Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) is the second most widely cultivated species of millet, especially in East Asia and is a tractable experimental model crop for studying functional genomics of millets. However, insufficient researches had been conducted about the foxtail millet germplasm and is significantly impeding its genetic improvement. We attempted to develop EST-derived-SSR (eSSR) markers and utilize them in genetic comparison of germplasm and transferability. A total of 66,027 foxtail millet EST sequences and 42,754 genomic sequence were deduced transcriptom. Approximately 42,000 single tone contigs were generated using DNAstar 5.0 software for redundancy minimization. Nearly 33% of the 14,012 unigenes contained SSRs, but primers were designed for a total of 314 microsatellites concentrating with more than 24 bp of repeats. A total of 314 primers were successfully designed with more than 24 bp of repeats. From these microsatellites, 56 primer pairs were showed polymorphism with over than 15 bp differences among 96 accessions collected from different countries. Polymorphic information content (PIC) value ranged from 0.020 to 0.700 with an average of 0.381 indicating moderate level of informativeness within these EST-SSRs markers. The EST-SSR markers developed in this study will serve as a useful source for genetic studies, such as genetic variability, transferability, association mapping, and molecular breeding

Sequence diversity was accumulated through evolution and breeding process. A set of 595 PCR-based novel insertion/deletion (InDel) markers was designed in order to widen the genetic basis for national rice breeding programs. The markers were generated by analyzing of 40 Korean cultivars and published genome sequences of rice(Oryza sativa L. spp japonica). We selected 112 markers spread across all rice chromosomes among the 595 InDel markers, and they showed polymorphic between rice cultivars, which are 284 Korean japonica and Tongil varieties. Due to their simplicity in design and robustness in genotyping, these InDel markers have been routinely used in quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping studies and marker assisted selection programs for rice. Moreover, the PCR amplification type of InDel markers was converged to digital code, 0 or 1 and then finally represented as one- and two dimensional bar-code system, which could easily differentiate genetically highly homologous japonica rice cultivars. The developed InDel markers uniquely discriminated among each of the Korean cultivars. Therefore, the systems we developed may be valuable tools in discrimination from cultivars

Mungbean (Vigna radiata) is a fast-growing, warm-season legume crop that is primarily cultivated in developing countries of Asia. We constructed a draft genome sequence of mungbean to facilitate genome research into the subgenus Ceratotropis and to enable a better understanding of the evolution of leguminous species. The draft genome sequence covers 80% of the estimated genome, of which 50.1% consists of repetitive sequences. In total, 22,427 high confidence protein-coding genes were predicted. Based on the de novo assembly of additional wild mungbean species, the divergence of what was eventually domesticated and the sampled wild mungbean species appears to have predated domestication. Moreover, the de novo assembly of a tetraploid Vigna species (Vigna reflexo-pilosa var. glabra) provided genomic evidence of a recent allopolyploid event. To further study speciation, we compared de novo RNA-seq assemblies of 22 accessions of 18 Vigna species and protein sets of Glycine max and Cajanus cajan. The species tree was constructed by a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo method using highly confident orthologs shared by all 24 accessions. The present assembly of V. radiata var. radiata will facilitate genome research and accelerate molecular breeding of the subgenus Ceratotropis.

The tight regulators of fruit set initiation, gibberellin (GA) and auxin, have been applied for decades to induce parthenocarpy, fruit set without fertilization. The integration of GA and auxin signaling mediated by either GA or auxin application during parthenocarpy has been actively reported in tomato, and recently we reported that GA application at pre-bloom also activating auxin signaling and down-regulated negative regulators of fruit set initiation in grapevines. However, the activation of auxin signaling upon GA application without up-regulation of auxin biosynthesis is still unclear. In this study, expression patterns of three auxin efflux transporter genes, VvPIN1a, VvPIN2 and VvPIN4, were monitored during inflorescence development in ‘Tamnara’ grapevines with or without GA application. Without GA application, transcription levels of VvPIN1a and VvPIN4 gradually increased from 14 days before full bloom (DBF) to 2 and 5 days after full bloom (DAF), respectively, except down-regulation of VvPIN1a during 5 DBF to full bloom. However, VvPIN2 expression declined steadily after peaking at 10 DBF. With GA application, VvPIN1a did not show significantly different expression patterns when compared to no GA application, with the exception of 4-fold up-regulation at full bloom, but transcription of VvPIN4 was reduced between 5 and 2 DBF. In addition, VvPIN2 was down-regulated between 12 and 10 DBF by more than 50% compared to levels in the absence of GA application. These reductions of both VvPIN2 and VvPIN4 with GA application prior to pollination suggest that GA application might regulate auxin distribution, instead of auxin biosynthesis, to activating auxin signaling during parthenocarpic fruit initiation.

Rice blast (Magnaporthe oryza B.) is one of the most widespread and devastating diseases of rice. Screening of valuable genetic resources harboring resistance genes is one of the most efficient approaches against blast disease. Because the bioassay to rice blast in the field shows high variations, this study has performed to provide DNA profiles in the accessions of diverse countries using major blast resistant genes linked markers, identified and mapped in different genotypes of rice. Because durable resistance to blast is controlled by a combination of major resistance genes, we surveyed the distribution of blast resistant genes in the 1,500 accessions using major 12 blast resistance genes linked markers. These resistant genes found that the frequency distribution of Pi-39 (66.9%), Pik-m (41.9%), Pit (40.5%), Pii (21%), Pib (19.3%), Pi-d(t)2 (12.7%), but Pita, Pita/Pita-2, Pik, Piz-t, Pi5 genes were identified in less than 10% frequency. Most of accessions contain from 1 to 4 different resistant genes. Pi39 and Pik-m genes amplified in the 69.1% and 51.7% among 356 Korean accessions, Pi39 (79.6%) and Pib (55.8%) in 113 China, Pit (80.6%) and Pib (32%) in 103 Philippines, respectively. In this study, we evaluated the blast resistance degree and the information about the distribution of rice blast resistant genes in rice germplasm. This study will help to develop effective strategies for managing rice blast disease in rice germplasm.

Marked neutrophilia associated with neoplasia is a relatively rare finding and has been considered as a paraneoplastic manifestation. Thyroid cancer seldom presents with paraneoplastic leukocytosis. We report on a case of a 69-year-old man who presented with paraneoplastic leukocytosis seven months after undergoing total thyroidectomy and I-131 therapy for treatment of papillary thyroidcarcinoma. We found neither bone marrow involvement of malignant cells nor hematologic malignancy. Based on elevated levels of serum granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, we concluded that the cause was paraneoplastic leukocytosis. Another interesting point was the anaplastic transformation in the pleural metastatic site. It usually occurs in the intrathyroid or regional lymph node.

Effects of newly developed functional rice grains Goami (high-amylose rice) and Nokwon (green-kerneled rice) on the glucose metabolism and antioxidative defense system in C57BL/6N mice under high fat diet condition were investigated. Animals were randomly divided into five groups (n = 8) and given experimental diets for eight weeks: normal control diet (NC), high fat diet (HF), and high fat diet supplemented with white rice (HF-WR), Goami rice (HF-GR), and Nokwon rice (HF-NR). At the end of the experimental period, the HF group exhibited markedly higher blood glucose level, insulin concentration, plasma lipid peroxidation and lower hepatic glycogen concentration than that exhibited by NC group. However, diet supplementation of Goami and Nokwon suppressed the high fat diet-induced hyperglycemia and oxidative stress through inhibition of the glucose-regulating enzymes and enhancement of the antioxidant enzymes activities. The results illustrate that the new functional rice Goami and Nokwon may be useful in the development of functional foods with preventive effect against high fat diet-induced hyperglycemia and oxidative stress.

Gibberellic acid (GA) is a well-characterized plant hormone, which plays a critical role in various plant growth and development. including stem elongation, floral indcution and seed development. GA is known to cause enlargement of ripening fruits and, especially in grapevines, GA shows a unique function: the induction of seedlessness in seeded grape varieties. However, despite extensive previous studies about GA, there has been no clear verification of the mechanism that induces seedlessness in grapes. To understand how GA treatment results in artificial parthenocarpy of seeded grapes at molecular levels, we analyzed transcriptional changes in seeded grapes with and without GA application in various inflorescence developmental stages using RNA-seq. At 14 days before flowering (DBF), seeded grapes were treated with 100 ppm GA and clusters were collected at three developmental stages: 7 DBF, full bloom, and 5 days after flowering (DAF). Of a total of 28,974 genes that were mapped to grape genome reference sequences, 7,013 and 9,064 genes were up- and down-regulated, respectively, in the GA-treated grape as compared to the non-GA-treated control at 7 DBF, full bloom, and 5 DAF. Clustering analysis revealed that these genes could be grouped into 9 clusters with different expression patterns. We also carried out functional annotation based on gene ontology categories. There were significant differences in the expression of the GA and auxin-related gene families. These findings expand our understanding of the complex molecular and cellular mechanisms of GA-induced parthenocarpy of grapes and provide a foundation for future studies on seed development in grapevines.

Acinetobacter baumannii is usually considered an opportunistic pathogen that it responsible for a variety of nosocomial infections, such as, pneumonia, tracheobronchitis, meningitis, endocarditis, peritonitis, skin and soft tissue infections, and urinary tract infections. However, over the years, the organism has developed substantial antimicrobial resistance, and thus, the management of infections has become more difficult. The less common infective endocarditis is one of the more serious consequences of nosocomial bacteremia. Here, we report the successful treatment of the first case of multidrug-resistant A. baumannii endocarditis in a 33-year-old patient.

R genes are a key component of genetic interactions between plants and biotrophic bacteria and are known to regulate resistance against bacterial invasion. The most common R proteins contain a nucleotide-binding site and a leucine-rich repeat (NBS-LRR) domain. Some soybean NBS-LRR genes have also been reported to function in disease resistance. A total of 319 genes were determined to be putative NBS-LRR genes in the soybean genome. The number of NBS-LRR genes on each chromosome was highly correlated with the number of disease resistance QTL in the 2-Mb flanking regions of NBS-LRR genes. In addition, the recently duplicated regions contained duplicated NBS-LRR genes and duplicated disease resistance QTL, and possessed either an uneven or even number of NBS-LRR genes on each side. The significant difference in NBS-LRR gene expression between a resistant near-isogenic line (NIL) and a susceptible NIL after inoculation of Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. glycines supports the conjecture that NBS-LRR genes have disease resistance functions in the soybean genome. The number of NBS-LRR genes and disease resistance QTL in the 2-Mb flanking regions of each chromosome was significantly correlated, and several recently duplicated regions that contain NBS-LRR genes harbored disease resistance QTL for both sides. In addition, NBS-LRR gene expression was significantly different between the BLP-resistant NIL and the BLP-susceptible NIL in response to bacterial infection. From these observations, NBS-LRR genes are suggested to contribute to disease resistance in soybean. Moreover, we propose models for how NBS-LRR genes were duplicated, and apply Ks values for each NBS-LRR gene cluster.

The genus Rubus belongs to the Rosaceae family and is comprised of 600-800 species distributed worldwide. Understanding the genetic relationships and genetic structure in Rubus species is important for enabling efficient management, conservation, characterization and utilization of the species. However, as a minor crop, genetic research foundation was limited to explore genetic diversity and relationships in Rubus species. The present study shows the results of application SSR markers that were developed from SSR-enriched libraries of the one Rubus species (Rubus coreanus Mique.) in our previous study. We used 34 polymorphic microsatellite markers to analysis of genetic diversity within the Rubus species, including redraspberry, blackraspberry, blackberry and mountainberry. All the 34 SSR primers pairs produced 483 polymorphic and reproducible amplification fragments. The largest number of alleles per primer pair was confirmed at GB-RC-167, GB-RC-100, GB-RC-076 and GB-RC-245, which contained 26, 25, 23 and 21, respectively. An average value of polymorphic information contents (PIC) were 0.74 with a range of 0.36 to 0.92. Population structure and phylogenetic analyses showed that all Rubus species formed three largely distinct clusters, which were confirmed by principal coordinate analysis (PCoA). We obtained the results that the developed SSR markers showed a substantial degree of genetic diversity in the various Rubus species distributed in Korea.

Recent release of whole genome draft sequences in legume species have led comparative genome studies among legume plants including Glycine max, G. soja, Cajanus cajan and Medicago truncatula. The majority of comparative genomic researches have been conducted based on synteny of coding sequences and coding sequence variations may be one of major forces for speciation and evolution. However, non-coding sequences have been also reported to be important phenotypic regulators. Especially, since short sequence motifs in the promoter regions are highly conserved, they are suggested to be another resources of interests in comparative studies. In this study, we predicted the conserved short sequence motifs by BLASTN algorithm using dicot promoter database from Softberry (http://www.softberry.com). A total of 37,396 conserved short sequence motifs were identified onto 2 kb upstreams of 46,367 high confident gene model of G. max (cv. Williams 82). Meanwhile, whole genome of 7 soybean landraces (G. max) and 7 wild soybean genotypes (G. soja) were sequenced at low depth of less than ten using Illumina Hiseq 2000. Among these genotypes, nucleotide variations were identified in predicted conserved regulatory motifs by mapping of short reads to the reference genome sequence using the Samtools program (http://samtools.sourceforge.net/). Fifteen and two genes, which have SNPs in regulatory motifs and no SNP in coding sequence, were identified by comparisons of inter-species and intra-species, respectively. qRT-PCR experiments are in progress for investigating differences of these 17 genes expressions at transcriptional level.

As soybean (Glycine max) is known for its high nutritional value of oil and protein, soybean has been domesticated and cultivated by one specific character trait based on human selection. Importantly, tracing back in time where G. max and G. soja, the undomesticated ancestor of G. max have diverged plays an important role in studying of genetic diversity and in investigating the common ancestor of soybean. In this study, we sequenced 6 G. max and 6 G. soja using Illumina’s Hiseq 2000 with a low coverage sequencing technology to estimate the divergence of times between genotypes and populations. A total of the 12 genotypes were sequenced at the average depth of 6.5 and resulted 892.5 Mb and 903.3 MB consensus sequences with the coverage of 91.54% and 92.65% for G. max and G. soja, respectively. The whole genome SNP analysis showed that G. max had lower frequency levels of polymorphism (~0.1%) than G. soja (~0.25%). And, a high number of SNPs located in introns were found among 6 G. soja genotypes as SNPs were approximately twice than those found in 6 G max. The number of SNPs in G. max intronic regions was 53,134, whereas a total of 133,329 SNPs were discovered in G. soja introns. Almost an equal number of SNPs were discovered in 5’ UTR and exon regions; however, different numbers of SNP in CDS and 3′ UTR were identified. By the rate of nonsynonymous change, divergence of time between G. soja and G. max would be investigated.

인체피부에서 화장품이나 화장품 원료의 안전성시험은 대체로 육안평가로 이루어져왔다. 하지만, 피부반응 초기의 미세한 변화에 대해서 육안으로는 감지하지 못하는 경우가 많다. 따라서, 본 연구에서는 수종의 화장품 원료에 의해 유발되는 홍반반응에 대해 육안평가뿐 아니라, 레이저도플러혈류이미지(LDPI) 측정장비를 이용한 혈류변화 측정, Vapometer®를 이용한 경피수분손실량(TEWL) 측정, 분광광도계를 이용한 피부색 측정과 같은 기기평가를 병행하여 비교하였다. 30명의 건강한 여성 피험자를 대상으로 오일류 7종, 계면활성제류 6종, 보습제류 5종을 피험자의 등 부위에 24 h 폐쇄첩포(D0)하여 피부반응을 유도하였고 첩포 제거 후 30 min (D1), 24 h (D2)에 육안평가와 기기평가를 각각 실시하였다. 육안평가 결과, 프로필렌글라이콜을 제외한 모든 오일류와 보습제류는 저자극 수준의 피부반응(반응도 0+ ~ 2.9+)을 보인 반면, 프로필렌글라이콜과 모든 계면활성제류는 중자극에서 강자극 수준의 피부반응(반응도 3+ ~ 5+)을 보였다. 기기측정 결과, 육안평가에서 저자극 범주의 피부반응에 대해서 혈류량이나 피부색보다 경피수분손실량이 가장 민감하게 피부변화를 감지하였다.