• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.1-4
• /
• 2009

Korean species of the genus Ophion Fabricius are reviewed. Eight species are recognized including two species new to Korea (O. ainoicus Uchida, 1928 and O. choaspese (Uchida, 1954). We provide a key to the Korean Ophion and redescriptions, photographs, distributional data and host records of the newly recorded species.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2015.05a
• /
• pp.13-13
• /
• 2015

Rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, is the most destructive pathogen of rice in the world. This fungus has a biotrophic phase early in infection and switches to a necrotrophic lifestyle after host cell death. During the biotrophic phase, the fungus competes with host for nutrients and oxygen. Continuous uptake of oxygen is essential for successful establishment of blast disease of this pathogen. Here, we report transcriptional responses of the fungus to oxygen limitation. Transcriptome analysis using RNA-Seq identified 1,047 up-regulated genes in response to hypoxia. Those genes were involved in mycelial development, sterol biosynthesis, and metal ion transport based on hierarchical GO terms and well-conserved among three different fungal species. In addition, null mutants of three hypoxia-responsive genes were generated and tested for their roles on fungal development and pathogenicity. The mutants for a sterol regulatory element-binding protein gene, MoSRE1, and C4 methyl sterol oxidase gene, ERG25, exhibited increased sensitivity to hypoxia-mimetic agent, increased conidiation, and delayed invasive growth within host cells, suggesting important roles in fungal development. However, such defects did not cause any significant decrease in disease severity. The other null mutant for alcohol dehydrogenase gene, MoADH1, showed no defect in the hypoxia-mimic condition and fungal development. Taken together, this comprehensive transcriptional profiling in response to a hypoxia condition with experimental validations would provide new insights on fungal development and pathogenicity in plant pathogenic fungi.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.101-104
• /
• 1993

The life history and host plants of Locastra muscosalis (Walker) which is a defoliating pest of walnut trees were studied mainly in Chungchongbuk-do province. Juglans nigra Linne, J. mandshurica Mixim., Carya illinoensis koch and Pterocarya stenoptera DC. were found to be new host plants. Locasta muscosalis (Walker) had one generation per year and the adults emerged form late June to late July with a peak emergence around July 10th. Females oviposited a mean of 560 eggs on the top surfaces of leaves. The duration of the egg stage was from 7 to 12 days. Young larvae fed on the leaves within webs that bound the leaves beginning in the middle of July. In the middle of September the fully matured larvae entered the soil -a cm below the soil surface, and the pupal period lasted 16 days on average. The natural enemies observed and/or reared from larvae of pupae were 3 species of parasitoids, 6 species of predators and an unidentified virus.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.133-140
• /
• 2013

Since the discovery of the immunomodulation property of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) about a decade ago, it has been extensively investigated whether MSCs can be used for the treatment of immune-related diseases, such as graft versus-host disease (GvHD). However, how to evaluate the efficacy of human MSCs for the clinical trial is still unclear. We used an MHC-mismatched model of GvHD (B6 into BALB/c). Surprisingly, the administration of the human MSCs (hMSCs) could reduce the GvHD-related mortality of the mouse recipients and xenogeneically inhibit mouse T-cell proliferation and $IFN-{\gamma}$ production in vitro. We recently established a new protocol for the isolation of a homogeneous population of MSCs called subfractionation culturing methods (SCM), and established a library of clonal MSC lines. Therefore, we also investigated whether MSCs isolated by the conventional gradient centrifugation method (GCM) and SCM show different efficacy in vivo. Intriguingly, clonal hMSCs (hcMSCs) isolated by SCM showed better efficacy than hMSCs isolated by GCM. Based on these results, the MHC-mismatched model of GvHD may be useful for evaluating the efficacy of human MSCs before the clinical trial. The results of this study suggest that different MSC lines may show different efficacy in vivo and in vitro.

• Mycobiology
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.169-183
• /
• 2020

Nigrospora is a monophyletic genus belonging to Apiosporaceae. Species in this genus are phytopathogenic, endophytic, and saprobic on different hosts. In this study, leaf specimens with disease symptoms were collected from host plants from the Shandong Peninsula, China. The fungal taxa associated with these leaf spots were studied using morphology and phylogeny based on ITS, TEF1, and TUB2 gene regions. In this article, we report on the genus Nigrospora with N. gorlenkoana, N. oryzae, N. osmanthi, N. rubi, and N. sphaerica identified with 13 novel host associations including crops with economic importance such as bamboo and Chinese rose.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.56 no.2
• /
• pp.189-194
• /
• 2018

To determine that Paragonimus sp. is actively transmitted in a tropical area of the Pacific region of Ecuador where human cases of pulmonary paragonimiasis have recently been documented, a total of 75 freshwater crabs were collected from 2 different streams in the Pedernales area of $Manab\acute{i}$ Province, Ecuador. All collected crabs were identified as Hypolobocera guayaquilensis based on morphological characteristics of the male gonopods. The hepatopancreas of each crab was examined by compressing it between 2 glass plates followed by observation under a stereomicroscope. Excysted Paragonimus metacercariae were detected in 39 (52.0%) crabs and their densities varied from 1 to 32 per infected crab. There was a positive relationship between crab size and metacercarial density. Sequences of the second internal transcribed spacer region of the ribosomal RNA gene of the Paragonimus metacercariae obtained in this study were identical to those of Paragonimus mexicanus deposited in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank database. Thus, the present study is the first to confirm that the crab species H. guayaquilensis is the second intermediate host of P. mexicanus in $Manab\acute{i}$ Province, Ecuador. Because this crab might be the possible source of human infections in this area, residents should pay attention to improper crab-eating habits related with a neglected parasitic disease, i.e., paragonimiasis.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.325-336
• /
• 2005

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) are composed of moving wireless hosts which, within range of each other, form wireless networks. For communication to occur between hosts that are not within each other's range, routes involving intermediate nodes must be established; however, since the hosts may be in motion, a host that was part of a route may move away from its upstream and downstream partners, thus breaking the route. In this paper, we propose anticipated route maintenance (ARM) protocol with two extensions to route discovery based routing scheme: Extend the route when nodes on a link move apart from each other and they have common neighbor that can be 'inserted' in the path, and shrink route when a node discovers that one of its neighbor which is not the next hop is also on the same route several hops later on. By utilizing only local geographic information (now a part of some route finding algorithms), a host can anticipate its neighbor's departure and, if other hosts are available, choose a host to bridge the gap, keeping the path connected. We present a distributed algorithm that anticipates route failure and performs preventative route maintenance using location information to increase a route lifespan. The benefits are that this reduces the need to find new routes (which is very expensive) and prevents interruptions in service. As the density of nodes increases, the chance to successfully utilize our route maintenance approach increases, and so does the savings. We have compared the performance of two protocols, pure dynamic source routing (DSR) protocol and DSR with ARM. The simulation results show how ARM improves the functionality of DSR by preventing the links in the route from breaking. Packets delivery ratio could be increased using ARM and achieved approximately $\100%$ improvement. The simulations clarify also how ARM shows a noticeable improvement in dropped packets and links stability over DSR, even though there is more traffic and channel overhead in ARM.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.63-67
• /
• 2016

Severe graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is an often lethal complication of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The safety of clinical-grade mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has been validated, but mixed results have been obtained due to heterogeneity of the MSCs. In this phase I study, the safety of bone marrow-derived homogeneous clonal MSCs (cMSCs) isolated by a new subfractionation culturing method was evaluated. cMSCs were produced in a GMP facility and intravenously administered to patients who had refractory GVHD to standard treatment resulting after allogeneic HSCT for hematologic malignancies. After administration of a single dose ($1{\times}10^6cells/kg$), 11 patients were evaluated for cMSC treatment safety and efficacy. During the trial, nine patients had 85 total adverse events and the rate of serious adverse events was 27.3% (3/11 patients). The only one adverse drug reaction related to cMSC administration was grade 2 myalgia in one patient. Treatment response was observed in four patients: one with acute GVHD (partial response) and three with chronic GVHD. The other chronic patients maintained stable disease during the observation period. This study demonstrates single cMSC infusion to have an acceptable safety profile and promising efficacy, suggesting that we can proceed with the next stage of the clinical trial.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.56 no.3
• /
• pp.247-257
• /
• 2018

The aim of this study was to conduct a freshwater snail survey in Mae Lao agricultural basin to assess the diversity with a focus on habitat types and their larval trematode infections. Snails were collected and examined in 14 sites of Mae Lao agricultural basin from August 2016 to October 2017. A total of 1,688 snail individuals were collected and classified into 7 families, 8 genera, and 12 species. Snail diversity and habitat types were higher in rice paddies than irrigation canals and streams. The most abundant species was Bithynia siamensis siamensis, representing 54.6% of the sample. Three species of snails act as first intermediate host were found with cercarial infections. They were Filopaludina sumatrensis polygramma, B. s. siamensis, and Melanoides tuberculata. The cercariae were categorized into 7 types; echinostome, monostome, gymnocephalous, virgulate, parapleurolophocercous, pleurolophocercous and megalurous cercariae. Parapleurolophocercous cercariae constituted the most common type of cercariae recovered, contributing 41.2% of all infections in snails. Echinostome metacercariae infections were found in 6 snail species with 7.6% prevalence. In addition, the metacercaria of avian trematode, Thapariella sp. were found in Filopaludina spp. snails and B. funiculata with a prevalence of 0.5%. This is the first report for Thapariella metacercariae in the snail host, B. funiculata, and also confirmed that viviparid and bithyniid snails act as the second intermediate hosts of this trematode. This work will provide new information on the distribution and intermediate host of trematode in this area.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.27 no.7
• /
• pp.1266-1271
• /
• 2017

Lactobacillus fermentum strain JDFM216, isolated from a Korean infant feces sample, possesses the ability to enhance the longevity and immune response of a Caenorhabditis elegans host. To explore the characteristics of strain JDFM216 at the genetic level, we performed whole-genome sequencing using the PacBio system. The circular draft genome has a total length of 2,076,427 bp and a total of 2,682 encoding sequences were identified. Five phylogenetically featured genes possibly related to the longevity and immune response of the host were identified in L. fermentum strain JDFM216. These genes encode UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 1-carboxyvinyltransferase (E.C. 2.5.1.7), ErfK/YbiS/YcfS/YnhG family protein, site-specific recombinase XerD, homocysteine S-methyltransferase (E.C. 2.1.1.10), and aspartate-ammonia ligase (E.C. 6.3.1.1), which are involved in peptidoglycan synthesis and amino acid metabolism in the gut environment. Our findings on the genetic background of L. fermentum strain JDFM216 and its potential candidate genes for host longevity and immune response provide new insight for the application of this strain in the food industry as newly isolated functional probiotic.