• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.87-98
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• 2021

To establish an infection, fungal pathogens must recognize diverse signals from host surfaces. The rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, is one of the best models studying host-pathogen interactions. This fungus recognizes physical or chemical signals from the host surfaces and initiates the development of an infection structure called appressorium. Here, we found that protein MoAfo1(appressorium formation, MGG_10422) was involved in sensing signal molecules such as cutin monomers and long chain primary alcohols required for appressorium formation. The knockout mutant (ΔMoafo1) formed a few abnormal appressoria on the onion and rice sheath surfaces. However, it produced normal appressoria on the surface of rice leaves. MoAfo1 localized to the membranes of the cytoplasm and vacuole-like organelles in conidia and appressoria. Additionally, the ΔMoafo1 mutant showed defects in appressorium morphology, appressorium penetration, invasive growth, and pathogenicity. These multiple defects might be partially due to failure to respond properly to oxidative stress. These findings broaden our understanding of the fungal mechanisms at play in the recognition of the host surface during rice blast infection.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.317-325
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• 2020

A new dimer stilbene [Monalittorin (1)] and ten known compounds [engeletin (2), aurantiamide acetate (3), lupeol (4), friedelin (5), quercetin (6), tiliroside (7), rutoside (8), astragalin (9), isoquercitrin (10) and quercimeritroside (11)] have been isolated from the leaves of Monanthotaxis littoralis (Annonaceae). The structures of these compounds were established by interpretation of their data, mainly, HR-TOFESIMS, 1-D NMR (1H and 13C) and 2-D NMR (1H-1H COSY, HSQC, HMBC and NOESY) and by comparison with the literature. The evaluation of their antimicrobial activities against three bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, Escherichia coli S2 (1) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA01) and three fungal strains (Candida albicans ATCC10231, Candida tropicalis PK233 and Cryptococcus neoformans H99) using broth micro dilution method, showed the largest antimicrobial activities of EtOAc fraction and compounds 1, 5, 6, 8 and 11 (MIC = 8 - 64 ㎍/mL). In addition, EtOAc fraction presented synergistic effect with Vancomycin and fluconazole against the tested microorganisms.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.307-318
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• 2023

Objectives: Bacterial biofilm is regarded as a significant threat to the production of safe food and the arise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The objective of this investigation is to evaluate the quorum sensing inhibitory effect of Nepeta curviflora methanolic extract. Methods: The effectiveness of the leaves at sub-inhibitory concentrations of 2.5, 1.25, and 0.6 mg/mL on the virulence factors and biofilm formation of P. aeruginosa was evaluated. The effect of N. curviflora methanolic extract on the virulence factors of P. aeruginosa, including pyocyanin, rhamnolipid, protease, and chitinase, was evaluated. Other tests including the crystal violet assay, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), swarming motility, aggregation ability, hydrophobicity and exopolysaccharide production were conducted to assess the effect of the extract on the formation of biofilm. Insight into the mode of antiquorum sensing action was evaluated by examining the effect of the extract on the activity of N-Acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) and the expression of pslA and pelA genes. Results: The results showed a significant attenuation in the production of pyocyanin and rhamnolipid and in the activities of protease and chitinase enzymes at 2.5 and 1.25 mg/mL. In addition, N. curviflora methanolic extract significantly inhibited the formation of P. aeruginosa biofilm by decreasing aggregation, hydrophobicity, and swarming motility as well as the production of exopolysaccharide (EPS). A significant reduction in AHL secretion and pslA gene expression was observed, indicating that the extract inhibited quorum sensing by disrupting the quorum-sensing systems. The quorum-sensing inhibitory effect of N. curviflora extract appears to be attributed to the presence of kaempferol, quercetin, salicylic acid, rutin, and rosmarinic acid, as indicated by LCMS analysis. Conclusion: The results of the present study provide insight into the potential of developing anti-quorum sensing agents using the extract and the identified compounds to treat infections resulting from quorum sensing-mediated bacterial pathogenesis.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.114-123
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• 2024

In July 2022, stem rot symptom was found in a peony plant grown in a pot under a greenhouse at Jinju, Gyeongnam Province, South Korea. Two fungal species were isolated from the infected peony stems and cultured on 1/2-strength potato dextrose agar for identification. The morphological characteristics of the fungal isolates were examined, and nucleotide sequences of the internal transcribed spacer region, β-tubulin and translation elongation factor 1-α were analysed. The pathogenicity of the two isolates was confirmed in detached peony leaves, according to Koch's postulates. To our knowledge, this is the report of Neopestalotiopsis clavispora and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum as the causal agents of peony stem rots. Antifungal activity of chemical fungicide propineb and rhizobacterium Bacillus siamensis H30-3 was shown against the two plant pathogenic fungi N. clavispora and S. sclerotiorum.Unidentified diffusible and volatile compounds from B. siamensis H30-3 could suppress in vitro mycelial growths of N. clavispora JJ 8-2-1 and S. sclerotiorum JJ 8-2-2.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.664-669
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• 2010

The forest area of domestic is 6370304 ha, which covers 70% of the whole country, and especially Gangwon-do is remarkably larger than other Province. A thick forest of the country has the most basic component among other natural environments as well as it has invaluable worth to human being such as scientific research and educational value. However due to the breakout of forest fire since 1990s, the loss of trees, destruction of natural environment and ecology, economic damage have been occurring and its scale also has become larger. The causes of becoming larger in scale are resulted from forest components which mainly consist of needle leaf trees, wide leaf trees, fallen leaves, herbaceous plants so that it has been a direct cause for forest fire. However, few research on combustion and pyrolysis characteristics has been done in domestic and abroad. The study on the combustion and pyrolysis for Pinus densiflora which are typical needle leaf trees has been tried using TGA. Pinus desiflora started to being ignited at around $162^{\circ}C$ and pyrolysis was done at around $197^{\circ}C$. Differential method was applied to calculate activation energy and frequency factor according to the variation of conversion. Activation energy in pyrolysis was increased from 79 kJ/mol to 487 kJ/mol with increasing conversion and average activation energy was 195 kJ/mol. The activation energy in combustion was decreased from 148 kJ/mol to 133 kJ/mol.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.247-251
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• 2000

This study was conducted to investigate tissue nutrient contents and salt accumulation in plastic house soils cultivating lily, rose and carnation. The soil tested had high total salts, available phosphate and exchangeable potassium. The soil cultivating rose had highest salt concentvation followed by chose of carnation and lily. Tissue nutrient contents of lily were higher than chose of carnation and rose. In comparison among cultivars, the nutrient contents were as follows; 'Snow Qeen'>'Le Reve'>'Casa Blanca' in lily; 'Marina'>'Super star'>'Mary Devor'>'Madelon' in carnation; and 'Cocktail'> 'Marina'>'Maderon' in rose. The range of the nutrient contents were: T-N: $1.66\;{\sim}2.35%$, K: $1.73{\sim}2.23%$, Zn: $2.13{\sim}6.43\;mg/kg$, Cu: $3.79{\sim}13.89\;mg/kg$ in carnation; T-N: $0.79{\sim}1.65%$, P: $0.18{\sim}0.44%$, Ca: $0.59{\sim}1.26%$, Mg: $0.21{\sim}0.46%$, Zn: $23.65{\sim}90.30\;mg/kg$, Cu: $0.99{\sim}4.62\;mg/kg$ in lily; and T-N: $0.75{\sim}1.62%$, P: $0.17{\sim}0.30%$, K: $1.60{\sim}2.91%$, Ca: $0.64{\sim}0.94%$, Zn: $24.57{\sim}48.31\;mg/kg$, Cu: $3.10{\sim}9.08\;mg/kg$ in rose. The amount of nutrients uptake per plant was high in order of: K > T-N > Ca > Mg in lily; and T-N > K > Ca > P > Mg in rose.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.416-430
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• 2017

The kenaf plant is used widely as food and in traditional folk medicine. This study evaluated the morphological characteristics, functional compounds, and genetic diversity of 32 kenaf cultivars from a worldwide collection. We found significant differences in the functional compounds of leaves from all cultivars, including differences in levels of chlorogenic acid isomer (CAI), chlorogenic acid (CA), kaempferol glucosyl rhamnoside isomer (KGRI), kaempferol rhamnosyl xyloside (KRX), kaemperitrin (KAPT) and total phenols (TPC). The highest TPC, KAPT, CA, and KRX contents were observed in the C22 cultivars. A significant correlation was observed between flowering time and DM yield, seed yield, and four phenolic compounds (KGRI, KRX, CAI, and TPC) (P < 0.01). To assess genetic diversity, we used 80 simple sequence repeats (SSR) primer sets and identified 225 polymorphic loci in the kenaf cultivars. The polymorphism information content and genetic diversity values ranged from 0.11 to 0.79 and 12 to 0.83, with average values of 0.39 and 0.43, respectively. The cluster analysis of the SSR markers showed that the kenaf genotypes could be clearly divided into three clusters based on flowering time. Correlations analysis was conducted for the 80 SSR markers; morphological, chemical and growth traits were found for 15 marker traits (corolla, vein, petal, leaf, stem color, leaf shape, and KGRI content) with significant marker-trait correlations. These results could be used for the selection of kenaf cultivars with improved yield and functional compounds.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.253-259
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• 2008

Soil environmental conditions can affect nutrient availability during growth stage of tree fruit. We investigated the cause of disorderd fruit by the influence of soil chemical properties in orchard soil, composition of mineral nutrient in leaves and fruit to occur physiological disorderd fruit at four locations (Ulsan, Gyeongju, Pyeongtaek, Ansung) compared to healthy. There were significantly different (P=0.05) in exchangeable Ca, K, Mg and total nitrogen content in orchard soil between physiological disordered fruit and healthy fruit. The exchangeable Ca content in orchard soil caused by physiological disordered fruit was statistically lower than that of healthy fruit. However, exchangeable K, Mg and total nitrogen contents were higher than that healthy (P=0.05). There was a significant difference (P=0.05) in Ca content between physiological disordered fruit and healthy. Ca content in fruit flesh of physiological disorderedfruit was statistically lower than that of healthy. The physiological disordered fruit was a higher ratio of Mg/Ca in fruit flesh and peel compared to healthy fruit and also the ratios of N/Ca and K/Ca in a leaf were higher. The negative correlation between Ca and K, and Ca and Mg was detected in the fruit flesh of physiological disordered fruit. Therefore, we concluded that insufficient Ca content in fruit may cause 'the physiological disorder' pomelo disease and high content of N, exchangeable K and Mg ion in the soil solution might be disturbs exchangeable Ca ion to be absorbed in fruit.

• Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.37-43
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• 1984

The prevalence of the infectious flacherie virus (FV) disease causes a severe damage to cocoon yield and various methods to control the disease have been studied. In this regard, guanidine hydrochloride (GH), one of the guanidine derivatives known as the most inhibitory agent against the replication of picorna virus, was applied to silkworms per os with mulberry leaves and the results were as follows. 1. The application of GH below 0.01% of the chemical concentration did not give any damage to silkworm larvae. 2. The transmission of the virus disease by introducing the FV infected larvae to the healthy larvae group was proportioned to the number of infected larvae. When l% of infected larvae was introduced to the rearing tray of healthy larvae, the pupation rate was 70.7%(79) and it was 38.4% (43) to 5% of infected larvae introduced, while the control of non-mixed with infected larvae gave 89.2% (100) of pupation rate. The cocoon yield from 10,000 larvae also showed the same tendency as the pupation rate. 3. The inhibitory effect of GH against the replication of FV showed ten times in treatment of 0,01% of the chemical agent compared to the non-treatment. 4. The successive application of GH after virus inoculation to silkworm larvae led to the most effective on the inhibition of the virus replication. 5. The immediate application of GH after the virus inoculation also gave the best effect on the inhibition of the virus replication in silkworm larvae. 6. The effect of GH on the inactivation of FV in vitro was not observed.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.377-383
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• 1997

Studies were conducted on the nature of allelopathic effect of the substances in the waste of ginkgo leaves from pharmaceutic factory. In the first step, to find out whether there was any allelophatic effect, young seedlings of radish and rice were grown in the water (crude) extract of ginkgo leaf waste and in different liquid/lquid partitioned fractions of EtOAc at pH 9, EtOAc at pH 3, and BuOH. As second step, attempts were made to isolate and identify the allelophatic substance in different liquid/liquid partitioned fractions using GC/MS and NMR techniques. The water (crude) extract of ginkgo leaf waste retarded the growth of radish seedlings under 10% concentration. In case of rice seedlings, the water extract of ginkgo leaf extract showed adverse effect on the growth when combined with $3.3{\times}10^{-6}M$ gibberellin A3. All of the liquid/liquid fractions of crude extract showed strong retardation of seedling growth of radish and rice at the concentration of 1%. Allelophatic substance was isolated from the crude extract using liquid/liquid partition, column chromatography and HPLC techniques. The analytical results of isolated componet using GC/MS and NMR proved that the allelophatic substance in the ginkgo leaf wastes is catechol; one of phenol compounds. Based on the experiences current study, a practical method for the testing of allelophatic effect of crude extract of some materials was proposed. In this method, rice seeds were allowed to sprout until the length of coleoptile to reach 0.5 mm. Such seedlings were submerged in the solution containing supposedly allelophatic substance and the length of shoot and root was measured 3 days after treatment.