that invariably fail to amplify with standard primers. The current results show that primers designed to bind to highly conserved gene regions upstream of COI will aid the amplification of this gene region in species where standard primers fail and provide valuable information to design a primer for problem groups.

Although DNA barcode coverage has grown rapidly for many insect orders, there are some groups, such as scale insects, where sequence recovery has been difficult. However, using a recently developed primer set, we recovered barcode records from 373 specimens, providing coverage for 75 species from 31 genera in two families. Overall success was >90% for mealybugs and >80% for armored scale species. The G·C content was very low in most species, averaging just 16.3%. Sequence divergences (K2P) between congeneric species averaged 10.7%, while intraspecific divergences averaged 0.97%. However, the latter value was inflated by high intra-specific divergence in nine taxa, cases that may indicate species overlooked by current taxonomic treatments. Our study establishes the feasibility of developing a comprehensive barcode library for scale insects and indicates that its construction will both create an effective system for identifying scale insects and reveal taxonomic situations worthy of deeper analysis.

Because mealybugs are one of the most economically damaging groups of insects on food crops and ornamental plants, some are regulated-species in quarantine with the foreign trade of agricultural products. However, the absence of morphological characteristics enabling the discrimination of early life stages often causes a significant delay or the rejection of a shipment when fruit is discovered containing them, causing much economic loss. A PCR-based method for species identification was developed for six mealybug species known from Korean pears including two regulated insects, Planococcus kraunhiae (Kuwana) and Crisicoccus matsumotoi (Siraiwa). Six sets of species-specific primers were designed based on the sequence comparison of the internal transcribed spacer 1 and 2 regions. Efficiency tests against many mealybug samples showed that this method could effectively discriminate different mealybug species regardless of their developmental stages. Blind tests against 11 field collected mealybug nymph samples indicated that a single PCR is enough to discriminate unidentified mealybugs collected on Korean pears. This new method will be useful in quarantine as well as pest monitoring by providing an easy, accurate way of identifying any life stage of these mealybugs.