• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.251-258
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• 2020

This study investigated the effect of Zardaverine supplementation in freezing extender, on kinetic characteristics of post-thawed boar sperm. Cryopreservation of boar sperm is an important technique of assisted reproductive technology and genetic resource banking. Although this technique is particularly useful, freeze-thaw cycles associated with sperm cryopreservation significantly reduce sperm quality. Semen from mature Duroc boars were collected and cryopreserved in freezing extenders (LEY) treated with varying concentrations of Zardaverine (0, 20, 50, 75, 100 𝜇M). The time-dependent kinetic characteristics of post-thawed spermatozoa were determined after thawing by applying computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA). We observed that the motility immediately after thawing was significantly higher in 20 𝜇M stocks than in control (0 𝜇M) and the other treatments (p<0.05). Curvilinear velocity (VCL) in 0 𝜇M and 20 𝜇M stocks were significantly higher than the other treatment groups, except 75 𝜇M (p<0.05). Higher average path velocity (VAP) was obtained at 20 𝜇M as compared to 100 𝜇M, whereas amplitude of head lateral displacement (ALH) was significantly higher at 20 𝜇M than 50 𝜇M and 100 𝜇M (p<0.05). No differences were obtained for Straight-line velocity (VSL) and Linearity (LIN). In conclusion, our results indicate that Zardaverine improves the motility, VCL, VAP, and ALH of post-thawed boar sperm.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.34 no.s02
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• pp.34-44
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• 1989

The stability of rice cultivation in Korea is largely depended on climatic conditions, especially, low temperature at the period of early growth stage and after heading. The improvement of cold tolerant varieties and appropriate cultural practices in rice are very effective to minimize the cold damage. This paper is summarized the mechanism and counterplans of cold injury of rice plants. The paddy area having commonly cold injury in Korea is approximately 15, 522ha in 1,709 sites on the national scale. The cold damage at seedling stage in nursery bed appeared to poor germination, leaf discoloration, dead seedlings and seedling rot ect.. At the vegetative stage, the decreased tiller number due to poor rooting and the delayed heading caused by slow growth and panicle differentiation are commonly showed. The cold injury at early reproductive stage appeared to the degeneration of spikelets and rachis - branches, while that at meiosis stage showed to increased sterility due to poor development of pollen and shortened panicle length with delaying heading, therefore the grain yield is largely decreased. The cold damage at heading and ripening stages showed to poor pollination and fertilization, low panicle exsertion, poor grain filling and finally grain quality became low. To minimize the cold injury to rice plants by low temperature, following counterplans would be recommonded ; Improvement of the cold toelrant rice varieties for the regions of midmountains and alpines. Raising healthy seedlings at upland nursery beds and by using of growth regulators such as ABA, Fuchiwang and Tachiace. Soil improvement and organic matter application to reduce cold damage by increasing water and fertilizer holding capacities in the paddy field having commonly cold water and in the place where cold damage is regularly occurred. Appropriate fertilization for raising healthy rice plants to tolerate under low temperature condition. Water management to increase water temperature in the paddy such as depth watering, round channels and polyethylene tubes around the field. Establishment of the optimum cultivation time of rice based on minimum, mean and maximum temperatures at different regions with appropriate rice varieties.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.34 no.s02
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• pp.13-33
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• 1989

Agroclimate should be analyzed and evaluated accurately to make better use of available chimatic resources for the establishment of optimum cropping systems. Introducing of appropriate cultivars and their cultivation techniques into classified agroclimatic zone could contribute to the stability and costs of crop production. To classify the agroclimatic zones, such climatic factors as temperature, precipitation, sunshine, humidity and wind were considered as major influencing factors on the crop growth and yield. For the classification of rice agroclimatic zones, precipitation and drought index during transplanting time, the first occurrence of effective growth temperature (above 15$^{\circ}C$) and its duration, the probability of low temperature occurrence, variation in temperature and sunshine hours, and climatic productivity index were used in the analysis. The agroclimatic zones for rice crop were classified into 19 zones as follows; (1) Taebaek Alpine Zone, (2) Taebaek Semi-Alpine Zone, (3) Sobaek Mountainous Zone, (4) Noryeong Sobaek Mountainous Zone, (5) Yeongnam Inland Mountainous Zone, (6) Northern Central Inland Zone, (7) Central Inland Zone, (8) Western Soebaek Inland Zone, (9) Noryeong Eastern and Western Inland Zone, (10) Honam Inland Zone, (ll) Yeongnam Basin Zone, (12) Yeongnam Inland Zone, (13) Western Central Plain Zone, (14) Southern Charyeong Plain Zone, (15) South Western Coastal Zone, (16) Southern Coastal Zone, (17) Northern Eastern Coastal Zone, (18) Central Eastern Coastal Zone, and (19) South Eastern Coastal Zone. The classification of agroclimatic zones for cropping systems was based on the rice agroclimatic zones considering zonal climatic factors for both summer and winter crops and traditional cropping systems. The agroclimatic zones were identified for cropping systems as follows: (I) Alpine Zone, (II) Mountainous Zone, (III) Central Northern Inland Zone, (IV) Central Northern West Coastal Zone, (V) Cental Southern West Coastal Zone, (VI) Gyeongbuk Inland Zone, (VII) Southern Inland Zone, (VIII) Southern Coastal Zone, and (IX) Eastern Coastal Zone. The agroclimatic zonal characteristics of climatic disasters under rice cultivation were identified: as frequent drought zones of (11) Yeongnam Basin Zone, (17) North Eastern Coastal Zone with the frequency of low temperature occurrence below 13$^{\circ}C$ at root setting stage above 9.1％, and (2) Taebaek Semi-Alpine Zone with cold injury during reproductive stages, as the thphoon and intensive precipitation zones of (10) Hanam Inland Zone, (15) Southern West Coastal Zone, (16) Southern Coastal Zone with more than 4 times of damage in a year and with typhoon path and heavy precipitation intensity concerned. Especially the three east coastal zones, (17), (18), and (19), were subjected to wind and flood damages 2 to 3 times a year as well as subjected to drought and cold temperature injury.

• Korean Journal of Animal Reproduction
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.30-40
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• 1983

This experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of unilateral and bilateral ovariectomy in immature rats on the weight of body, ovary, uterus and adrenal gland and the change of serum FSH and LH level. Ninty Sprague-Dawley female rats, 23${\pm}$2 days old, were divided into 3 groups with 30 heads per group; control, unilaterally and bilaterally ovariectomized group. Each group was subdivided into 6 groups according to 6 experimental periods; day 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 after operation. Five rats at every 4 days intervals were measured their body weights and sacrificed for the measurement of their ovarian, uterine and adrenal weights and at the same time blood samples were taken for the determination of serum FSH and LH level by radioimmunoassay. The following results were obtained: 1. Body weights in the unilaterally and bilaterally ovariectomized goups were higher than those of control groups during all experimental periods, even though there were no significant differences among the above 3 groups. 2. A significant hypertrophy of the remained ovary in the unilaterally ovariecto mized group was observed from day 16 till day 24 after operation. The ovarian weight; 22.1${\pm}$1.73mg, at day 16 in control group was smaller than the unilaterally ovariectomized group weighing 50.5${\pm}$8.45mg (p<0.01) and the ovarian weights, 75.9${\pm}$2.25mg and 63.3${\pm}$7.08mg ; at day 20 and 24 in unilaterally ovariectomized group were significantly larger than 29.1${\pm}$2.33mg and 26.3${\pm}$1.76mg in control group, respectively (p<0.01 and p<0.05). 3. The uterus of bilaterally ovariectomized group were remarkably atrophied from day 8 after operation as compared with those of control and unilaterally ovariectomized group. The uterine weight at day 24 was 96.7${\pm}$9.15mg for control group, 139.4${\pm}$1.73mg for unilaterally ovariectomized group and 21.7${\pm}$1.08mg for bilaterally ovariectomized group, respectively and there were significant differences among 3 groups (p<0.01). 4. A statistically significant increase ofthe weight of adrenal gland was observed at day 16 in the unilaterally ovariectomized group with 24.4${\pm}$2.58mg against 15.5${\pm}$3.09mg in control group and 13.9${\pm}$1.38mg in bilaterally ovariectomized group (p<0.05). The adrenal gland weight in unilaterally ovariectomized group with 24.7${\pm}$1.63mg at day 20 and 31.2${\pm}$1.62mg at day 24 increased significantly as compared with bilaterally ovariectomized group with 15.1${\pm}$13.11mg at day 20 and 15.6${\pm}$1.76mg at day 24. 5. Serum FSH level of unilaterally ovariectomized group increased remarkably up to 2.97${\pm}$0.37mIU/ml at day 4 after operaton and then decreased gradually. Serum FSH level of bilaterally ovariectomized group were higher than those of control group throughout all experimental periods. 6. Serum LH level ofunitelarally ovariectomized group with 3.17${\pm}$0.32mIU/iml at day 4 and 3.57${\pm}$0.58mIU/ml at day 24 increased noticeably more than those of control group with 1.79${\pm}$0.16 mIU/ml at day 4 and 2.17${\pm}$0.27mIU/ml at day 24 (p<0.05).

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.89-95
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• 2015

The addition of growth factors and cytokines to in vitro culture (IVC) media could affect embryo development and the quality of the resulting blastocysts. The present study was performed to investigate the effect of porcine induced pluripotent stem cell (piPSC)-culture conditioned medium (CM) on the in vitro maturation (IVM) and development of parthenogentic embryos (parthenotes) in pigs. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) or activated oocytes were cultured in IVM or IVC medium supplemented with 0 (control), 25, or 50% of stem cell medium (SM) or CM, respectively. The maturation rate of CM-25% group was significantly improved when compared with control group (p<0.05), but that was not different among SM or CM groups. Blastocyst formation rate was significantly higher in CM-25% group (29.2%) than that of control (20.7%), SM-50% (19.6%) and CM-50% (23.66%, p<0.05). Cell number and the apoptotic cell index in blastocysts was significantly lower in SM-25% than in CM-25% group (p<0.05). The embryo quality related genes, OCT4, KLF4, TERT and ZFP42, were significantly increased in CM-25% group compared with control (p<0.05). In conclusion, the addition of 25% of CM to IVM and IVC medium positively influences not only the developmental potential also quality of parthenotes in pig.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.153-158
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• 2008

Tissue-specific and temporal regulation of milk protein gene expression is advantageous when creating transgenic animal that produces foreign protein into milk. Gene expression, i.e. protein production, is regulated not only by promoter strength but also mRNA stability. Especially, poly A tail length by polyadenylation affects in vivo and in vitro mRNA stability and translation efficiency of the target gene. In the present study, nucleotide sequence of 3'-UTR was analyzed to evaluate the effects of mRNA stability on the target gene expression. Based on the poly A signal of 3' -untranslated region (UTR), nucleotide sequences of putative cytoplasmic polyadenylation elements (CPEs) and downstream elements (DSEs: U-rich, G-rich, GU-rich) were analyzed and used to construct 15 luciferase reporter vectors. Each vector was transfected to HC11 and porcine mammary gland cell (PMGC) and measured for dual luciferase expression levels after 48 hours of incubation. Luciferase expression was significantly higher in construct #6 (with CPE 2, 3 and DSE 1 of exon 9) and #11 (with CPE 2, 3 and DSE 1, 2 and 3 of exon 9) than construct #1 in the PMGC. These results suggest that expression of target genes in PMGC may be effectively expressed by using the construct #6 and #11 on production of transgenic pig.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2008

This study was performed to investigate the relation between birth weight and survivability on the production of cloned Hanwoo calves. The 580 cloned embryos were transferred into the 293 recipients. The pregnancy rate of the cloned embryos was 72.3% at 50 days after embryo transfer, and then the rate was dramatically decreased. The mean gestation lengths were 287 days in both clone (range of$279{\sim}295$ days) and artificial insemination (AI, range of $255{\sim}293$ days) calves, respectively. The mean birth weight of cloned calves (30.3kg) was significantly higher compared to that of AI calves (23.7kg) (p<0.05). Among the cloned calves, the birth weight was not different in both normal delivery (n=17, 29.9kg) and caesarean section (n=14, 32.3kg). The weight, however, was significantly higher in the clones (n=18, 32.8kg) dead within 175 days than that of the clones (n=11, 28.3kg) alive more than 175 days after birth (p<0.05). Interestingly, all cloned calves weighed <15kg (n=5) or >35kg (n=9) at birth have been dead within 175 days from the date of birth. The causes of death in the cloned calves were premature birth (n=2, 10.0%), abnormal function of lung and liver (n=2, 10.0%), abnormal function of lung (n=4, 20.0%), malformation (n=4, 20.0%), unknown (n=4, 20.0%), and sudden death syndrome (n=4, 20.0%), respectively. Our findings suggest that normal birth weight is one of the most important factors to survive more than 6 months in cloned calves.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.27-31
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• 2008

This study was performed to investigate the correlations between steroids and TGF-${\beta}_1$ levels and delayed parturition in SCNT clone calving. The recipients pregnant by AI were used as control (AI-R). All AI-R were labored by natural delivery (n=5, day $284{\pm}0.71$ of pregnancy). The recipients pregnant by SCNT embryo (SCNT-R) showing no signs of delivery about 10 days after expected date were operated by Caesarean section (n=5, day 292). The blood and placentome samples were obtained and weighed at parturition. The concentrations of plasma progesterone (P4) and Estradiol-$17{\beta}$ (E2) were measured by radioimmunoassay (RIA). The levels of plasma and placental TGF-${\beta}_1$ levels were examined by ELISA. The placentomes from SCNT-R were overweight (p<0.05) compared to those of AI-R. The plasma P4 (p<0.01) level in SCNT-R at parturition was significantly higher compared to that of AI-R. In contrast, the plasma E2 level in the SCNT-R was significantly lower compared to that of AI-R (p<0.05). The plasma and placental TGF-${\beta}_1$ protein levels in the SCNT-R were significantly higher than those of AI-R at parturition, respectively (p<0.01). Based on these results, aberrant expressions of steroid hormones and high levels of plasma and placental TGF-${\beta}_1$ protein at parturition may be one of the key indicators on delayed parturition of SCNT clone calving.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.125-132
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• 2010

Captured specimens of the lesser white-toothed shrew, Crocidura suaveolens were classified into three age classes by tooth wear and seasonal variations of reproductive organs were investigated. Molars of juveniles had not tooth wear and the height of the third molars were lower than the first and second molars, young adults had smooth tooth wear and the third molars reached to the first and second molars, and old adults had heavy tooth wear and the third molars also reached to the first and second molars. On the basis of histological examination, seasonal variation of breeding was confirmed that breeding season of adult males was from early February to early October, having a peak of the breeding in April and July, and non-breeding season was from in the middle of October to late January. Young and old adult males of the breeding season had large testes with enlarged seminiferous tubules filling with numerous germ cells and expanded caudal epididymides with a vast number of spermatozoa, Young and old adult males of the non-breeding season had the small testes with the extremely slender seminiferous tubules filling with only spermatogonia and the reduced caudal epididymides without spermatozoa. Males weighing more than 3.9 g in the body weight and 0.013 g in the testis and epididymis weight reached sexual maturation in breeding season, and the females weighing more than 3.8 g in body weight of the breeding season were pregnant condition having 5~6 litters or had the Graafian follicles and the corpus lutea in the ovary.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.59-75
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• 2005

The experiments were undertaken to evaluate the effects of Bosaengtang in pregnant rats and fetuses. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were orally administered with Bosaengtang at the dose of 5mg/kg/day for 20 days. Pregnant rats were sacrificed at the 20th day of gestation, and observed internal and reproductive organs. Fetuses were randomly selected and fixed in 95% ethanol. Fetuses were stained with alcian blue and alizarin red S, and observed skeletal malformations. The results obtained were as follows : Bosaengtang administered group showed higher maternal body weight than the control group, but both groups showed increase in weight. Bosaengtang administered group showed lower than the control group, and higher liver and kidney weight than the control group, but the differences were minimal. There were no significant changes between the control and treated group in blood chemistry values and hematological values but all the groups were within in normal ranges. There were no significant changes in the number of corpus luteum, implantation, live fetus and implantation rate, delivery rate, late resorption rate, sex ratio, but Bosaengtang administered group showed higher early resorption rate than control group. comparing the control and Bosaengtang group, neonatal body weight and the number of fetuses were increased in Bosaengtang group. The fetuses of dams treated with Oriental medicine didn't showed external malformation. Vertebral and sternal variations were observed in Bosaengtang group, but the differences were not apparent compared to the control group. The number of ribs, cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae were normal. The number of sacral was similar and the number of caudal was increased. Fetuses showed significant difference in the number of caudal vertebrae. (P<0.01) From these results, we can carefully conclude that Bosaengtang showed beneficial effects on maternal body weight, early resorption rate, number of live fetus. There were no significant changes in organ weight, hematoscopy, reproduction organs. External malformation wasn't visible. Skeletal variations were showed in vertebrae and sternum but compared to the control group, these variations weren't much different.