• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.135-141
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• 2002

Agrobacterium-mediated transformation has been unsuccessful for monocot plants except for a few important crops such as barley, rice, maize and wheat. We discussed here that a successful transformation of monocots demands certain critical conditions. The requirements for an efficient transformation are a selection of target tissues competent for plant regeneration and Agrobacterium-infection, and various factors promoting Agrobacterium-infection. The factors were divided into two to activate Agrobacterium and to increase plant cell's susceptibility against Agrobacterium. Optimization of these factors significantly increased transformation efficiency of zoysia grass and rice plants. A technical improvement in transformation system for monocots will promote improvement of the breed as well as a study of gene functions in monocots.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.351-361
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• 2007

In angiosperms, leaves typically develop as three-dimensional structure with dorsoventral, longitudinal, and lateral axes. We have shown that the control of two axes of leaves, longitudinal and lateral axis, can be genetically separable, and four classes of genes are responsible for the polar cell expansion and polar cell proliferation in Arabidopsis. In monocots, unifacial leaf, in which leaf surface consists only of abaxial identity, has been evolved in a number of divergent species. The unifacial leaves provide very unique opportunities for the developmental studies of the leaf axes formation in monocots, because their leaf polarities are highly disorganized. In addition, the mechanism of the parallel evolution of such drastic changes in leaf polarities is of interest from an evolutionary viewpoint. In this article, we describe our recent approaches to reveal the mechanism of unifacial leaf development and evolution, including recent advances in the leaf polarity specification in angiosperms.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.260-277
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• 2018

The evolution of chromosome numbers and the karyotype structure is a prominent feature of plant genomes contributing to or at least accompanying plant diversification and eventually leading to speciation. Polyploidy, the multiplication of whole chromosome sets, is widespread and ploidy-level variation is frequent at all taxonomic levels, including species and populations, in angiosperms. Analyses of chromosome numbers and ploidy levels of 252 taxa of Korean non-commelinid monocots indicated that diploids (ca. 44%) and tetraploids (ca. 14%) prevail, with fewer triploids (ca. 6%), pentaploids (ca. 2%), and hexaploids (ca. 4%) being found. The range of genome sizes of the analyzed taxa (0.3-44.5 pg/1C) falls well within that reported in the Plant DNA C-values database (0.061-152.33 pg/1C). Analyses of karyotype features in angiosperm often involve, in addition to chromosome numbers and genome sizes, mapping of selected repetitive DNAs in chromosomes. All of these data when interpreted in a phylogenetic context allow for the addressing of evolutionary questions concerning the large-scale evolution of the genomes as well as the evolution of individual repeat types, especially ribosomal DNAs (5S and 35S rDNAs), and other tandem and dispersed repeats that can be identified in any plant genome at a relatively low cost using next-generation sequencing technologies. The present work investigates chromosome numbers (n or 2n), base chromosome numbers (x), ploidy levels, rDNA loci numbers, and genome size data to gain insight into the incidence, evolution and significance of polyploidy in Korean monocots.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.1289-1297
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• 2016

The walls of guard cells have many specialized features. Guard cells are present in the leaves of bryophytes, ferns, and almost all vascular plants. However, they exhibit considerable morphological diversities. There are two types of guard cells: the first type is found in a few monocots, such as palms and corn, and the other is found in most dicots, many monocots, mosses, ferns, and gymnosperms. In corns, guard cells have a characteristic dumbbell shape with bulbous ends. Most dicot and monocot species have kidney-shaped guard cells that have an elliptical contour with a pore at its center. Although subsidiary cells are common in species with kidney-shaped stomata, they are almost always absent in most of the other plants. In this study, there were many different stomatal features that were associated with kidney-shaped guard cells, but not dumbbell shaped guard cells, which are present in most grasses, such as cereals. Each plant investigated exhibited different characteristic features and most of these plants had kidney-shaped guard cells. However, the guard cells of Chamaesyce supina Mold, were often more rectangular than kidney-shaped. In contrast, Sedum sarmentosum guard cells were of the sink ensiform type and in Trifolium repens, the guard cells exhibited a more rhombic shape. Therefore, kidney-shaped guard cells could be divided into a number of subtypes that need to be investigated further.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.241-246
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• 2017

The walls of guard cells have many different specialized features. Guard cells are present in leaves of bryophytes, ferns and almost all of the vascular plants. Guard cells show considerable morphological diversities. It is understood that the stomata show two types in terms of morphological characterizations of guard cells. The first type is only found in a few monocots including Poaceae and Cyperaceae. In rice and corn, guard cells have the morphological characteristics of dumbbell shape. The morphological characteristics of dumbbell shape always have subsidiary cells. The other type is found in every dicots and many monocots and they are kidney-shaped guard cells. The plants of kidney-shaped guard cells rarely have subsidiary cells except Commelina communis L. Therefore, it could be concluded that two types of the morphological characteristics of guard cells cannot divide according to monocots or dicots. Every plants in which stomatal characteristic features were all different, most of them belong to kidney-shaped guard cells. However in case of Sedum sarmentosum, guard cells were shown to be long and narrow lips type. In Tradescantia virginiana, the shape of guard cells could be called perfectly to half-moon type. Therefore, it could be concluded that kidney-shaped types are all different in some way, but dumbbell-shaped types are almost constant.

• BMB Reports
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.189-195
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• 1999

From the Panax ginseng chloroplast, the psbE and psbF genes, encoding the $\alpha$- and $\beta$-subunits of cytochrome b-559 of the photosystem II reaction center, respectively, were cloned and characterized. The psbE and psbF genes were composed of 252 and 117 nucleotides, respectively. The deduced amino acid sequence of the $\alpha$-subunits showed 95%, 93%, and 91% homology to monocots, dicots, and liverwort, respectively, whereas the $\beta$-subunits showed approximately 98% to 95% homology to the same species. Southern blot analysis revealed that a single copy of the psbEF gene exists in the chloroplast plastid. Northern blot analysis indicated that the psbE and psbF genes are cotranscribed as a polycistron.

• Journal of Photoscience
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.245-249
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• 2003

The psbA gene of photo system II was cloned and characterized from the P. ginseng chloroplast. The psbA gene is composed of 1,062 nucleotides. The overall amino acid sequence shows 99% and 98% identities to dicots and monocots of higher plants, respectively. Southern blot analysis revealed that a single copy of the psbA gene existed in the chloroplast genome. Northern blot analysis of the in vivo accumulation of the psbA transcript, after being grown under the different intensities (5%, 10%, 20%, and 100%) of daylight, indicated that the steady-state level of the psbA transcript was not significantly affected by light intensity.

• Korean Journal of Plant Tissue Culture
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.411-413
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• 2000

The ability of microspores or young pollen grains (male gametophytes) to undergo developmetal switch to embryogenic (sporophytic) pathway exemplifies the concept of totipotency as applied to haploid posmeiotic cells. As a first step pollen is devoid of positional information provided in situ by the intact anther - by isolation and cultivation in vitro in artificial media. This is inevitably accompanied by some degree of stress response in microspore/pollen. It has been shown in both monocots and dicots that intentional stress treatment (mostly starvation or heat shock) greatly stimulates embryo induction rate. Using transgenic sHSP antisense Nicotiana tabacum we show that expression of small heat shock proteins is an integral part of successful embryo and later haploid plant production from pollen grains. Our recently published data show that sHSP chaperone function is optimal in the absence of ATP.

• BMB Reports
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.537-540
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• 2000

A simplified but reliable method was developed for the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based detection of genetically modified (GM) plants. The modified CTAB (mCTAB) method enabled us to prepare a high quality of genomic DNA from several hundred plant leaf samples in one day. Using DNA samples prepared from seven dicots and two monocots, approximately 1.75-kb regions spanning 17 S to 25 S ribosomal RNA genes were successfully amplified in a 2X PCR pre-mix containing BLOTTO. Further fidelity assessment of the mCTAB method by PCR analysis with Roundup Ready soybean (RRS) and non-RRS plants showed that the DNA samples prepared alternately from each of two lines were evidently free of cross-contamination. These results demonstrate that the mCTAB method is highly recommended for the rapid detection of transgenes in large numbers of leaf samples from diverse transgenic plants.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.97-102
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• 2000

To increase thennotolerance of forage crops, transgenic rice plants as a model for transformation of monocots were generated. A cDNA encoding the chloroplast-localized small heat shock protein (small HSP) of rice, Oshsp21, was introduced into rice plants via Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer system. Calli induced from scutella were co-cultivated with a A. tumefaciens strain EHAlOl canying a plasmid, pIGhsp21. A large number of transgenic plants were regenerated on a medium containing hygromycin. Integration of Oshsp2l gene was confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analyses with genomic DNA. Northern blot and immunoblot analyses revealed that the Oshsp21 gene was constitutively expressed and accumulated as mature protein in transgenic plants. Effects of constitutive expression of the OshspZl on thermotolerance were first probed with the chlorophyll fluorescence. Results indicate that inactivation of electron transport reactions in photosystem I1 (PSII), were mitigated by constitutive expression of the Oshsp21. These results suggest that the chloroplast small HSP plays an important role in protecting photosynthetic machinery during heat stress. (Key words : Thermotolerance, Rice, Transgenic, cDNA)