Understanding how researchers are tackling globally important issues, such as climate change, is crucial to identify whether current research is comprehensive enough to make substantive predictions about general responses to climate change. We assessed the type of studies being conducted by researchers to understand the impacts of climate change on insects, published. Most published research is generated from Europe and North America and being dedicated to core data analysis, with reviews being highly produced. Temperature – only is the main climate change factor being analysed, with most researchers are assessing changes in abundance or distribution/range shifts. Of most concern is the number of studies which do not specifically identify a climate change factor (ie just arm wave), the lack of studies on Hemimetabolous insects and the need for more studies to assess specific mechanistic responses to climate change.

Molecular genetic markers were genotyped used to detect chromosomal regions which contain economically important traits such as growth traits in pigs. Three generation resource population was constructed from a cross between the Korean native boars and Landrace sows. A total of 193 F2 animals from intercross of F1 were produced. Phenotypic data on 7 traits, birth weight, body weight at 3, 5, 12, 30 weeks of age, live empty weight were collected for F2 animals. Animals including grandparents (F0), parents (F1), offspring (F2) were genotyped for 194 microsatellite markers covering from chromosome 1 to 18. Quantitative trait locus analyses were performed using interval mapping by regression under line-cross model. To characterize presence of imprinting, genetic full model in which dominance, additive and imprinting effect were included was fitted in this analysis. Significance thresholds were determined by permutation test. Using imprinting full model, four QTL with expression of imprinted effect were detected at 5% chromosome-wide significance level for growth traits on chromosome 1, 5, 7, 13, 14, and 16.

The development of humanized culture system of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) hold promise for therapeutic applications. However, conventional culture system contain animal-derived components such as fetal bovine serum and mouse embryonic fibroblasts that bear a risk of transmitting non-human pathogens and incorporation of non-human immunogenic molecules to hESCs. In this study, we developed an efficient xeno-free hESCs culture system using humanized materials, the CELLstartTM, human foreskin feeder and xeno-free medium containing knockOutTM SR XenoFree (XF-medium) without animal-derived material. The hESCs were gradually adapted to the XF-medium; 25:75, 50:50, 75:25 and 100:0. Two karyotypically normal hESC lines, SNUhES4 and H1, were used for the experiments of xeno-free culture condition. The attachment rates at xeno-free culture system were 52.6±12.4%, 67.0±16.6%, 59.0±13.9%, 28.3±2.9% in SNUhES4, 79.3±5.4%, 53.8±20.9%, 69.4 ±6.4%, 59.8±12.6% in H1 and the spontaneous differentiation rates were 42.2±12.7%, 31.4±2.9%, 40.8±14.5%, 55.2±35.5% in SNUhES4, 35.6±8.5%, 36.4±13.5%, 48.4±7.8%, 80.1±6.0% in H1 in the first four passage. Although the attachment rates were low and the spontaneous differentiation rates were high compared to that of conventional system in the early passages using this humanized culture condition, hESCs in this culture condition were found to maintain hESC characterizations; morphology, expression of cell surface markers and stable karyotype. Our results indicate that simplified compositions of humanized culture system can be applicable to the further optimization for a xeno-free culture of hESCs without the loss of pluripotency and contamination from xenogenic sources.