Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide and currently there are many approaches developing towards cancer treatment. Cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy are often painful and have adverse effects. The mechanism of apoptosis is a complex process and it involves different pathways in its mechanism of action. Apoptosis can be caused by signals within the cell such as stress, or by extrinsic signals such as ligands binding to cell surface death receptors. The programmed cell death plays a important role in the several physiological and pathological processes. It plays important role in homeostasis. Flavonoids have gained importance as anticancer agents promoting cytotoxicity and apoptosis in cancer cells. Flavonoids are present in many medicinal plants which are a kind of ubiquitous natural products and essential active ingredients. They have strong biological activities with high efficiency and low toxicity, possessing good preventive and cure effects on different tumor forms. Flavonoids such as Scutellarein, Pectolinarigenin and Naringin have reported to possess significant anti-cancer effects on different cancer cell lines till date. In this review, we provide a summary about the anti-cancer effect of the three flavonoids and its mechanisms of action that can be used in future for understanding their potent anti-tumor properties.

The development of drugs from natural plant sources is at growing interest due to the limitations of chemical drugs in terms of side effects and cost-effective factors of natural medicines. Among the various components contained in natural plant materials, flavonoids are of increasing interest because of their extended biological benefits. Flavonoids are classified into various types according to their structure and possess different activities depending on the structure. In this study, the flavonoids contained in Artemisia, native to Korea were examined and reviewed. HPLC chromatograms of three Artemisia species (Artemisia annua L., Artemisia iwayomogi and Artemisia argyi H.) were examined from published sources and their component analysis by MS data were summarized. The various flavonoids of Artemisia were classified into 12 types according to the main structure, and 10 flavonoids based on various activities were examined. The 10 flavonoids were identified as quercetin, kaempferol, rhamnetin, diosmetin, luteolin, methoxyflavone, catechin, apigenin, malvidin and genkwanin with extensive reported studies till date. The ten flavonoids examined have been reported to be effective in preventing and treating various diseases and exhibit activities such as anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiviral, anti-obesity, anti-diabetic and anti-Alzheimer. The collective results from the reported studies suggest that the three types of Korean native Artemisia, contains various flavonoids with beneficial activities and may have therapeutic effects against diseases.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects by supplementing concentrates during the late fattening phase in TMR (total mixed ration) feeding of Korean steer on the performance, carcass traits, physico-chemical characteristics and sensory test of the longissimus dorsi muscle. Eight Korean steers (24 months of age) averaging 604 kg in body weight were fed the TMR (Control) or the TMR supplemented with concentrates (TMR+conc.) until 30 months of age, then they were slaughtered. Steers fed the TMR supplemented with concentrates had a higher (p<0.05) intakes of dry matter and TDN (total digestible nutrient), carcass weight and marbling score compared to those fed TMR only, but carcass grade did not differ (p>0.05) between treatments. Amino acid concentration of the longissimus dorsi muscle did not differ between treatments, However, the highest concentrations were for glutamic acid and lowest for cystine; further, and the content of essential amino acids was highest for lysine, leucine, threonine, arginine, and isoleucine in that order. Cis-oleic acid and arachidonic acid of fatty acids in the longissimus dorsi muscle were higher (p<0.05) in the control condition compared to TMR+conc. The contents of oleic acids, palmitic acid, stearic acid constituted about 88% of the total fatty acids. Although the physico-chemical characteristics of the longissimus dorsi muscle did not significantly differ between treatments (p>0.05), but the sensory test results were lower for the TMR+conc. condition. These results suggest that supplementing concentrates during the late fattening phase of Korean steers resulted in increasing the carcass weight and marbling score. However, the cis-oleic acid content of the longissimus dorsi muscle was decreased as a result of supplementing concentrates, which could affect negatively in meat sensory evaluation.

토마토 온실에서 담배가루이 (Bemisia tabaci) 유인을 위한 작물에 따른 선호도를 조사하였다. 피망, 토마토, 오이, 가지의 4 종류의 작물을 아크릴케이지에 같이 넣어두고 담배가루이 성충 30쌍을 방사하여 선호도 및 산란수를 조사하였다. 담배가루이 성충은 오이(약 40%)와 가지(약 40%)에서 가장 선호하였으며, 토마토(10%)와 피망(10%)의 선호도는 낮았다. 기주에 따른 담배가루이의 성충 30쌍의 산란수는 오이에서 485개로 가장 높았으며 가지(250), 토마토(131), 피망(126)의 순으로 조사되었다. 토마토 온실에 가지묘를 정식하였을 경우에는 토마토에서는 주당 약 20마리의 담배가루이가 조사되었으나 가지에서는 주당 400∼500마리의 담배가루이가 조사되어 토마토 온실에서 가지를 이용한 담배가루이 유인이 가능함을 알 수 있었다.

본 연구에서는 주요 발생지인 구례 지역의 산수유, 때죽나무를 중심으로 2018년 8월에서 9월 사이에 갈색날개매미충 월동 난괴를 채집하여 날개매미충알벌(phanuromyia spp.)의 온도별(15℃, 20℃, 25℃, 30℃) 발육기간, 수명 및 우화 후 15일간의 총 산란수를 조사하였다. 날개매미충알벌의 발육기간은 25℃에서 알 2.6일, 유충 5.4일, 번데기 15.0일, 30℃에서 알 1.9일, 유충 7.6일, 번데기 13.7일이 소요되었다. 날개매미충알벌 성충의 온도별 수명은 15℃에서 암컷 77.4일, 수컷 66.6일, 20℃에서 암컷 49.0일, 수컷 44.0일, 25℃에서 암컷 27.6일 수컷 28.4일, 30℃에서 암컷 18.0일, 수컷 14.0일로 암수 모두 사육온도가 높아질수록 수명이 짧아졌으며 15℃와 30℃에서만 암수 수명의 차이가 있었다. 또한 온도별 총 산란 수는 15℃를 제외한 나머지 세 가지 사육온도에서 산란 수 차이는 없었으나 25℃에서 평균 23.2개로 가장 높았다.

Melon thrips, Thrips palmi Karny (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) is a worldwide polyphagous pest. The management of this pest have mainly relied on chemical agents. However, the overuse is harmful to the environment and results in insects resistance. Therefore, alternative eco-friendly control methods that have different mode of action, such as biological control, are necessary to overcome the current issue. In this study, we isolated entomopathogenic fungi from Korean soil, and characterized them via morphological and molecular techniques and pathogenicity assay against Tenebrio molitor larvae. The isolated fungi were screened for virulence against T. palmi under laboratory conditions and the results were used to establish a thrips-pathogenic fungal library. The highly virulent isolates were selected and further characterized for optimum culture conditions and application as biopesticide in the field.

It was available to store both nymphs and adults of Geocoris pallidipennis at 5℃ for 3 weeks without negative effects on their survival, fecundity, and Bamisia tabaci nymph predation. Up to 140 days, it was also possible to store Micromus angulatus adults at low temperature, showing approximately 50% cumulative survival rate, but over 2 week cold storage was not suitable for their fecundity. With the increase of cold storage duration, the aphid predation by M. angulatus decreased, but it could be possible to cold store until 5 weeks without a significant effect on their aphid predation. Thus, short term cold storage of G. pallidipennis and M. angulatus could be useful for inundative biological control.

Three ambrosia beetle species, Xyleborus glabratus, Monarthrum mali, and Euwallacea fornicatus belong to subfamily, Scolytinae, showing similar morphology and body size, but their flight capability and patterns showed species-specific. Body length of Xyleborus glabratus and Monarthrum mali was negatively correlated with flight capabilities; shorter beetles performed longer average flights, longer single flights, total flight distance, and total flight time. Elytral length also was negatively correlated with flight distance in X. glabratus and M. mali. Conversely, only average flight time of E. fornicatus was positively correlated with body length, pronotal width, and elytral length. Body length had no effect on the flight velocity of any of the three beetle species examined. Therefore, our results indicate that body size characteristics of ambrosia beetles differentially influence on their dispersal by species.

A species of Beauveria bassiana is widely used for biological pest management in many countries. Many efforts have been given to figure out the clear fungal mode of action to enhance the insecticidal activity. Homologous recombination (knock-out) or hairpin RNA (knock-down) is popularly used in fungal gene function study, but gene cloning and generation of knock-out or -down mutants takes long time or temporarily knock-downed. Here in this work, we used previously generated egfp-expressing B. bassiana strain (Bb-egfp #3) and integrated dsegfp to the Bb-egfp #3 using a protoplast integration method. This work suggests that protoplast integration with dsRNA possibly generate significantly reduced gene expression in B. bassiana and the reduction is quite stable over generations which provide easy of functional study for fungal mode of action.

Inflammation is an important protective response mechanism that occurs against microbial invasion or injury. However, excessive inflammation may lead to cause of morbidity and mortality in diseases. The activated macrophages plays a vital role in inflammatory response by stimulation of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). This activation further damages the host by inducing certain pro-inflammatory mediators such as nitric oxide (NO), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin- 6 (IL-6), TNF-α, inducible nitrous oxide (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase (COX-2). Flavonoids are bioactive compounds with potential effects as anti-cancer, anti-inflammation, anti-viral and anti-bacterial activities. Polymethoxyflavones (PMFs) are unique to citrus plants which are of specific interest owing to their biological effects that includes lipoprotein metabolism and anti-inflammatory activity. Sinensetin is one of the PMFs having five methoxy groups on the basic benzo-γ-pyrone skeleton with a carbonyl group at the C4 position. Sinensetin have been known for exerting various pharmacological activities including anti-angiogenesis, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory activities. However, there are no studies focused on the anti-inflammatory effects of sinensetin on skeletal muscle cells. In the present study, we investigated the antiinflammatory effect of flavonoids isolated from Sinensetin on the production of pro-inflammatory mediators mediated by nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) by inhibition of signal transduction in LPS - induced L6 skeletal muscle cells.