• ALGAE
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.267-275
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• 2019

Three new species of the genus Micractinium were collected from five localities on the South Shetland Islands in maritime Antarctica, and their morphological and molecular characteristics were investigated. The vegetative cells are spherical to ellipsoidal and a single chloroplast is parietal with a pyrenoid. Because of their simple morphology, no conspicuous morphological characters of new species were recognized under light microscopy. However, molecular phylogenetic relationships were inferred from the concatenated small subunit rDNA, and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence data indicated that the Antarctic microalgal strains are strongly allied to the well-supported genus Micractinium, including M. pusillum, the type species of the genus, and three other species in the genus. The secondary structure of ITS2 and compensatory base changes were used to identify and describe six Antarctic Micractinium strains. Based on their morphological and molecular characteristics, we characterized three new species of Micractinium: M. simplicissimum sp. nov., M. singularis sp. nov., and M. variabile sp. nov.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.103-106
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• 2012

To investigate distribution characteristics of heavy metals in soils in the vicinity of King Sejong Station of King George Island, Antarctica, Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Pb, Co, Cd, Cr, Ni and Mo contents were investigated under different distances and directions from King Sejong Station. 13 sample sites were distributed from King Sejong Station. In site 4, the Cd content was higher than that in other sites. The Cr content was the highest in site 9, and the Ni and Mn contents were high in site 12. Cu, Co and Zn were highly contained in distance 1~2 km from King Sejong Station. Cd, Cr, Ni and Mo contents were lower, whereas Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Pb and Co contents were higher than other heavy metal contents at all sites.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.539-541
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• 2009

A severely cold weather condition of King Sejong Station, Antarctica becomes a very severe condition for an installation/operation of wind generation system. When the existing wind generation system works, it may cause a damage and destruction of wind generation system and can bring about big problems in terms of the power quality. Accordingly, it is essential to obtain technologies for the installation and operation of small wind generation system for the polar region's wind generation, and to assess and demonstrate the performance in the severely-cold environment and the polar wind generation system's development, supplementation, alteration. Also, as the available power of King Sejong Station, Antarctica, the diesel generator has been mainly used, and the wind generator has been used in the hybrid form. Wind generation and diesel generation has the different load following control each other. In the wind generation, the generated power very rapidly changes according to the change of the velocity of the wind. On the other hand, the diesel generation shows very gentle change in the velocity of output. Therefore, the study is intended to analyze the 10kw small wind generator-diesel generator's power quality of King Sejong Station, Antarctica, which is the hybrid system installation area.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1183-1188
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• 2005

Several lipases of commercial grade were screened to catalyze the methanolysis of castor oil, and an immobilized Candida antarctica (Novozym 435) had the highest activity among the lipases tested. To enhance the yield of methyl ricinoleate, several reaction parameters were optimized. The optimum temperature was $50^{\circ}C$, and the original water content of lipase was sufficient to maintain the activity of lipase, and additional water supplied inhibited the methanolysis of castor oil. Because the lipase was deactivated by methanol, the reaction was tested by three-step addition of 1 molar equivalent of methanol to the oil. However, the oil was not completely converted to its methyl esters. The final reaction mixture using 3 molar equivalents of methanol to the oil consisted of $70\%$ methyl ricinoleate, $18\%$ monoricinoleate, $11\%$ diricinoleate, and trace triricinoleate at the equilibrium state. The yield of methyl ricinoleate was $97\%$ at 6 molar ratio of methanol to the oil with 300g of castor oil and 6g of immobilized Candida antarctica at $50^{\circ}C$ within 24 h.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.1098-1105
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• 2007

Quantum mechanical and molecular dynamics simulation analysis has been performed on the model system for CALB (Candida antarctica lipase B) with esters to study the reaction mechanism and conformational preference of catalytic hydrolysis and the esterification reaction. Using quantum mechanical analysis, the ping-pong bi-bi mechanism was applied and energies and 3-dimensional binding configurations of the whole reaction pathways were calculated. Further molecular dynamics simulation analysis was performed on the basis of the transition state obtained from quantum mechanical study to observe the effect of structures of the substrates. Calculation results using substrates of different chain length and chiral configurations were compared for conformational preference. The calculated results showed very small influence on chain length, whereas chiral conformation showed big differences. Calculated results from molecular modeling studies have been compared qualitatively with the experimental data using racemic mixtures of (${\pm}$)-cis-4-acetamido-cyclopent-2-ene-1-ethyl acetate as substrates.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.258-264
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• 2008

Deschampsia antarctica is the only monocot that thrives in the tough conditions of the Antarctic region. It is an invaluable resource for the identification of genes associated with tolerance to various environmental pressures. In order to identify genes that are differentially regulated between greenhouse-grown and Antarctic field-grown plants, we initiated a detailed gene expression analysis. Antarctic plants were collected and greenhouse plants served as controls. Two different cDNA libraries were constructed with these plants. A total of 2,112 cDNA clones was sequenced and grouped into 1,199 unigene clusters consisting of 243 consensus and 956 singleton sequences. Using similarity searches against several public databases, we constructed a functional classification of the ESTs into categories such as genes related to responses to stimuli, as well as photosynthesis and metabolism. Real-time PCR analysis of various stress responsive genes revealed different patterns of regulation in the different environments, suggesting that these genes are involved in responses to specific environmental factors.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2018

Grounding line of a glacier or ice shelf where ice bottom meets the ocean is sensitive to changes in the polar environment. Recent rapid changes of grounding lines have been observed especially in southwestern Antarctica due to global warming. In this study, ERS-1/2 and Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image were interferometrically acquired in 1996 and 2015, respectively, to monitor the movement of the grounding line in the western part of Ronne Ice Shelf near the Antarctic peninsula. Double-Differential Interferometric SAR (DDInSAR) technique was applied to remove gravitational flow signal to detect grounding line from the interferometric phase due to the vertical displacement of the tide. The result showed that ERS-1/2 grounding lines are almost consistent with those from Rignot et al. (2011) which used the similar dataset, confirming the credibility of the data processing. The comparison of ERS-1/2 and Sentinle-1A DDInSAR images showed a grounding line retreat of $1.0{\pm}0.1km$ from 1996 to 2015. It is also proved that the grounding lines based on the 2004 MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA) images and digital elevation model searching for ice plain near coastal area (Scambos et al., 2017), is not accurate enough especially where there is a ice plain with no tidal motion.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.174-176
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• 2012

We report morphological and physiological characteristics of newly isolated six kinds of yeasts which are new in Korean mycoflora. The yeasts were isolated from wild flowers in Daejeon city, Korea and identified by molecular analysis of the amplified internal transcribed space rDNA sequence or partial 18S rDNA sequence. Species of isolates were identified as Kuraishia capsulate, Lodderomyces elongisporus, Pseudozyma antarctica, Starmerella bombicola.

• ALGAE
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.17-32
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• 2020

Asterochloris is one of the most common genera of lichen phycobionts in Trebouxiophyceae. Asterochloris phycobionts associated with the lichenized fungi Cladonia and Stereocaulon in King George Island (Antarctica) and Morro Chico (Chile), were isolated and then used to establish clonal cultures. To understand the phylogenetic relationships and species diversity of Antarctic Asterochloris species, molecular and morphological data were analyzed by using three microscopy techniques (light, confocal laser and transmission electron) and a multi-locus phylogeny with data from the nuclear-encoded internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA and the actin and plastid-encoded ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase large chain (rbcL) coding genes. Morphological data of three Antarctic strains showed significant species-specific features in chloroplast while molecular data segregated the taxa into distinct three clades as well. Each species had unique molecular signatures that could be found in secondary structures of the ITS1 and ITS2. The species diversity of Antarctic Asterochloris was represented by six taxa, namely, A. glomerata, A. italiana, A. sejongensis, and three new species (A. antarctica, A. pseudoirregularis, A. stereocaulonicola).

• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.140-143
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• 2017

A winged midge species, Parochlus steinenii is one of the most abundant species in Antarctica, which is distributed over a wide area from the South American continent to the South Shetland Islands in Antarctica. It was dispersed into islands in the South Shetland Islands from the South American continent, and it adapted to a variety of environments and settled. This species, therefore, is a good model organism to explain the evolutionary process of Antarctic terrestrial fauna. Nevertheless, there are few genetic studies on this species, which are necessary for understanding the genetic diversity, population structure, etc. Here, we developed and characterized 14 polymorphic microsatellite markers. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 5. The observed and expected heterozygosities were in the range of 0.024 to 0.561 and 0.024 to 0.535, respectively. Identifying genetic differences between populations, they are suitable markers for researches investigating genetic diversity and population structure of P. steinenii, which provide us with clues to dispersion, evolution and ecology of this species.