Diversity and distribution of entomopathogenic nematodes were surveyed in Korea from 2010 to 2014. Soil samples were examined for the presence of steinernematid and heterorhabditid nematodes by baiting method with Galleria mellonella larvae. Out of the 189 soil samples, 47(24.9%) were positive for entomopathogenic nematodes, with the share of 7(3.7%) for Heterorhabditis and 40(21.2%) for Steinernema isolates. Morphological and molecular studies were also utilized to characterize isolates. The Heterorhabditis isolates were identified as H. megidis and Steinernema isolates as S. carpocapsae, S. monticolum and S. kraussei, respectively. H. megidis was the most common species of Heterorhabditis, which was isolated from 7 sites across the five different provinces and Steinernema monticolum was the most common species of Steinernema, which was isolated from 34 sites, respectively. S. carpocapsae was isolated from only two sites, Namwon, Jeongnam province and Iksan, Jeonbuk province, respectively. S. kraussei was the first recorded entomopathogenic nematode in Korea. Those entomopathogenic nematodes were recorded from coniferous and deciduous forests.

JAZF1 (Juxtaposed with Another Zinc Finger gene 1) transcription factor are Zn-finger proteins that bind to the nuclear orphan receptor TAK/TR4 (Nakajima et al., 2004). The nuclear orphan receptor TAK1/TR4 functions as a positive as well as a negative regulator of transcription. It was recently reported that congenital cardiovascular malformations are significantly more frequent in Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) patients with microdeletion syndrome than in those with classical NF1. JAZF1 was expressed in adult heart of patients with microdeletion syndrome. JAZF1 is highly conserved among various species include zebrafish. We hypothesized that the expression of zebrafish Jazf1 may lead to severe forms of congenital heart disease that allow the survival of newborns and adults. In this study, we created Jazf1 transgenic zebrafish which over-express zebrafish Jazf1 cDNA under control of the CMV promoter. Our results suggested that Jazf1 expression may play an important role in zebrafish cardiac development.

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have been generated from mouse and human somatic cells by etopic expression of transcription factors. iPS cells are indistinguishable from ES cells in terms of morphology and stem cell marker expression. Moreover, mouse iPS cells give rise to chimeric mice that are competent for germline transmission. However, mice derived from iPS cells often develop tumors. Furthermore, the low efficiency of iPS cell generation is a big disadvantage for mechanistic studies. Nonviral plasmid‐based vectors are free of many of the drawbacks that constrain viral vectors. The histone deacetylase inhibitor valproic acid (VPA) has been shown to improve the efficiency of mouse and human iPS cell generation, and vitamin C (Vc) accelerates gene expression changes and establishment of the fully reprogrammed state. The MEK inhibitor PD0325901 (Stemgent) has been shown to increase the efficiency of the reprogramming of human primary fibroblasts into iPS cells. In this report, we described the generation of mouse iPS cells devoid of exogenous DNA by the simple transient transfection of a nonviral vector carrying 2A‐peptide‐linked reprogramming factors. We used VPA, Vc, and the MEK inhibitor PD0325901 to increase the reprogramming efficiency. The reprogrammed somatic cells expressed pluripotency markers and formed EBs.