Ionizing radiation affects gene expression from plant genomes. To monitor the genome-wide transcriptional changes induced by three types of ionizing radiation, we used the rice RNA sequencing to identify genes that are up- or down-regulated by gamma rays (GAs), proton (PRs) and ion beams (IBs). The Oryza sativa jacalin-like lectin domain containing proteins (OsJAC1) gene was highly induced by GAs, PRs and IBs. OsJAC1 was selected based on the expression patterns of a genome-wide dataset of RNA sequencing. Many jacalin-related lectin genes have been shown to be associated with disease resistance, biotic and abiotic stress signaling. Therefore, we studied its expression pattern in response to different abiotic stress and phytohormone treatments. The expression patterns of OsJAC1 under two different abiotic stress conditions (salt and heat stress) and phytohormones (salicylic acid and methyl jasmonate) were examined. The transcripts of OsJAC1 were significantly induced in response to abiotic stress conditions, including salt and heat treatments. In addition, it was induced in response to the salicylic acid and methyl jasmonate treatments, respectively. To investigate the sub-cellular localization of OsJAC1, the gene was expressed as a fusion protein tagged with GFP, in tobacco leaf epidermis and examined under confocal microscope. The OsJAC1 was clearly localized at the nucleus. These results provide critical insights into the molecular functions of the rice jacalin-like lectin domain containing proteins as receptors of external signals.

‘Tocomi-1’, a new japonica rice cultivar derived from a 200 Gy gamma ray irradiation with high tocopherol content and red pericarp. The local adaptability test of MRXII-1001-1 was carried out from 2012 to 2014 and it was named as ‘Tocomi-1’ in 2014. This variety is medium matured with heading date of August 12 in honam plain area of Korea. This variety is about 80 cm tall culm length and 106 spikelets per panicle. Its 1,000 grain-weight of rice seeds is 25.4 g. The yield potential of this variety is about 5.15 MT/ha in local adaptability test for three years. This variety exhibited greater seed longevity than the Donganbyeo, indicating a crucial role for tocopherols in maintaining viability during quiescence, and displayed faster seedling growth during the early growth stage. Tocopherol contents was 50% higher than the Donganbyeo. To study the molecular mechanism underlying vitamin E biosynthesis, we examined the expression patterns of seven rice genes encoding vitamin E biosynthetic enzymes. Accumulation levels of the OsVTE2 transcript and OsVTE2 protein in the ‘Tocomi-1’ were significantly higher than in the Donganbyeo. Sequence analysis revealed that the ‘Tocomi-1’ harbored a point mutation in the OsVTE2 promoter region, which resulted in the generation of MYB transcription factor—binding cis-element. These results help identify the promoter regions that regulate OsVTE2 transcription, and offer insights into the regulation of tocopherol content in ‘Tocomi-1’.

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) has been cultivated for cereal grain which has been traditionally used for steaming with rice in Korea. Various Korean sorghum varieties have been developed and distributed for farmers and consumers to meet their needs. Korean sorghum grains have been mostly sold at higher price in the market than sorghum grains imported from abroad. However, no varietal identification method was established to support fair trade in the cereal market. The objective of this study is to develop the identification method of Korean sorghum varieties using a multiplexed fingerprinting platform of SSR markers. One marker for the waxy allele and nine SSR markers were carefully selected based on their product sizes for the multiplexing. A robust multiplexed combination was revealed from serially designed experiments for the optimization of multiplex PCR. Five varieties and two elite breeding lines could be separated with their unique fingerprinting pattern from other sorghum individuals collected over the world. The platform separated most of individuals tested in this study, remaining three genotypes contained two or three identical individuals. The technique may be applied to detect closely-related individuals including full sibling progeny

Perilla frutescens (L.) is an annual herbaceous and ornamental plant in the Lamiaceae family. Perilla frutescens (L.) Britt.cv.Chookyoupjaso were irradiated using a 200 Gy gamma ray in 1995. By HPLC analysis, this new cultivar significantly induced isoegomaketone content compared with ‘Chookyoupjaso’ control. The phenotypical difference was the changed leaf color of the ‘Atom-Ketone’ from violet to green. The yield potential of this cultivar (106 kg/10a) was 1.83 folds higher than that of ‘Chookyoupjaso’ (57.65 kg/10a). The methanol extracts of ‘Atom-Ketone’ inhibit nitric oxide (NO) production in LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. This extract was further partitioned using ethyl acetate (EtOAc), butanol (BuOH), and water. The EtOAc fraction (EF-Atom-Ketone) was evaluated for antiinflammatory activities. These results indicated that the EF-Atom-Ketone reduced NO production by inhibiting inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression. The EF-Atom-Ketone treatment also significantly diminished expression of MCP-1 and IL-6. Therefore, ‘Atom-Ketone’ reveals the potential therapeutic use of bioactive

Perilla frutescens (L.) is an edible plant, not only used as s food ingredient, but also in skin cream, soaps, and medicinal preparetions. ‘Atom-Ros’, a perilla (Perilla frutescenc (L.) Britt. cv. Chookyoupjaso was developed in 1995 by 200 Gy gamma irradiation-mutagenesis. This new cultivar has high rosmarinic acid content more than two fold compare with ‘Chookyoupjaso’ control. The observed phenotypical difference was changed leaf color of the ‘Atom-Ketone’ from violet to green. The yield potential of this cultivar (123.5 kg/10a) was 2.14 fold higher than that of ‘Chookyoupjaso’ (57.65 kg/10a). The methanol extracts of ‘Atom-Ros’ were tested for inhibition of nitric oxide (NO) production in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophase cells. Atom-Ros showed significant inhibition of NO production. This rosmarinic acid extracted from ‘Atom-Ros’ has a good potential to be developed as an antioxidant agent.

This study attempts to propose the possibility of the sex reversal in Sinonovacula constricta and Gomphina veneriformis by confirming the changes in the sex ratio with the shell length in the same population level. For analysis of sex ratio, 100 individuals of S. constricta (SL 26.5-95.0 mm) and 2385 individuals of G. veneriformis (SL 15.1-60.1 mm) were used. Sex was analyzed histologically. Both species displayed the tendency of increase in the female proportion with increase in shell length. In this study, changes in the sex ratio in accordance with the growth of S. constricta and G. veneriformis are determined to be indirect evidence that signifies their sex reversal.

The detector subsystem of the Optical Wide-field Patrol (OWL) network efficiently acquires the position and time information of moving objects such as artificial satellites through its chopper system, which consists of 4 blades in front of the CCD camera. Using this system, it is possible to get more position data with the same exposure time by changing the streaks of the moving objects into many pieces with the fast rotating blades during sidereal tracking. At the same time, the time data from the rotating chopper can be acquired by the time tagger connected to the photo diode. To analyze the orbits of the targets detected in the image data of such a system, a sequential procedure of determining the positions of separated streak lines was developed that involved calculating the World Coordinate System (WCS) solution to transform the positions into equatorial coordinate systems, and finally combining the time log records from the time tagger with the transformed position data. We introduce this procedure and the preliminary results of the application of this procedure to the test observation images.

VitE (tocotrienols and tocopherols) are micronutrients with antioxidant properties synthesized by photosynthetic bacteria and plants that play important roles in animal and human nutrition. A new mutant line, T1001-1, was isolated from in vitro mutagenized population by ionizing radiation and shown to have increased VitE contents. The total VitE content was 26% increased in the T1001-1 mutant seeds compare with cv. Dongan (wild-type). In addition, we showed that the mutant confers retarded seedling growth during the early seedling growth stage in rice. To study the molecular mechanism of VitE biosynthesis, we used the rice microarray to identify genes that are upor down-regulated in T1001-1 mutant. In addition, we identified differentially regulated pathway using MapMan analysis, which provides deep insight into changes in transcript and metabolites. Our results enhanced the transcription of genes involved in starch and lipid metabolism in T1001-1 mutant. To identify the molecular mechanisms of the events involving transcription factors in tocopherol accumulation, we compared the expression patterns of transcription factors. The AP2-EREBP, WRKY, C2H2 transcription factor were up-regulated, whereas the MYB family was down-regulated in T1001-1 mutant. Our results demonstrate change of important transcript in high level of VitE accumulating rice mutant.

The sex ratio (F:M) in the same population of oyster, Crassostrea gigas at the commencement of the study (2007) was 1:1.0, but changed to 1:2.8 by the end of the study (2008). The sex reversal rate in two-year-old oysters was 40.2%. Specifically, female to male sex reversal rate was 66.1%, which is higher than the male to female sex reversal rate of 21.1%. The sex reversal pattern of C. gigas appears to go from male female male, and as such is determined to be rhythmical hermaphroditism.

Manganese () is a trace element that is essential for normal physiology, and is predominantly obtained from food. Several lines of evidence, however, demonstrated that overexposure to exerts serious neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity and developmental toxicity, particularly in male. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of 0, 1.0, 3.3, and 10 mg/kg/day doses of on the reproductive organs in the immature female rats. Rats (PND 22; S.D. strain) were exposed to () dissolved in drinking water for 2 weeks. The animals were sacrificed on PND 35, then the tissues were immediately removed and weighed. Histological studies were performed using the uteri tissue samples. Serum LH and FSH levels were measured with the specific ELISA kits. Body weights of the experimental group animals were not significantly different from those of control group animals. However, ovarian tissue weights in 1 mg and 3.3 mg dose groups were significantly lower than those of control animals (p<0.05 and p<0.01, respectively). Uterine tissue weights of 3.3 mg dose groups were significantly lower than those of control animals (p<0.01), while the 1 mg dose and 10 mg dose failed to induce any change in uterine weight. Similarly, only 3.3 mg dose could induce the significant decrease in the oviduct weight compared to the control group (p<0.05). Non-reproductive tissues such as adrenal and kidney failed to respond to all doses of exposure. The uterine histology revealed that the exposure could affect the myometrial cell proliferation particularly in 3.3 mg dose and 10mg dose group. Serum FSH levels were significantly decreased in 1mg dose and 10 mg groups (p<0.05 and p<0.01, respectively). In contrast, treatment with 1 mg dose induced a significant increment of serum LH level (p<0.05). The present study demonstrated that exposure is capable of inducing abnormal development of reproductive tissues, at least to some extent, and altered gonadotropin secretions in immature female rats. Combined with the well-defined actions of this metal on GnRH and prolactin secretion, one can suggest the might be a potential environmental mediator which is involved in the female pubertal process.

Ionizing radiation is known to cause chromosomal alterations such as inversions and deletions and affects gene expression within the plant genome. To monitor the genome-wide transcriptome changes by ionizing radiation, we used rice Affimetrix GeneChip microarray to identify genes that are up- or down regulated by gamma-ray (200 Gy, 60Co source), cosmic-ray and ion beam (40 Gy, 220 MeV carbon ion). The overall expression patterns between gamma-ray and ion beam were similar but cosmic-ray was regulated differently. Combined results from all 3 radiations identified 27 up-regulated genes and 188 down regulated genes. These results mean the induction of similar mechanism changes in treatments of gamma ray and ion beam. However the different expression in treatment of cosmic-ray might be due to the other environmental conditions. Among the commonly up- or down- regulated genes, we chose highly up- or down- regulated several genes and confirmed its regulation in response to ionizing radiation exposure by RT-PCR analysis. Moreover, we showed that specific co-expression networks of candidate radio marker genes by ARACNE algorithm. Our results present profiles of gene expression related to different ionizing radiation and marker gene to predict sensitivity to ionizing radiation, such as GS (glutelin subunit) and FBX322.

This study was carried out to gain the basic informations about botanical characteristics of plant type and properties related to table quality for developing the new colored waxy corn hybrid. Materials used were produced by our laboratory in 2007 and their major traits were evaluated fro two years(2008 to 2009) at Corn Breeding Farm of Coll. of Agri. & Life in CNU. Items surveyed were major agricultural characteristics including ear length and traits related to edible. Botanical characteristics as a plant type and ear pattern of the developed waxy corn hybrids showed large ranges among them; stem height of CNU08H-h39 among used hybrids was the highest as 235.7cm, while CNUH08-15 was the lowest. Ear height of Daehackchal Gold 1 was the highest as 83.7cm and that of CNU08H-15 was the lowest among used hybrids. Ear length of CNU08H-h121 among used hybrids was the longest as 23.1cm, while that of CNU08H-71 was the smallest as 12.7cm. Kernel sugar content of the used hybrids appeared to be 16.1 to 13.0Brix(%). Especially, CNU08H-15, CNU08H-35 and CNU08H-h39 hybrids were highly appeared as 15 above. Pericarp thickness of check hybrid, Yeonongchal, was thicker as 46.0㎛, while that of CNU08H-39 compared to other hybrids showed the thinnest as 23.0㎛. From this study, we could obtain several superior colored hybrids with thinner pericarp and high sugar contents like CNU 08-39 and CNU 08-h121 hybrids. Accordingly, these hybrids will be apply as new developed variety through confirmed trials.