• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.261-271
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• 2016

Citrus is an economically important fruit crop widely growing worldwide. However, citrus production largely depends on natural hybrid selection and bud sport mutation. Unique botanical features including long juvenility, polyembryony, and QTL that controls major agronomic traits can hinder the development of superior variety by conventional breeding. Diverse factors including drastic changes of citrus production environment due to global warming and changes in market trends require systematic molecular breeding program for early selection of elite candidates with target traits, sustainable production of high quality fruits, cultivar diversification, and cost-effective breeding. Since the construction of the first genetic linkage map using isozymes, citrus scientists have constructed linkage maps using various DNA-based markers and developed molecular markers related to biotic and abiotic stresses, polyembryony, fruit coloration, seedlessness, male sterility, acidless, morphology, fruit quality, seed number, yield, early fruit setting traits, and QTL mapping on genetic maps. Genes closely related to CTV resistance and flesh color have been cloned. SSR markers for identifying zygotic and nucellar individuals will contribute to cost-effective breeding. The two high quality citrus reference genomes recently released are being efficiently used for genomics-based molecular breeding such as construction of reference linkage/physical maps and comparative genome mapping. In the near future, the development of DNA molecular markers tightly linked to various agronomic traits and the cloning of useful and/or variant genes will be accelerated through comparative genome analysis using citrus core collection and genome-wide approaches such as genotyping-by-sequencing and genome wide association study.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.203-211
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• 2022

Melanogenesis is the production of melanin from tyrosine by a series of enzyme-catalyzed reactions, in which tyrosinase and DOPA oxidase play key roles. The melanin content in the skin determines skin pigmentation. Abnormalities in skin pigmentation lead to various skin pigmentation disorders. Recent research has shown that the expression of EMP2 is much lower in melanoma than in normal melanocytes, but its role in melanogenesis has not yet been elucidated. Therefore, we investigated the role of EMP2 in the melanogenesis of MNT1 human melanoma cells. We examined TRP-1, TRP-2, and TYR expression levels during melanogenesis in MNT1 melanoma cells by gene silencing of EMP2. Western blot and RT-PCR results confirmed that the expression levels of TYR and TRP-2 were decreased when EMP2 expression was knocked down by EMP2 siRNA in MNT1 cells, and these changes were reversed when EMP2 was overexpressed. We verified the EMP2 gene was knocked out of the cell line (EMP2 CRISPR/Cas9) by using a CRISPR/Cas9 system and found that the expression levels of TRP-2 and TYR were significantly lower in the EMP2 CRISPR/Cas9 cell lines. Loss of EMP2 also reduced migration and invasion of MNT1 melanoma cells. In addition, the melanosome transfer from the melanocytes to keratinocytes in the EMP2 KO cells cocultured with keratinocytes was reduced compared to the cells in the control coculture group. In conclusion, these results suggest that EMP2 is involved in melanogenesis via the regulation of TRP-2 expression.