In this study, we examined the effects of gamma irradiation dosage on the mycelial growth of Auricularia auriculajudae and performed analyses of fruiting body yield, growth characteristics, taste, fragrance, and mineral composition. Assessments of mycelial growth in response to gamma irradiation at different intensities revealed an enhancement in the growth of fungi exposed to irradiation at 200 Gy. Fruiting body yield was also highest at 200 Gy, followed by 800 Gy and the control group. On the basis of these observations, we subsequently applied gamma ray doses of 200 and 800 Gy to examine the effects of irradiation on fungal quality characteristics. In terms of the taste of fruiting bodies, we detected no significant differences among the control, 200 Gy, and 800 Gy groups. Contrastingly, with respect to fragrance, we found that fungi treated with 200 Gy were characterized by a pattern that differed from those of the control and other treatment groups. Furthermore, whereas we detected no significant difference among treatments with respect total dietary fiber content, calcium content was found to be higher in the treatment groups compared with the control group, with the highest content being measured in fungi exposed to 800 Gy irradiation. Copper content was confirmed to be higher in the control group, whereas there were no significant differences between the fungi irradiated with 200 and 800 Gy. Contrastingly, the highest levels of zinc were detected in response to 200 Gy irradiation, followed by 800 Gy. Collectively, our findings thus indicate that gamma irradiation can contribute to promoting increases in the fruiting body yield and mineral contents of mushrooms.

The present study was to survey the site environment, vegetation structure and soil characteristics in the wild habitats of Acer tegmentosum Maxim. and offers basic information for habitats conservation and restoration. Most of the wild habitats were located at altitudes between 605~1,413m with inclinations ranged as 8~30°. The bare rock rate were 8~50%. The vegetation structure by the PC-ORD based on the Two Way Cluster Analysis were divided into three groups CommunityⅠ(Acer tegmentosum – Quercus mongolica), CommunityⅡ(Acer tegmentosum - Carpinus cordata), CommunityⅢ(Quercus mongolica – Tilia amurensis). The species diversity(H') was highest in CommunityⅡ as 1.474, CommunityⅠwas 1.471, Community Ⅲ was 1.219. The soil textures were Clay loam, The average soil pH was 4.8, Soil organic matter was 15.15% and available phosphorus was 2.33ppm. Ordination analysis result by soil characteristics, community, characteristic species showed that the greatest effect factors were slope, altitude, tree and shrub’s cover rate, organic matter, total-nitrogen, calcium, magnesium. Correlation analysis between environment factor result showed that O.M. - (T.N., K+, Mg2+, CEC, EC), T.N. - (K+, Mg2+, CEC, EC) were positive correlations.

Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) is an annual herbaceous crop of the Malvaceae family. Recently, kenaf is being used in many diversified applications such as pulp, animal feed, bioplastics and cellulosic biofuel etc. A new cultivar 'Jangdae' was developed by mutation breeding using irradiated with 300 Gy gamma-rays. Jangdae has a few distinguishable characteristics such as early flowering, high seed yield and palmate leaf, compared to wild type (Jinju). The fresh matter (FM) and dry matter (DM) yield of Jangdae are similar to those of Jinju, their seed yield (833.3 kg/ha) is approximately 4 times higher than that of Jinju. In addition, the FM and DM yield of Jangdae are 40% higher than those of early-maturing cultivar (C11). We performed the nutritive value of four kenaf cultivars (Jangdae, Jinju, C11 and Hongma300) at 100 day after seeding. The crude protein content of Jangdae, Jinju, C11 and Honma300 were 10.5, 11.0, 9.4 and 10.6%, respectively. The crude fiber, neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber contents were no significant difference among the cultivars. Jangdae, which afforded both a high biomass and seed yield in South Korea, may be useful as potential source of feed and industrial materials.

This study was carried out to survey the vascular plants on Mt. Seokbyeongsan (1,055 m) and provide a basis for the conservation and management of plant resources. The vascular plants were surveyed from March to October 2015. The flora on Mt. Seokbyeongsan was classified as follows: 102 families, 295 genera, 454 species, 4 subspecies, 51 varieties, 7 forms, and a total of 516 taxa. Endemic plants included 17 families, 24 genera, 25 species, 1 variety, and a total of 26 taxa. The Korea Forest Service assignment of rare plants, including 21 families, 33 genera, 33 species, 3 varieties, and a total of 36 taxa, was investigated. Moreover, the Ministry of Environment assignment of rare plants, including 13 families, 17 genera, 17 species, 1 variety, and a total of 18 taxa, was investigated. Floristic special plants in the surveyed area were divided into five classes (Classes Ⅰ–Ⅴ): 42 taxa of Class Ⅰ, 26 taxa of Class Ⅱ, 35 taxa of Class Ⅲ, 20 taxa of Class Ⅳ, and 9 taxa of Class Ⅴ for a total of 132 taxa. Naturalized plants were 18 taxa, and plants threatened by climate change were 48 taxa.

This study examined radiation damage and the optimal gamma-ray dose for mutation breeding in oat (Avena sativa L. cv. Samhan). The seed germination rate decreased as the dose increased over 500 Gy. The median lethal dose (LD50) was approximately 392 Gy. The median reduction dose (RD50) for plant height, tiller number, root length, and flash weight was 411, 403, 394, and 411 Gy, respectively. The optimal dose of gamma irradiation for inducing oat mutation appears to be in the range 300-400 Gy. We performed the comet assay to observe nuclear DNA damage induced by gamma-ray irradiation. This assay showed a clear difference with gamma-ray treatments. DNA damage increased temporarily 7 days after treatment depending on the dose, while no significant difference was identified in response to 300 Gy 30 days after the gamma-ray treatments. The growth characteristics of the M2 generation decreased as the dose increased over 400 Gy.

Ionizing radiation directly and indirectly affects gene expression within the plant genome. To access the physiological response of rice to different types of ionizing radiation, rice seeds were exposed to gamma-ray and ion beam radiation. Exposure to ionizing radiation dramatically decreased the shoot length compared with non-irradiated plants. Fluorescence-activated-cell-sorting (FACs) was used to measure DNA contents. There were significant correlations of dose-dependent between irradiated plant and non-irradiated plant. The radicals induced by the ionizing radiation in the plant could be observed by electron spin resonance (ESR). It was confirmed that the number of free radicals in cell was greatly increased all irradiated plants than non-irradiated plant. A significant positive correlation was shown between ionizing radiation dose and signal intensity. In order to determine the Genetic diversity, AFLP analysis was conducted with the irradiated plant and non-irradiated plant. Based on band patterns, the cluster analysis was conducted to evaluate the genetic variation by using the UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Grouping Method of Averages). Genetic diversity of irradiated plants by low dose ion beam was the closest non-irradiated plant and irradiated by high dose gamma-ray was the furthest from non-irradiated. We describe the detailed methods of ionizing irradiation and discuss its applications in genetic research as well as plant breeding.

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.

The transposable element is a DNA sequence that can be changed its position within the genome, sometimes it can create or reverse mutations and altering the cell's genome size. Target region amplification polymorphism (TRAP) is a rapid and efficient PCR-based marker technique, which uses bioinformatics tools and expressed sequence tag (EST) database information to generate polymorphic markers around targeted candidate gene sequences. TE-TRAP is a new marker system which used terminal inverted repeat (TIR) instead of targeted candidate gene sequences. Sorghum holds a good potential plant organism for transposon tagging due to its small genome size, low amount of repetitive DNA and co-linearity with other cereal genomes, which allows the use of information derived from sorghum in other cereal grasses. IS2868 of sorghum accession was treated Gamma irradiation on seed. To define availability and utilization of TE-TRAP, twenty-one accessions were used to evaluate the genetic diversity and underlying relationships. One-thousand thirty-three TE-TRAP markers were amplified by thirty-one primer combination. Altogether, 712 (62.8%) markers were observed polymorphic segregation, whereas 421 (37.2%) showed monomorphic patterns. To estimate genetic differentiation of population by various gamma radiation doses, the analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) was performed using 4 to 5 different radiation doses population of M1 sorghum individuals. This study and marker system will provide valuable information to assist radiation mutation breeding.

‘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’.

This study was carried out to determine the amount of lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose in six kenaf cultivars during different harvesting stages. Three mutant cultivars (Jangdae, Jeokbong and Baekma), two original cultivars (Jinju, C14), and one Chinese cultivar (Auxu) were planted on May 14, 2013. Four harvesting times were made at intervals of 20 days from 15 July to 16 September, 2013. The overall growth characters of mutant cultivar ‘Jeokbong’ such as plant height, stem diameter, flowering time, and dry mass were similar with those of the original variety. The mutant cultivar ‘Baekma’ occurred 10-day late flowering in comparison with the original variety and also displayed higher dry mass than the original variety. Jinju, Auxu and Jangdae, mid-late maturing kenaf cultivars, had high dry weight compared to early maturing cultivars such as Jeokbong, Baekma and C14. In all cultivars, the lignin contents were increased by a late harvest. The Mid-late maturing kenaf cultivars showed high lignin content in comparison with those of the early maturity cultivars. There were no significant differences of cellulose, and hemicellulose content between the cultivars, however cellulose content in stems of these kenaf cultivars were significantly decreased by a late harvest. These results may provide valuable information to assist the parental selection of kenaf breeding.

Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) native to Africa can be used as fiber, food, feedstock and bio plastic. This study was carried out to evaluate the mineral, amino acid and vitamin contents of six selected kenaf cultivars which are enable to produce seed under Korean circumstance. The leaves of three mutant cultivars (Jangdae, Jeokbong and Baekma), two original cultivars (Jinju, C14) and one Chinese cultivar (Auxu) were harvested at flowering time. Mineral components of kenaf leaves, such as calcium, potassium, and mineral, did not showed significant differences among the cultivars. As major amino acids including proline and phenylalanine, significant differences were found in these kenaf cultivars. The Auxu cultivar contained the highest amount of essential amino acid (Phenylalanine, Leucine, Isoleucine, Valine, Methionine and Lysine). The amount of vitamin displayed significant differences such as vitamin E and vitamin K among these cultivars. Especially, Jangdae cultivar contained the highest amount of vitamin E and vitamin K. Thus, these data suggested that Jangdae and Auxu is the most desirable cultivar containing high amount of vitamin and amino acid.

Anthocyanin, a group of purple or reddish flavonoids, have been recognized as health-promoting functional food ingredients due to antioxidant activity. For this reason, plant breeders are trying to increase the anthocyanin contents using methods such as classical breeding and biotechnological approaches. To broaden the mutants population, seeds of colored wheat variety (K4191) were irradiated by using 250 Gy gamma irradiation. Individual 968 M4 plants were grown in Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute field. Many mutant phenotypes were shown: seed color variation, abnormal spike shape, awning formation, heading and ripening time, plant height, ripening period, super dwarf, etc. To identify the inheritance traits of colored-wheat, individual lines were maintained the spike base classified by generation. Characteristics per spike and plant were piled up to construct for mutant database. In the future, fixed descent will be analyzed the anthocyanin contents or other phytonutrients by ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC). Expression of seed color-related transcription factors and anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway genes will be examined.

To define whole genome-level of structural variation by ionization energies and radiation doses in plant, the seeds of Ilpum rice cultivar were acutely irradiated with gamma rays (100Gy, 200Gy, and 400Gy) and ion-beams (20Gy, 40Gy, and 80Gy), respectively. Six M1 rice plants were re-sequenced by Hi-Seq2500 with Ilpum cultivar as control. The average sequencing coverage of the individuals was 10.6X, and the average mapping rate to the rice reference genome (IRGSP-1.0) sequence was 96.95%. The individual plants were irradiated with gamma-400Gy and ion-50Gy had highest variation of SNP with 471,837 and 469,147, respectively. The number of insertion/deletion was 77,500 and 77,106, the synonymous and frame-shift were 7,859 and 7,763 in above two individuals. Although high genome variation shown between Ilpum cultivar and irradiated individuals, there were non-correlation between number of variation and radiation doses. However, five individuals, except ion-20Gy, showed 33 common variant blocks (CVBs) spanning 6 Mb in whole rice genome (1.6%). The CVBs were distributed on 12 rice chromosomes, Chromosome 6 had biggest CVB (5 blocks, 1.3Mb), whereas chromosome 9 had smallest CVB (0.01Mb). Total five hundred fifty one genes were in CVBs which can regard radiation sensitive genes or may be regarded as radiation hot spots in rice genome. This study will contribute to the improvement of the radiation mutation breeding research in genetic and genomic aspect.

Exposure to ionizing radiation is regarded as a kind of abiotic stresses that can change the expression of genes in living organisms. This study aimed on investigating the variations in gene expressions induced by two different types of irradiations with different doses, which were low linear energy transfer (LET) gamma rays (100, 200, and 400 Gy) and high LET ion-beams (20, 40, and 80 Gy) on rice. RNA sequencing was carried out using the Illumina HiSeq-2500 platform. The average amount of reads were 4.8 Gb per individual, and 5 to 8% of the reads were removed after quality control. More than 90% of the RNA-seq reads were mapped to the rice reference genome sequence (IRGSP-1.0). A total of 247 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by comparison of the gene expression levels between the wildtype and the irradiated individuals. The 247 DEGs were divided into five modules and 27 intra-modular hub genes were found using the weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA) method. The MEturquiose module had the most number of genes with 75 related to carbohydrate and small molecule metabolic processes. The co-expression network reconstructed using ARACNE (algorithm for reconstruction of accurate cellular networks) showed specific up- or down-regulation of the genes in each module according to the types and doses of radiation. This study will contribute to understanding the gene expression responses to ionizing irradiation.