Biotechnology in the 21st century will be driven by three emerging technologies: genomics, high-throughput biology, and bioinformatics. These technologies are complementary to one another. A large number of economically important crops are currently subjected to whole genome sequencing. Functional genomics for determining the functions of the genes comprising the given plant genome is under progress by using various means including phenotyping data from transgenic mutants, gene expression profiling data from DNA microarrays, and metabolic profiling data from LC/mass analysis. The aim of plant molecular breeding is shifting from introducing agronomic traits such as herbicide and insect resistance to introducing quality traits such as healthful oils and proteins, which will lead to improved and nutritional food and feed products. Plant molecular breeding is also expected to aim to develop crops for producing human therapeutic and industrial proteins.

Samyang Genex succeeded in commercialization of anticancer agent-paclitaxel by plant cell culture technology. The core technology of Samyang Genex relating paclitaxel production includes cell line development, cell line preservation, cell culture, scale-up technology, and purification technology. On the basis of the research, Samyang Genex built the factory operated by CGMP (current good manufacturing practice). The $paclitaxel-Genexol^{TM}$ is commercially available in Korea, and it will be launched to world market including USA after approval US FDA.

We, Tong Yang Moolsan Co. Ltd. (TYM) set up the mass-production system for virus-free seed garlic via tissue culture technique. TYM's tissue culture technique is called as 'Multiple shoot propagation technique'. This technique can lead mass propagation of genetically homogeneous seed garlic in a short period because of its highly proliferation rate of in vitro shoots ($15^{10}$ /year). TYM researchers applied the technique to some selected garlic cultivars with superior characteristics and carried out field test of productivity in the inside and outside of the country for several years. According to the yearly results of field test with virus-free seed garlic, we ascertained that virus-free seed garlic can produce the highly yield increase (max. above $50\%$) and also can enhance the product quality. Consequently, we estimated that TYM's seed garlic will contribute to farmers with increase of income and can elevate the national position of garlic market in the world for its competitive power of technical and production cost.

Adverse environmental conditions such as drought, high salt and cold/freezing are major factors that reduces crop productivity worldwide. According to a survey, $50-80\%$ of the maximum potential yield is lost by these 'environmental or abiotic stresses', which is approximately ten times higher than the loss by biotic stresses. Thus, Improving stress-tolerance of crop plants is an important way to improve agricultural productivity. In order to develop such stress-tolerant crop plants, we set out to identify key stress signaling components that can be used to develop commercially viable crop varieties with enhanced stress tolerance. Our primary focus so far has been on the identification of transcription factors that regulate stress responsive gene expression, especially those involved in ABA-mediated stress response. Be sessile, plants have the unique capability to adapt themselves to the abiotic stresses. This adaptive capability is largely dependent on the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA), whose level increases under various stress conditions, triggering adaptive response. Central to the response is ABA-regulated gene expression, which ultimately leads to physiological changes at the whole plant level. Thus, once identified, it would be possible to enhance stress tolerance of crop plants by manipulating the expression of the factors that mediate ABA-dependent stress response. Here, we present our work on the isolation and functional characterization of the transcription factors.

Oxidative stress derived from reactive oxygen species (ROS) is one of the major damaging factors in plants exposed to environmental stress. In order to develop the platform technology to solve the global food and environmental problems in the 21s1 century, we focus on the understanding of the antioxidative mechanism in plant cells, the development of oxidative stress-inducible antioxidant genes, and the development of transgenic plants with enhanced tolerance to stress. In this report, we describe our recent results on industrial transgenic plants by the gene manipulation of antioxidant enzymes. Transgenic tobacco plants expressing both superoxide dismutase (SOD) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) in chloroplasts were developed and were evaluated their protection effects against stresses, suggesting that simultaneous overexpression of both SOD and APX in chloroplasts has synergistic effects to overcome the oxidative stress under unfavorable environments. Transgenic tobacco plants expressing a human dehydroascorbate reductase gene in chloroplasts were showed the protection against the oxidative stress in plants. Transgenic cucumber plants expressing high level of SOD in fruits were successfully generated to use the functional cosmetic purpose as a plant bioreactor. In addition, we developed a strong oxidative stress-inducible peroxidase promoter, SWPA2 from sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas). We anticipate that SWPA2 promoter will be biotechnologically useful for the development of transgenic plants with enhanced tolerance to environmental stress and particularly transgenic cell lines engineered to produce key pharmaceutical proteins.

Sterols play two major roles in plants: a bulk component in biological membranes and precursors of plant steroid hormones. Physiological effects of plant steroids, brassinosteroids (BRs), include cell elongation, cell division, stress tolerance, and senescence acceleration. Arabidopsis mutants that carry genetic defects in BR biosynthesis or its signaling display characteristic phenotypes, such as short robust inflorescences, dark-green round leaves, and sterility. Currently there are more than 100 dwarf mutants representing 7 genetic loci in Arabidopsis. Mutants of 6 loci, dwf1/dim1/cbb1, cpd/dwf3, dwf4, dwf5, det2/dwf6, dwf7 are rescued by exogenous application of BRs, whereas bri1/dwf2 shares phenotypes with the above 6 loci but are resistant to BRs. These suggest that the 6 loci are defective in BR biosynthesis, and the one locus is in BR signaling. Biochemical analyses, such as intermediate feeding tests, examining the levels of endogenous BR, and molecular cloning of the genes revealed that dwf7, dwf5, and dwf1 are defective in the three consecutive steps of sterol biosynthesis, from episterol to campesterol via 5-dehydroepisterol. Similarly, det2/dwf6, dwf4, and cpd/dwf3 were shown to be blocked in $D^4$ reduction, 22a-hydroxylation, and 23 a-hydroxylation, respectively. A signaling mutant bri1/dwf2 carries mutations in a Leucine-rich repeat receptor kinase. Interestingly, the bri1 mutant was shown to accumulate significant amount of BRs, suggesting that signaling and biosynthesis are dynamically coupled in Arabidopsis. Thus It is likely that transgenic plants over-expressing the rate-limiting step enzyme DWF4 as well as blocking its use by BRI1 could dramatically increase the biosynthetic yield of BRs. When applied industrially, BRs will boost new sector of plant biotechnology because of its potential use as a precursor of human steroid hormones, a novel lead compound for cholesterol-lowering effects, and a various application in plant protection.

A lot of SSRs (simple sequence repeats) in peach and pear from enriched genomic libraries and in peach from a cDNA library were developed. These SSRs were applied to other related species, giving phenograms of 52 Prunus and 60 pear accessions. Apple SSRs could also be successfully used in Pyrus spp. Thirteen morphological traits were characterized on the basis of the linkage map obtained from an $F_2$ population of peach. This map was compiled with those morphological markers and 83 DNA markers, including SSR markers used as anchor loci, to compare different peach maps. Molecular markers tightly linked to new root-knot nematode resistance genes were also found. A linkage map including disease-related genes, pear scab resistance and black spot susceptibility, in the Japanese pear Kinchaku were constructed using 118 RAPD markers. Another linkage map, of the European pear Bartlett, was also constructed with 226 markers, including 49 SSRs from pear, apple, peach and chewy. Maps of other Japanese pear cultivars, i.e., Kousui and Housui, were also constructed. These maps were the first results of pear species.