The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of heat appli˗ cation on the immune activities of the human body. To exam, further˗ more, the immune effect from the healthy volunteer(male:15, female:15) by monitoring changes of immune substances such as various leukocytes[total white blood cell(WBC), eosinophil, neutrophil, basophil, monocyte, and lymphocyte], a comparative study with warm water immersion(40.8±0.3℃) and infrared(250W) was carried out. The plasma analysis showed that the count of white blood cell, eosinophil, and neutrophil were elevated in warm water immersion- or infrared˗ stimulated group compared with control group. However, the count of basophil was decreased in both warm water immersion- and infrared-stimulated group than control group. Therefore, these results suggest that the thermostimulation improved immune activity.

　A total of 41 microsatellite markers were used with 29 genotypes to examine the relationship between SSR polymorphisms and N‐use efficiency related traits with a goal to identify the putative QTLs related to these traits. These primers yielded a total of 183 alleles (average 4.46 alleles per primer), and polymorphism information content (PIC) values of the SSRs ranged from 0.119 to 0.805 with mean value of 0.425. Correlation coefficients were obtained among the four N‐use efficiency traits in the 34 accessions and significant positive correlations of relative ratios between grain yield and harvest index (r=0.3404) and total dry matter (r=0.7976), while N uptake showed a moderate level of correlation with the ratios of the grain yield and total dry matter, respectively. 36.5% (15/41) SSR markers were monomorphic among the 25 japonica accessions out of the 29 accessions. Association between SSR genotypes and phenotypic performances from the total (29) or japonica (25) accessions was tested based on a single point analysis. Three putative QTL regions were detected for the ratio of grain yield. These include the chromosomal region containing the RM283 locus on chromosome 1 and RM25 on chromosome 8 (all and japonica accessions) and the region with the SSR marker, RM206 on chromosome 11 (the japonica accessions). For the total dry matter ratio, two chromosomal regions were identified as the putative QTL region. One is the region with the SSR marker, RM162 on chromosome 6 (all and japonica accessions) and the other was the one with the SSR marker RM25 on chromosome 8 (the japonica accessions). Among these markers, RM25 showed associations with both traits.

The pollen grain is a unique tricellular structure suitable for the delivery of the sperm cells to the ovule. All nutrients required for microspore and pollen cell growth are derived by passage through the anther locule and secretion by the tapetum lining. During later stages the tapetum degenerates but contributes to produce pigments, waxes, lipids and proteins which form the pollen coat and function in signaling between male (pollen) and female (pistil) tissues. The development of both normal pollen and tapetum is necessary for the fertilization processes in rice and would be exploited for the induction of male-sterility which is very useful to improve economic value of crops. We aredeveloping new approaches using a conditional male-sterility for the F1 hybrid seed production in rice. The conventional three parental systems for F1 hybrid seed production requirethe following three lines: male-sterile line, maintainer line, and restorer line. In this system, a critical requirement is to maintain the male-sterile inbred lines. Here we suggest molecular approaches, in which the engineered male-sterile plants are generated by regulating endogenous hormonal balance through the loss-of-function of genes. We can expect the male-sterility can be restored by exogenous applications of hormones such as gibberellin or jasmonic acid. Based on two parental systems, we will address the answer onfollowing question: how can we maintain a male-sterile line producing 100% male-sterile progenies without a maintainer? This work was supported by grants from Crop Functional Genomics Center of the 21C Frontier Program (CG1517), RepublicKorea.

Nitrogen (N) fertilization is essential for alleviating nutrient deficiencies of the world’s population by increasing rice production, one of the most important food crops of our time. Here we established an in vivo hydroponics rice seedling culture system to investigate the physio-biochemical and molecular responses of various rice genotypes to low nitrogen application. Yoshida’s nutrient solution (YS) was used to grow rice seedlings, and at three-week-old the seedlings manifested highly stable and reproducible symptoms, such as reduced shoot growth and length. Out of 12 genetically selected or tested genotypes, almost all (11 genotypes) showed varied degrees of growth reduction response to applied nitrogen (4 and 40 ppm N for treatment and control, respectively), but SR19663-B-B-34-3-3-3-1 showed similar growth as the control though its leaf width was smaller than the control. The leaves of a 11 representative low nitrogen-responsive genotype as BG90-2 were sampled for revealing the protein profiles between low and normal (control) nitrogen application by using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DGE) followed by staining of separated proteins with silver. Fifty differentially expressed silver stained protein spots were excised from 2-D gels and 41 proteins identified using high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS) using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-MS and nano electrospray ionization liquid chromatography tandem MS. These proteins could be assigned as major (energy metabolism, photosynthesis and oxidative stress) and minor functional categories, revealing many novel low N-responsive proteins, including those having energy/photosynthesis, and defense/stress, and iron homeostasis-related functions.