Recently, ambrosia beetles have become very important pest of 2~5 year old apple trees with M9 dwarf rootstocks in South Korea. The beetles have killed the branches and stems of the young trees, especially, frozen damage trees in winter or drought stressed tree in spring. By the increase in planting area and weaken property in winter of M9 dwarf rootstock, ambrosia beetles are becoming a key pest in Korean apple orchards using M9 rootstock. According to the survey of damaged apple trees by ambrosia beetles, Xylosandrus germanus Blandford, Xyleborus apicalis Blandford and Xyleborinus saxeseni (Ratzeburg). These insects are hosts of the ambrosia fungi. ITS region of rDNA has shown to be a useful source for phylogenetic studies and identifying speices in previous published articles. We analyzed the nucleotide sequences of ITS1, 5.8S and ITS2 region of ambrosia fungi isolated from three ambrosia beetles, in order to observe molecular variation among the fungi strains and to reveal phylogenetic relationships.

The flower bugs (Heteroptera: Anthocoridae) is usually known as biological control agents against various kinds of agricultural pests such as aphids, mites, thrips and so on. Since the classification of the family Anthocoridae has been controversial, the molecular phylogenetic study was conducted with 44 species including 6 outgroup taxa. Three genes, a total of 3277 bp of sequence data (nuclear 18S rDNA: 2022bp, 28S rDNA: 755bp, and mitochondrial 16S rDNA: 498bp), were analyzed using ML (maximum likelihood) and Bayesian methods, excluding MP (maximum parsimony) as the incongruence length difference (ILD) test has very low (0.001) P-values on all partition tests. Our results support the rank and monophyly of the family Lasiochilidae which was exclusively separated from the main clade of Anthocoridae proposed by Schuh and Stys (1991), and indicate the monophyletic relationships among tribes and genera within the family Anthocoridae. According to our results, the genus Amphiareus should be out of the tribe Dufourini and treated as the tribe level and The three genera, Blaptostethus, Scoloposcelis and Xylocoris should be placed to the family Lyctocoridae. We also propose the evolutionary theory of Anthocoridae based on their habitats, hunting behavior and the molecular phylogenetic results.

Samples were taken from the surface waters around Dokdo Island to measure the physico-chemical and microbiological water qualities from June 23 to 26, 2007. Water temperature and dissolved oxygen were in the range of 20.7~20.9oC and 7.01~7.74, respectively. Salinity and pH were in the range of 34.5~34.8‰ and 8.23~8.37, respectively. Population densities of aerobic oligotrophic bacteria and heterotrophic bacteria by plate counting method were in the range of 2.4±0.5×103~3.0±0.3×103 and 4.4±0.6×103~6.0±0.9×103 cfu ml−1, respectively. Among thirty-seven isolates isolated from surface waters around Dokdo island by using 16S rDNA analysis, dominant species were closely related to Actionobacteria (7 clones), α-proteobacteria group (6 clones), and γ-proteobacteria group (4 clones).

A survey was conducted to find out the major plant parasitic nematode in Chrysanthemum morifolium fields in Korea from May to June in 2005. A genus of Pratylenchus was determined as the most important plant parasitic nematode based on analysis of total 50 samples from 8 cities of chrysanthemum field. Pratylenchus showed 86% occurrence rate and average numbered 1,095 per 200㏄ soils and Ig root. Five Pratylenchus isolates, "Muan", "Masan", "Tean", "Gumi", "Jeongup", were selected for the molecular identification of the species of Pratylenchus, and ITS and D3-28S ribosomal DNA were amplified by PCR. For the ITS, only" Muan" isolate was differentiated by total 1 kb PCR amplification, which was 200 bp larger than all the other isolates. There was no size variation in amplified D3-28S rDNA and all isolate represented approximately 320 bp of PCR product. Sequence data of D3-28S rDNA were analysed by MegAlign program in DNASTAR software and phylogenetic tree was constructed. Sequence homology was 100% between "Gumi" isolate and "Tean" isolate and "Jeongup" isolate was also close to these isolates by 99.7% sequence homology. "Gumi", "Tean" group and "Jeongup" isolate were determined to be closely related to Pratylenchus vulnus by 96.7% and 96.3% similarity in respectively. D3 sequence of "Masan" isolate was 100% identical to P. penetrans, and "Muari" isolate showed 99.7% similarity to P. brachyurus. This result was congruent with the branch divergence pattern shown in phylogenetic tree.

This study was undertaken to develop PCR primers for the identification and detection of Streptococcus anginosus using species-specific forward and reverse primers. These primers targeted the variable regions of the 16S ribosomal RNA coding gene(rDNA). The primer specificity was tested against 12 S. anginosus strains and 6 different species(10 strains) of oral bacteria. The primer sensitivity was determined by testing serial dilutions of the purified genomic DNA of S. anginosus ATCC 33397T. The data showed that species-specific amplicons were obtained from all the S. anginosus strains tested, but not in the six other species. The PCR could detect as little as 0.4pg of the chromosomal DNA from S. anginosus. This suggests that the PCR primers are highly sensitive and applicable to the detection and identification of S. anginosus.

한국에 분포하고 있는 개구리 속에 대한 염기서열을 결정하고 상호 비교하여 종간 유전적 변이 정도를 밝히고자 한국산 개구리 속 6종과 일본산 개구리 속 1종에 대한 미토콘드리아 165 rDNA를 분석하였으며, Gene-bank에 수록된 일본산 산개구리류 3종도 함께 비교 분석하여 총 437 bp의 염기서열을 결정하였다. 산개구리류 7종에 대한 similarity는 91.3∼97.3％이며, 참개구리류는 96.1∼97.3％로 나타났다. 또한, 참개구리류와 옴

지리적으로 격리되어 있는 아무르산개구리 (Rana amurensis)의 유전적인 변이를 알아보기 위하여 미토콘드리아 165 rDNA 유전자 중 401 bp 염기서열을 분석하여 비교하였다. 아무르산개구리(4개 지역집단; 한국, 중국, 몽골 및 러시아), 참개구리(2개 지역집단: 한국, 일본) 및 다른 종류의 산개구리류 미토콘드리아 165 rDNA 유전자도 함께 비교하였다. 아무르산개구리의 형태적 유사성에도 불구하고, 한국 집단은 다른 지역의 집단들과 비교

Background: Gastrodia elata Blume is a saprophytic perennial plant in the Orchidaceae family, because of its agricultural and medicinal effectiveness, researchers focus on its genome and chemical components. However, cytogenetic information based on the chromosome structure and composition to construct chromosomal backbone for genome sequencing research and for the development and breeding of plants is very limited. Methods and Results: We determined the metaphase chromosome composition of the G. elata genome by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) using 5S and 45S rDNAs and telomeric repeat probes. The nuclear genome of G. elata was organized into 2 n = 36, with relatively small (2.71 - 5.50㎛)chromosomes that showed gradual decrease in size. Conglutination phenomenon was observed among the metaphase chromosomes, and it was distinguished from that in other plant metaphase chromosome spreads. One pair of signal was detected for each 5S and 45S rDNA in the pericentromeric region and interstitial region on the short arm of chromosomes 10 and 4, respectively, and telomeric DNA signals were detected in the terminal region of most chromosomes. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first FISH chromosome composition result in G. elata and could be useful in more comprehensive molecular cytogenetic and genomic analyses as well as breeding programs of the medicinal plant G. elata.

The chromosome number was identified and fluorescence in situ hybridization(FISH) mapping of 5S and 45S rDNAs were conducted for C. minima and C. lanceolata in the genus Codonopsis from Jeju island. In this study, we have confirmed that the somatic metaphase chromosome number determined as 2n=2x=16 was the same as the findings from the previous studies. While the conventional staining method makes it rather difficult to distinguish satellite chromosomes due to high degree of variability, FISH analysis produced the exact number and location of 5S and 45S rDNAs. Both species in the genus Codonopsis have a pair of 5S rDNA and their gene loci were observed on chromosome 3. Although two pairs of 45S rDNAs (one on chromosome 1 and the other on chromosome 8) were identified in both species, the 45S rDNA signals on chromosome 8 in C. minima were significantly weaker than those on chromosome 1. In addition, the 45S rDNA signals on chromosome 1 in C. lanceolata showed that the chromosome is non-homologus. In this study, we have determined cytogenetic characteristics of C. minima and C. lanceolata according to their gene replication patterns.