• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.235-239
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• 2003

The silkworm Bombyx mori L. was studied as the potential “host” of popular in Uzbekistan biocontrol ectoparasite, entomophagous Bracon hebetor Say. Being one of representatives of economic-beneficial insects, the silkworm (larvae, pupae and imago) can be used as highly sensitive test organism for revealing of neuro toxic effects of insects venom as well as of their purified components in screening assays. In comparative aspect, except a mulberry silkworm, representatives of Uzbekistan pests cotton-boll worm Helycoverpa armigera Hbn., lesser mulberry pyralid Glyphodes pyloalis Wlk., codling moth Corpocapsa pomonella L., malaria mosquito Anopheles claviger and Colorado potato beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say have been subjected to insect toxic test of bracon venom gland extract (VGE) and its fractions which were obtained by gel-chromatography on Sephadex G-100. The paralyzing effect of the VGE and its fractions was shown in a various degree on the pests.

• Mycobiology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.159-161
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• 2007

Pine tree death caused by pine wood nematode(PWN) involves phoretic relationships between PWN and its vector Japanese pine sawyer beetle(JPS). In an effort to understand the diversity of fungi involved in PWN life cycle, a total of 176 fungal isolates were collected from PWNs, adults and larvae of JPS, PWN-diseased Japanese black pine that was cut down in 2005 at Jinju, Korea. Based on microscopic observation and colony morphology, and sequence analysis of the ITS rDNA, the fungal isolates were identified at the level of genus. Three genera including Mucor, Ophiostoma, and Penicillium were identified from PWN. Two genera of Ophiostoma and Penicillium were discovered from JPS larvae. Frpm JPS adult beetles, nine genera of Aspergillus, Gibberalla, Hypocrea, Irpex, Leptosphaeria, Ophiostoma, Penicillium, and Plectosphaerella and unknown basidio-mycetes were found. Ten genera from PWN-infected weed were confirmed as Bionectria, Botrytis, Camarops, Fusarium, Hypocrea, Nectria, Mucor, Ophiostoma, Penicillium, and Trichoderma. Penicillium and Ophiostoma were commonly distributed on PWN and its vector and host. This is first report of the fungi associated with PWN and its vector and host in Korea.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.45 no.2 s.142
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• pp.145-148
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• 2007

Only a few cases of Acanthocephala infections have been reported in humans, and Moniliformis moniliformis is the most common species around the world. We report here a case of infection with M. moniliformis, which passed in the stool of a 2-year-old girl in Iran. The patient had abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and facial edema. According to her mother, the patient had habit of eating dirt and once a cockroach was discovered in her mouth. In stool examination, eggs of M. moniliformis were not found. She was treated with levamisole and the clinical symptoms reduced within 2 weeks. The specimen contained 2 pieces of a female worm with a total length of 148 mm lacking the posterior end. The spiral musculature of the proboscis receptacle and the shape of the trunk allowed its generic determination. Previously 2 cases of M. moniliformis infection were reported in Iran. This is the 3rd case of M. moniliformis infection in Iran.

• Biomaterials and Biomechanics in Bioengineering
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.9-20
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• 2019

Living beings are formed of advanced biological and mechanical systems which exist for millions of years. It is known that various animals and insects right from small ants to huge whales have different weight carrying capacities, which is generally expressed as a ratio of their own bodyweights i.e., Strength to Bodyweight Ratio (SBR). The puzzle is that when a rhinoceros beetle (scientific name: Dynastinae) can carry 850 times its own bodyweight, why a man cannot accomplish the same feat. There are intrinsic biological and mechanical reasons related to their capacities, as per biomechanics. Yet, there are underlining principles of engineering and structural mechanics which tend to solve this puzzle. The paper attempts to give a plausible answer for this puzzle through structural mechanics and experimental modeling techniques. It is based on the fact that smaller an animal or creature, it has larger value of weight lifting by self-weight ratio. The simple example of steel prism model discussed in this paper, show that smaller the physical model size, larger is its SBR value. To normalize this, the basic length of the model need to be considered and when multiplied with SBR, a constant is arrived. Hence, the aim of the research presented is to derive this constant on a pan-living being spectrum through size/scaling effect.

• Journal of Species Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2021

Evidence highlighting the importance of gut microbiota in biodiversity conservation is growing; however, gut bacteria in South Korean wildlife have not been well identified. Using a culture-dependent isolation method, we identified the gut bacteria from Korean aquatic wildlife: the gazami crab (Portunus trituberculatus), Korean striped bitterling (Acheilognathus yamatsutae), oily bitterling (Acheilognathus koreensis), leopard mandarin fish (Siniperca scherzeri), Korean dark chub (Zacco koreanus), diving beetle (Cybister lewisianus), spotted steed (Abbottina springeri), and Korean spotted sleeper (Odontobutis obscura interrupta). We identified 18 strains previously unrecorded in South Korea by comparing 16S rRNA gene sequences of isolates against the EzBioCloud and National Institute of Biological Resources(NIBR) databases. The isolated strains belong to the phyla Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria. We also assessed for phylogenetic relatedness, Gram-stain reaction, colony and cell morphology, and biochemical characteristics. Basic information and 16S rRNA gene sequences of the isolates were registered in NIBR, and NIBR accession numbers are provided.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.105-126
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• 2021

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was the primary source of medical treatment for the people inhabiting East Asia for thousands of years. These ancient practices have incorporated a wide variety of materia medica including plants, animals and minerals. As modern sciences, including natural products chemistry, emerged, there became increasing efforts to explore the chemistry of this materia medica to find molecules responsible for their traditional use. Insects, including beetles have played an important role in TCM. In our survey of texts and review articles on TCM materia medica, we found 48 species of beetles from 34 genera in 14 different families that are used in TCM. This review covers the chemistry known from the beetles used in TCM, or in cases where a species used in these practices has not been chemically studied, we discuss the chemistry of closely related beetles. We also found several documented uses of beetles in Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM), and included them where appropriate. There are 129 chemical constituents of beetles discussed.

• Mycobiology
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.181-187
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• 2022

To exploit insect-derived fungi, insects were collected from seven different regions in Korea, including Gyeongbuk, Goryeong, and several fungi were isolated from them. A fungal strain designated 21-64-D was isolated from riparian tiger beetle (Cicindela transbaicalica) and morphologically identified as a species belonging to the genus Oidiodendron. Phylogenetic analysis using the nucleotide sequences of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions and the partial sequence of the large subunit of the nuclear ribosomal RNA (LSU) gene revealed the distinct phylogenetic position of the isolate among recognized Oidiodendron species including its closest neighbors O. chlamydosporicum, O. citrinum, O. maius, and O. pilicola. The hyphal and conidial morphology of the strain, particularly club-shaped hyphae, clearly differentiated it from its close relatives. Results indicated that 21-64-D is a novel species in the genus Oidiodendron, for which the name Oidiodendron clavatum sp. nov. is proposed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.195-207
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• 2022

Computational drawbacks associated with regular predictive models have motivated engineers to use hybrid techniques in dealing with complex engineering tasks like simulating the compressive strength of concrete (CSC). This study evaluates the efficiency of tree potential metaheuristic schemes, namely shuffled complex evolution (SCE), multi-verse optimizer (MVO), and beetle antennae search (BAS) for optimizing the performance of a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) system. The models are fed by the information of 1030 concrete specimens (where the amount of cement, blast furnace slag (BFS), fly ash (FA1), water, superplasticizer (SP), coarse aggregate (CA), and fine aggregate (FA2) are taken as independent factors). The results of the ensembles are compared to unreinforced MLP to examine improvements resulted from the incorporation of the SCE, MVO, and BAS. It was shown that these algorithms can considerably enhance the training and prediction accuracy of the MLP. Overall, the proposed models are capable of presenting an early, inexpensive, and reliable prediction of the CSC. Due to the higher accuracy of the BAS-based model, a predictive formula is extracted from this algorithm.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.665-668
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• 2022

Bruchidius siliquastri Delobel, 2007 belongs to the subfamily Bruchinae (Chrysomelidae) and is supposedly of eastern Asian origin. The species is recently regarded as an invasive species that infests the seeds of the leguminous plant Cercis siliquastrum L. (Fabaceae) in Europe. In Korea, this bruchid species was uploaded and identified by domestic Korean bloggers. However, they did not conduct a precise identification. Authors observed this species on a C. chinensis Bunge planted on the campus of Sunchon National University in the spring of 2022. In this study, we present new ecological data on the bruchid beetle B. siliquastri Delobel from Korea.

• BMB Reports
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.324-329
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• 2015

CopA3 is a homodimeric ${\alpha}$-helical peptide derived from coprisin which is a defensin-like antimicrobial peptide that was identified from the dung beetle, Copris tripartitus. CopA3 has been reported to have anticancer activity against leukemia cancer cells. In the present study, we investigated the anticancer activity of CopA3 in human gastric cancer cells. CopA3 reduced cell viability and it was cytotoxic to gastric cancer cells in the MTS and LDH release assay, respectively. CopA3 was shown to induce necrotic cell death of the gastric cancer cells by flow cytometric analysis and acridine orange/ethidium bromide staining. CopA3-induced cell death was mediated by specific interactions with phosphatidylserine, a membrane component of cancer cells. Taken together, these data indicated that CopA3 mainly caused necrosis of gastric cancer cells, probably through interactions with phosphatidylserine, which suggests the potential utility of CopA3 as a cancer therapeutic. [BMB Reports 2015; 48(6): 324-329]