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Abstract : Developed countries have set seed industry as a new growth engine, which demands strong support from the government. Multinational seed companies such as Monsanto and DuPont have made huge financial investment to secure their major roles in the global market. To spur domestic seed industry performance, Korean government laid out the foundation for developing seed industry through policy promotion in the late 2000s. In this paper, I look at the current state of the domestic and international seed market to provide information for improving the efficiency of the propulsion of the Golden Seed Project (GSP) along with its vision. The increasing size of global giant companies has been regarded to monopolize the world seed industry wherein ten renowned companies occupy 73% of the overall global market. In effect, this causes a price hike due to limited seed choices. Domestic seed market has been stuck in a range due to a sustained low agricultural production resulting in decreased seed demand and market size. Though breeding technologies for rice and vegetables are world-class, the technologies for top global crops such as cabbage, paprika, and forage are insufficient therefore professionals in this field are not easily employed. Moreover, there is a lack in appropriate infrastructure set up in the universities which adds to ineffective training of professionals. Being a key-supporting industry for agriculture, seed industry should be granted with strong and sustainable investment support from the government. In view thereof, GSP, which started in 2012, ambitions to spur researches outlined by excellent professionals in universities and seed companies aimed to drive seed export volume and quality and attain domestic seed self-sufficiency through adoption of export- and import-substitution seed types (10 varieties each) development strategies. To develop Korea’s seed industry excellent achievement of GSP’s goals should be drawn successfully and to do this beside development of high quality seeds, support programs for promotion of seed exports are also needed.

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Abstract : We found that a long period of in vitro culture is a critical factor on the low transformation rate for a specific potato genotype, Solanum tuberosum L. var. Atlantic when phosphinothricin (PPT) was added to select putative transformants in a solid media. The fresh explants of the newly produced plants from a micro-tuber was able to increase the transformation rate significantly while the old explants prepared from a plant maintained for longer than 6 months in vitro by sub-culturing every 3 ~ 4 weeks resulted in a very low transformation frequency. However, Jowon cultivar was not so much influenced by the period of in vitro culture with high transformation rate (higher than 10.0%). Further research need to be explored for the reason why a particular potato genotype, Atlantic is more vulnerable than the Jowon cultivar during the regeneration stage resulting in the low transformation frequency.

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Abstract : Genetic transformation was affected by material of explant, age of callus, and medium of regeneration. Two rice seed cultivars (Ilpum and Baekjinju) and mediums were investigated in this study for enhancing regeneration of transgenic rice expressed AtBI-1 gene encoding the Arabidopsis thaliana Bax inhibitor. Regeneration rate of Ilpum rice transformant in gelrite of 5 and 8 g were 27.4% and 18.0%, respectively. In Baekjinju, regeneration rate of transformant was 5.4% and 4.3% in 5 and 8 g gelrite, respectively. The highest number of transformant plant in this study was regenerated from Ilpum cultivar on MS medium (30.4%) and was applied for the subsequent experiment. The callus regeneration rate of transformant were 40.7% in callus infection of up-side, it was higher regeneration then in the down-side (3.9%). The regeneration rate of callus of 25 days and 35 days were 14.7% and 38.6%, respectively. The most important application of this work is in genetic transformation of rice, particularly for improvement transgenic plant tissue culture protocol with high frequency of plant regeneration.

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Abstract : Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a useful root crop for food, animal feed and various industrial materials including biofuel. Despite of its importance as an industrial crop, the genetic engineering approaches to manipulate transgenic plant development in cassava are limited. In this study, to develop new cultivar with high level of carotenoids and enhanced tolerance to environmental stresses, sweetpotato IbOr gene involved in accumulation of carotenoids was introduced into an Indonesian IDB high-yielding cassava cultivar under the control of oxidative stress-inducible SWPA2 promoter through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of friable embryogenic calli. The 19 transgenic lines were successfully generated on the basis of gDNA-PCR and IbOr transcript levels for further characterization in terms of carotenoid contents and environmental stresses. Therefore, IbOr transgenic cassava plants may be developed for enhanced biomass production with high levels of carotenoids on marginal lands.

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Abstract : The isolation, cloning, and characterization of an R2R3-MYB transcription factor gene (MtMYB70) from the model legume Medicago truncatula is reported. MtMYB70 consists of a 768-bp coding sequence corresponding to 255 amino acids. Sequence alignment revealed that MtMYB70 cDNA contains conserved R2R3-type MYB domains with highly divergent C terminal regions. MtMYB70 was found to have relatively low sequence homology with known R2R3-MYB genes. Phylogenetic analysis placed the R2R3-MYB domain of MtMYB70 closest to PtMYB1, a known activator of lignin biosynthesis. Overexpression of MtMYB70 under the control of the 35S promoter in transgenic poplar did not cause a significant difference in total lignin content relative to the control, but glucan content was significantly increased in transgenic poplar. Therefore, MtMYB70 might have regulatory role in the biosynthesis of cell wall structural carbohydrates.

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Abstract : We analyzed the effects of various LED light treatments (red 655 nm, blue 456 nm, white and mixed light) on growth pattern, gene expression and flavonoid contents in lettuce leaf. Plants treated with mixed light (red+blue+ white) showed better growth performance than those treated with single LED and fluorescent lamp (FL). Expression analysis of the eight genes involved in flavonoid biosynthesis in plants treated with LED light was examined. Results showed that red lettuce grown under mixed light showed high expression levels of LsC4H, LsF3H and LsDRF genes. Morever, the same treatment plants possessed higher content of gallic acid, chlorogenic acid and quercetin contents than those in plants exposed to single light. However, the highest total anthocyanin content was identified in plants treated with red+blue light and the lowest content was identified in plants exposed to white fluorescent lamp and single LED light condition. Thus, this study indicates that the ratio of blue to red LEDs is important for the morphology, growth, and phenolic compounds with anthocyanin properties in the two lettuce cultivars tested.

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Abstract : Interest and great demand for blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) have increased, as V. corymbosum is now one of the most economically important crops in Korea. It is expected that blueberry production and the area planted for cultivation will increase consistently in the years ahead because of high profitability and the consumer's demand for healthy ingredients. Effective mass production of blueberry is urgently needed for commercial cultivation establishment, but a main limitation is lack of a propagation system that produces a disease-free plant material for commercial plantation. A large amount of research has focused entirely on developing tissue culture techniques for blueberry propagation. However, controlling fungal and bacterial contamination of woody plant material is extremely difficult. Our study was conducted to investigate the effect of biocide addition during the in vitro culture of blueberry on plantlet growth and contamination occurrence. Four biocides, including Plant Preservative Mixture (PPM ^TM ), vancomycin, nystatin and penicillin G, were used in varying concentrations during the in vitro propagation of blueberry. When nystatin was added into the medium at low concentrations, the overall growth of blueberry plantlets was retarded. Addition of vancomycin and penicillin G in high concentrations decreased contamination but induced plantlet mortality. On the other hand, when 1ml/L PPM ^TM was added, the growth characteristics of blueberry plantlets did not significantly differ from non-treatment (control), and the contamination occurrence rate was very low. From these results, we found that the addition of the appropriate biocide could provide an effective method to reduce contamination in the culture process, thereby raising in vitro production efficiency.

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Abstract : Canola is a crop globally used for production of oil and biofuel. Cultivation area and import volume of living modified (LM) canola have been increasing every year. As canola import dependence has reached 100% in Korea, efforts have been made for safety management of LM canola and ecological risk assessment. We developed a set of multiplex PCR method for simultaneous detection of 5 LM canola events (Topas 19/2, Rf3, Ms8, RT73 and T45) approved in Korea. The multiplex PCR assay developed allows amplification of estimated products of 5 LM canolas from event specific primer sets. Primer extension time was skipped for a time-consuming process and two annealing steps (20 cycles at 55°C and 20 cycles at 60°C) were performed for yielding the best result which was sufficient to distinguish five LM canolas. Our results suggest that multiplex PCR method provides a cost and time-effective approach for LM canola detection.

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Abstract : Pregermination treatment of cocoa beans either with the testa, group PCB (+T), or without the testa, group PCB (-T), was studied here to determine whether this treatment (incubation up to 120 h at 25°C) has any effect on the levels of allergenic proteins or on chemical composition. Our proximate analysis included carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. We used western blotting to measure changes in the amounts of allergenic proteins in the cocoa beans during the pregermination treatment. The protein and carbohydrate content of both groups (with or without the testa) decreased slightly during this treatment, whereas lipid content increased. Group PCB (-T) showed more rapid metabolic processes than did group PCB (+T) during the pregermination treatment. Western blot analysis showed that the cocoa beans contained an allergenic protein of ~28 kDa. Removal of the testa strongly reduced the amount of this allergenic protein after 72 h of the pregermination treatment. Generally, the pregermination treatment increased antioxidant activity in both groups. Significant differences in the antioxidant activity were observed between groups PCB (-T) and PCB (+T). Particularly, group PCB (-T) showed high antioxidant activity at 72 h of the pregermination treatment. Thus, the combination of cocoa beans without the testa and pregermination treatment (72 h) seems to be the optimal method for production of hypoallergenic cocoa beans rich in antioxidants for patients with allergic disorders.

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Abstract : In order to compare salt tolerance among potato cultivars (Solanum tuberosum L.), in vitro plants of each cultivar were cultured on the Murashige and Skoog’s medium containing different levels of NaCl (0, 75, 150, and 225 mM). The suitable level of NaCl for a comparison of the shoot and root growth between potato cultivars was 75mM. Shoot length and weight were better in ‘Dejima’, ‘Superior’, ‘Jayoung’, and ‘Haryeong’ than in other cultivars such as ‘Goun’ and ‘Atlantic’. Normal root growth was observed in ‘Seohong’, ‘Superior’, and ‘Haryeong’, while ‘Goun’, ‘Atlantic’, ‘Dejima’, ‘Jowon’, and ‘Chuback’ showed no root. Proline contents in all the cultivars increased as affected by NaCl levels, then the increase amount was fewer in the cultivars showed a better growth in both shoot and root than in others showed a poor growth. As a result of this study, ‘Superior’ and ‘Haryeong’ were determined as salt tolerant cultivars and therefore using these cultivars it would be possible to potato production at salt arable land such as reclaimed tidal.