• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.243-264
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• 2013

Antheraea mylitta Drury is a commercial silk producing forest insect in India and Xanthopimpla pedator Fabricius is its larval-pupal endoparasitoid, which causes pupal mortality that affects seed production. Effects of host plants, rearing season and their interactions on parasitic behaviour of X. pedator were studied here, as influence of these factors on biological success of X. pedator is not known. Seven forest tree species were tested as food plants for A. mylitta, and rate of pupal parasitization in both the rearing seasons were recorded and analysed. Results showed that rearing season and host plants significantly affected the rate of pupal parasitization in both the sexes. Pupal mortality was found significantly higher (14.52%) in second rearing season than the first (2.89%). Likewise, host plants and rearing seasons significantly affected length, diameter, and shell thickness of cocoons in both sexes. Out of all infested pupae, 85.59% were found male, which indicated that X. pedator chooses male spinning larva of A. mylitta for oviposition, but we could not answer satisfactorily the why and how aspect of this sex specific parasitic behaviour of X. pedator. Multiple regression analysis indicated that length and shell thickness of male cocoons are potential predictors for pupal parasitization rate of X. pedator. Based on highest cocoon productivity and lowest pupal mortality, Terminalia alata, T. tomentosa, and T. arjuna were found to be the most suitable host plants for forest based commercial rearing of A. mylitta in tropical forest areas of Uttarakhand state, where it has never been reared earlier. Sex and season specific interaction of X. pedator with its larval-pupal host, A. mylitta is a novel entomological study to find out explanations for some of the unresolved research questions on parasitic behaviour of X. predator that opens a new area for specialised study on male specific parasitization in Ichneumonidae.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.678-686
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• 1997

This experiment was carried out to develop the mass propagation system for producing plug plantlets using stem cuttings of virus-tree microtubers in potato. Cocopeat, vermiculite, perlite and peatmoss were combined and used as plug nursery media to find out the best combination suitable for the growth of seedlings derived from microtubers. Seedling growth was favored in high temperature (above 2$0^{\circ}C$) and a long-day photoperiod(above 16 hours) condition, while stolons and microtubers formed in outdoor condition. Shoot and root multiplication was not affected by NAA 10mg /1 or IAA 10mg /1 treatment. At the early growth stage of plug plantlets, the number of leaves and roots and the length of root increased significantly when nodes from the upper (near to apex) part of shoots rather than from basal part were taken. But after transplanting, these differences among these characters were not observed. At ninety days after transplanting the plug plantlets in spring time, plant was around 70 to 80cm in height, and the number of stolons and tubers were ten and seven, respectively.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.233-235
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• 1998

Energized-functional water (EFW) and powder (EFP) were manufactured by Kyungwon Institute of Life Science, Seoul, through a series of processes; tap water ultra-purification energy imprinting with catalysts in platinum columns mixing energy-imprinted water + activated zeolites + photosynthetic bacteria fermenting at $25^{\circ}C$ filtering EFW and/or EFP. A single application of EFP to soil under tree canopy before bud burst, combined with three EFW applications to soil during growth of 'Fuji' apples (Malus domestica Borkh.) resulted in a higher Ca concentrations in fruit skins and flesh, and lower Ca and N concentrations in leaves and shoot-bark tissues. EFW also stimulated the net photosynthesis of leaves and root activity. Soluble solid concentrations (SSC) and anthocyanin levels of fruits were also significantly increased at harvest, producing greater firmness and less core browning during storage at $0^{\circ}C$. However, there was no significant difference in titratable acidity of fruit juice between the EFW treatment and the controls.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2023

Sengon (Falcataria moluccana Miq.) tree offers a wood of low quality and durability owing to its low density and thin cell walls. This study aimed to improve the properties of sengon wood by making the wood magnetic, producing new functions, and characterizing magnetic sengon wood. Each wood sample was treated using one of the following impregnation solutions: Untreated, 7.5% nano magnetite-furfuryl alcohol (Fe₃O₄-FA), 10% nano Fe₃O₄-FA, and 12.5% nano Fe₃O₄-FA. The impregnation process began with vacuum treatment at 0.5 bar for 2 h, followed by applying a pressure of 1 bar for 2 h. The samples were then tested for dimensional stability and density and characterized using scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) analysis. The results showed that the Fe₃O₄-FA impregnation treatment considerable affected the dimensional stability, measured in terms of weight percent gain, anti-swelling efficiency, water uptake, and bulking effect, as well as the density of sengon wood. Changes in wood morphology were detected by the presence of Fe deposits in the cell walls and cell cavities of the wood using SEM-EDX analysis. XRD and FTIR analyses showed the appearance of magnetite peaks in the diffractogram and Fe-O functional groups. Based on the VSM analysis, treated sengon wood is classified as a superparamagnetic material with soft magnetic properties. Overall, 10% Fe₃O₄-FA treatment led to the highest increase in dimensional stability and density of sengon wood.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.125-132
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• 2022

It can be seen that Traditional house of Jeong Si-yeong is located in a place where Saenggi(good energy), which is important in Pungsu(Feng Shui), can be gathered and that energy can be properly maintained. According to the theory of feng shui, a place that is not easily exposed by the surrounding mountains and is well protected by the strong wind was selected, and the main room was placed on the south side so that the sunlight was adequate while facing the north, so that you can live a comfortable life for a long time. Located on such a relatively well-hidden site, it is a location that can cope well with the invasion of Japanese invaders through the sea in the past, and even today, it is seen as a reasonable base that can be properly protected from strong sea winds in reality. On the other hand, if we look at the Hyungguk theory, it was a house built in the late Joseon Dynasty, and we could see the hidden hopes of the nobles at the time. The mountain behind the house is a haebok-type with a crab lying on the seashore, and what the crab symbolizes is the past national exam for official. Considering that the name of the place where the house is located is also Oyat(cucumber tree)-ri, where many cucumber trees closely related to the royal family of the Joseon Dynasty were planted, it seems that the family wished for prosperity by producing many Sadaebu(upper class gentry) in the past and forming a good relationship with the royal family.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.88-107
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• 2023

In the present investigation, bacterial isolates from infected apple trees causing apple canker during winter were studied in the northern Gyeongbuk Province, Korea. The pathogen was identified as Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae (Pss) through various physiological and biochemical characterization assays such as BIOLOG, gas chromatography of fatty acid methyl esters, and 16S rRNA. Bioassays for the production of phytotoxins were positive for syringopeptin and syringomycin against Bacillus megaterium and Geotrichum candidum, respectively. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method enabled the detection of toxin-producing genes, syrB1, and sypB in Pss. The differentiation of strains was performed using LOPAT and GATTa tests. Pss further exhibited ice nucleation activity (INA) at a temperature of -0.7℃, indicating an INA⁺ bacterium. The ice-nucleating temperature was -4.7℃ for a non-treated control (sterilized distilled water), whereas it was -9.6℃ for an INA^- bacterium Escherichia coli TOP10. These methods detected pathogenic strains from apple orchards. Pss might exist in an apple tree during ice injury, and it secretes a toxin that makes leaves yellow and cause canker symptoms. Until now, Korea has not developed antibiotics targeting Pss. Therefore, it is necessary to develop effective disease control to combat Pss in apple orchards. Pathogenicity test on apple leaves and stems showed canker symptoms. The pathogenic bacterium was re-isolated from symptomatic plant tissue and confirmed as original isolates by 16S rRNA. Repetitive element sequence-based PCR and enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus PCR primers revealed different genetic profiles within P. syringae pathovars. High antibiotic susceptibility results showed the misreading of mRNA caused by streptomycin and oxytetracycline.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.277-283
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• 2009

Biogenic amines are generally formed through the decarboxylation of specific free amino acids by exogenous decarboxylases released by microbial species associated with the fish products and fermented feeds. This study was conducted to investigate the properties of e tuna waste regarding the control of degradation of biogenic amines (histamine, tyramine, tryptamine, putrescine, and cadaverine) that might be related with the anti-nutritional factor of the tuna waste that is used for manufacturing domestic fish meal. The values of pH and the salt content were 6.51, 3.35% in tuna waste and 5.58 and 5.83% in tuna fish meal, respectively. The strains and dominant bacteria tested in the tuna waste sample were 9.20, 9.29, 5.67, 7.82 and 7.58 log CFU/g of total bacteria, aerobic plate count (APC), total coliform (TC), Lactobacillus spp. and Bacillus spp., respectively. The main histamine forming-bacteria (HFB) in tuna waste were detected by silica gel thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and 7 histamine-forming bacterial species were isolated among microbes grown in selective medium. The histamine concentration was determined by detection of fluorescence of ο-phthaldialdehyde (OPA) derivatives using HPLC and the date were used to reconfirm the identities of the amine-producing bacteria. The 15 histamine- forming bacteria strains grown in trypicase soy broth (TSB) supplemented with 1% L-histidine (TSBH) were identified as Lactococcus(L.) lactis subsp. lactis, Klebsiella pneummonlae, L. garvieae 36, Vibrio olivaceus, Hafnia alvei and L. garvieae which were main dominant amine - producing strains, and Morganella morganii identified by 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequencing with PCR amplification. A Phylogenetic tree generated from the 16S rRNA sequencing data showed different phyletic lines that could be readily classified as biogenic amine forming gram-positive and negative bacteria.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2014.05a
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• pp.27-28
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• 2014

Beauveria bassiana (Cordycipitaceae, Hypocreales, Ascomycota) is an anamorphic fungus having a potential to be used as a biological control agent because it parasitizes a wide range of arthropod hosts including termites, aphids, beetles and many other insects. A number of bioactive secondary metabolites (SMs) have been isolated from B. bassiana and functionally verified. Among them, beauvericin and bassianolide are cyclic depsipeptides with antibiotic and insecticidal effects belonging to the enniatin family. Non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) play a crucial role in the synthesis of these secondary metabolites. NRPSs are modularly organized multienzyme complexes in which each module is responsible for the elongation of proteinogenic and non-protein amino acids, as well as carboxyl and hydroxyacids. A minimum of three domains are necessary for one NRPS elongation module: an adenylation (A) domain for substrate recognition and activation; a tholation (T) domain that tethers the growing peptide chain and the incoming aminoacyl unit; and a condensation (C) domain to catalyze peptide bond formation. Some of the optional domains include epimerization (E), heterocyclization (Cy) and oxidation (Ox) domains, which may modify the enzyme-bound precursors or intermediates. In the present study, we analyzed genomes of B. bassiana and its allied species in Hypocreales to verify the distribution of NRPS-encoding genes involving biosynthesis of beauvericin and bassianolide, and to unveil the evolutionary processes of the gene clusters. Initially, we retrieved completely or partially assembled genomic sequences of fungal species belonging to Hypocreales from public databases. SM biosynthesizing genes were predicted from the selected genomes using antiSMASH program. Adenylation (A) domains were extracted from the predicted NRPS, NRPS-like and NRPS-PKS hybrid genes, and used them to construct a phylogenetic tree. Based on the preliminary results of SM biosynthetic gene prediction in B. bassiana, we analyzed the conserved gene orders of beauvericin and bassianolide biosynthetic gene clusters among the hypocrealean fungi. Reciprocal best blast hit (RBH) approach was performed to identify the regions orthologous to the biosynthetic gene cluster in the selected fungal genomes. A clear recombination pattern was recognized in the inferred A-domain tree in which A-domains in the 1st and 2nd modules of beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases were grouped in CYCLO and EAS clades, respectively, suggesting that two modules of each synthetase have evolved independently. In addition, inferred topologies were congruent with the species phylogeny of Cordycipitaceae, indicating that the gene fusion event have occurred before the species divergence. Beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases turned out to possess identical domain organization as C-A-T-C-A-NM-T-T-C. We also predicted precursors of beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases based on the extracted signature residues in A-domain core motifs. The result showed that the A-domains in the 1st module of both synthetases select D-2-hydroxyisovalerate (D-Hiv), while A-domains in the 2nd modules specifically activate L-phenylalanine (Phe) in beauvericin synthetase and leucine (Leu) in bassianolide synthetase. antiSMASH ver. 2.0 predicted 15 genes in the beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster of the B. bassiana genome dispersed across a total length of approximately 50kb. The beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster contains beauvericin synthetase as well as kivr gene encoding NADPH-dependent ketoisovalerate reductase which is necessary to convert 2-ketoisovalarate to D-Hiv and a gene encoding a putative Gal4-like transcriptional regulator. Our syntenic comparison showed that species in Cordycipitaceae have almost conserved beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster although the gene order and direction were sometimes variable. It is intriguing that there is no region orthologous to beauvericin synthetase gene in Cordyceps militaris genome. It is likely that beauvericin synthetase was present in common ancestor of Cordycipitaceae but selective gene loss has occurred in several species including C. militaris. Putative bassianolide biosynthetic gene cluster consisted of 16 genes including bassianolide synthetase, cytochrome P450 monooxygenase, and putative Gal4-like transcriptional regulator genes. Our synteny analysis found that only B. bassiana possessed a bassianolide synthetase gene among the studied fungi. This result is consistent with the groupings in A-domain tree in which bassianolide synthetase gene found in B. bassiana was not grouped with NRPS genes predicted in other species. We hypothesized that bassianolide biosynthesizing cluster genes in B. bassiana are possibly acquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from distantly related fungi. The present study showed that B. bassiana is the only species capable of producing both beauvericin and bassianolide. This property led to B. bassiana infect multiple hosts and to be a potential biological control agent against agricultural pests.

• BMB Reports
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.715-722
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• 2007

A new full-length cDNA encoding hyoscyamine $6\beta$-hydroxylase (designated as aah6h, GenBank Accession No. EF187826), which catalyzes the last committed step in the scopolamine biosynthetic pathway, was isolated from young roots of Anisodus acutangulus by rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) for the first time. The full-length cDNA of aah6h was 1380 bp and contained a 1035 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding a deduced protein of 344 amino acid residues. The deduced protein had an isoelectric point (pI) of 5.09 and a calculated molecular mass of about 38.7 kDa. Sequence analyses showed that AaH6H had high homology with other H6Hs isolated from some scopolamine-producing plants such as Hyoscyamus niger, Datura metel and Atropa belladonna etc. Bioinformatics analyses results indicated AaH6H belongs to 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase superfamily. Phylogenetic tree analysis showed that AaH6H had closest relationship with H6H from A. tanguticus. Southern hybridization analysis of the genomic DNA revealed that aah6h belonged to a multi-copy gene family. Tissue expression pattern analysis firstly founded that aah6h expressed in all the tested tissues including roots, stems and leaves and indicated that aah6h was a constitutive-expression gene, which was the first reported tissue-independent h6h gene compared to other known h6h genes.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.263-270
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• 2015

A bacterial strain producing extracellular mannanases was isolated from soil of chestnut tree farm located in Gongju city of Korea by enrichment culture using Avicel as a carbon source. 16S rDNA sequence of the isolate YB-43 was highly homologous to those of genus Cellulosimicrobium strains with sequence similarities of above 99.6%. Mannanase productivity was significantly increased when the Cellulosimicrobium sp. YB-43 was grown in the presence of locust bean gum (LBG) or konjac. The mannanases were partially purified to be mannanase A (ManA) and mannanase C (ManC) by DEAE-Sepharose column and Q-Sepharose column chromatography from the culture filtrate of Cellulosimicrobium sp. YB-43 grown in LB medium supplemented with 0.7% LBG for 24 h. The partially purified ManA showed the highest activity at $55^{\circ}C$ and pH 6.5, while ManC activity was optimal at $65^{\circ}C$ and pH 7.5. ManA was stable up to $40^{\circ}C$ for 1 h, but ManC activity decreased significantly even after 1 h at $20^{\circ}C$. ManA and ManC showed difference from each other according to their substrate specificities and predominant products resulting from the mannanase hydrolysis for mannooligosaccharides. As a result, Cellulosimicrobium sp. YB-43 was found to produce two different kinds of mannanases.