• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.1187-1192
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• 2014

Pepper, consumed as a typical spice food around world, is mainly cultivated in warm countries, including Korea, China, and Mexico. Phytophthora capsici is a pathogen on several economically important crops, including pepper. The oomycete attacks the roots, stems, leaves, and fruit of the host plants. To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying development of the disease, the genes expressed during pepper-P. capsici interaction were explored by analyzing expressed sequence tags (ESTs). A cDNA library was constructed from total RNA extracted from pepper leaves challenged with P. capsici for three days, resulting in an early stage of symptom development for comparable interaction. A comprehensive analysis of single-pass sequencing of 5,760 randomly selected cDNA clones extracted 5,148 high-quality entries for contig assembly, which generated 2,990 unigenes. A homology search of the unigenes with BLASTX resulted in 2,409 matches, of which 606 showed classified functional catalogs.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1060-1066
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• 2005

Under environmental stress, such as strong irradiance or nitrogen deficiency, unicellular green algae of the genus Haematococcus accumulate secondary carotenoids, i.e. astaxanthin, in the cytosol. The induction and regulation of astaxanthin biosynthesis in microalgae has recently received considerable attention owing to the increasing use of secondary carotenoids as a source of pigmentation for fish aquacultures, and as a potential drug in cancer prevention as a free-radical quencher. Accordingly, this study generated expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from a library constructed from astaxanthin-induced Haematococcus pluvialis. Partial sequences were obtained from the 5' ends of 1,858 individual cDNAs, and then grouped into 1,025 non-overlapping sequences, among which 708 sequences were singletons, while the remainder fell into 317 clusters. Approximately $63\%$ of the EST sequences showed similarity to previously described sequences in public databases. H. pluvialis was found to consist of a relatively high percentage of genes involved in genetic information processing ($15\%$) and metabolism ($11\%$), whereas a relatively low percentage of sequences was involved in the signal transduction ($3\%$), structure ($2\%$), and environmental information process ($3\%$). In addition, a relatively large fraction of H. pluvialis sequences was classified as genes involved in photosynthesis ($9\%$) and cellular process ($9\%$). Based on this EST analysis, the full-length cDNA sequence for superoxide dismutase (SOD) of H. pluvialis was cloned, and the expression of this gene was investigated. The abundance of SOD changed substantially in response to different culture conditions, indicating the possible regulation of this gene in H. pluvialis.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.525-530
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• 2013

The ascarids, Toxocara canis and Toxascaris leonina, are probably the most common gastrointestinal helminths encountered in dogs. In order to understand biological differences of 2 ascarids, we analyzed gene expression profiles of female adults of T. canis and T. leonina using CLC Genomics Workbench, and the results were compared with those of free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. A total of 2,880 and 7,949 ESTs were collected from T. leonina and T. canis, respectively. The length of ESTs ranged from 106 to 4,637 bp with an average insert size of 820 bp. Overall, our results showed that most functional gene annotations of 2 ascarids were quite similar to each other in 3 major categories, i.e., cellular component, biological process, and molecular function. Although some different transcript expression categories were found, the distance was short and it was not enough to explain their different lifestyles. However, we found distinguished transcript differences between ascarid parasites and free-living nematodes. Understanding evolutionary genetic changes might be helpful for studies of the lifestyle and evolution of parasites.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Poultry Science Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.53-59
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• 2005

Sequences of candidate chicken testis-specific genes were analyzed in order to develop a resource for functional genomic studies of the testis and male germ cells. Tentative consensus sequences (TCs) containing ESTs expressed in testis libraries only were selected from the TIGR Gallus gallus Gene Index, resulting in a total of 292 TCs. The transcriptional expression of these genes were evaluated in a variety of chicken tissues, including testis and ovary, Of the panel of 292 TCs, 110 were expressed in a testis-specific manner. The correlation between the number of ESTs assembled into each TC and the number of testis-specific TCs was not significant. Annotation of the TCs using the Gene Ontology database terms showed that the proportion of testis-specific TCs that were classified as having catalytic activity (within the Molecular Function branch) was larger than the proportion of total chicken TCs classified in the same way. Our results might facilitate the investigation of testis-specific genes and their functional analysis in the chicken as well as in other avian species.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.535-543
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• 2014

Backcross breeding is the method most commonly used to introgress new traits into elite lines. Conventional backcross breeding requires at least 4-5 generations to recover the genomic background of the recurrent parent. Marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) represents a new breeding approach that can substantially reduce breeding time and cost. For successful MABC, highly polymorphic markers with known positions in each chromosome are essential. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers have many advantages over other marker systems for MABC due to their high abundance and amenability to genotyping automation. To facilitate MABC in hot pepper (Capsicum annuum), we utilized expressed sequence tags (ESTs) to develop SNP markers in this study. For SNP identification, we used Bukang $F_1$-hybrid pepper ESTs to prepare a reference sequence through de novo assembly. We performed large-scale transcriptome sequencing of eight accessions using the Illumina Genome Analyzer (IGA) IIx platform by Solexa, which generated small sequence fragments of about 90-100 bp. By aligning each contig to the reference sequence, 58,151 SNPs were identified. After filtering for polymorphism, segregation ratio, and lack of proximity to other SNPS or exon/intron boundaries, a total of 1,910 putative SNPs were chosen and positioned to a pepper linkage map. We further selected 412 SNPs evenly distributed on each chromosome and primers were designed for high throughput SNP assays and tested using a genetic diversity panel of 27 Capsicum accessions. The SNP markers clearly distinguished each accession. These results suggest that the SNP marker set developed in this study will be valuable for MABC, genetic mapping, and comparative genome analysis.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.933-941
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• 2005

To develop a functional cDNA chip, specific genes expressed in the tissues of swine Kagoshima Berkshire were screened. A total of 4,434 ESTs were obtained by constructing a cDNA library from total RNA isolated from the muscle and fat tissues, affirming their functions by investigating similarity of nucleotide sequences with the database at the NCBI. Among them, 1,230 ESTs were confirmed as novel genes, which, to date, have not been identified. Attaching the genes to a cDNA microarray slide revealed expression patterns of genes in muscle and fat according to the growth stages of swine. As specific genes expressed in the muscle tissues of swine with body weight of 30 kg, 60 genes including actin, myosin, tropomysin, transfer RNA-trp synthetase, Kel-like protein 23, KIAA0182 and COI, Foocen-m, etc were obtained. In addition, 18 novel genes were obtained. As specific genes expressed in fat tissues of swine with body weight of 30 kg, 47 genes including annexin II, Collagen, Fibronectin, Pleckstrin homology domain, serine protease, etc were obtained. 21 novel genes were also obtained. The genes specifically expressed in the muscle and fat tissues of swine affect contraction and relaxation of the muscle and the fat. However, studies on the expression mechanisms of the genes are insufficient. To reveal species of structural genes in swine muscle and fat tissue, interrelation studies in expression and function of genes by using the cDNA chip should be conducted.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.174-179
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• 2006

A cDNA library was constructed from leaf samples of 4-year-old Panax ginseng cultured in a field. 3,000 EST from a size selected leaf cDNA library were analyzed. The 349 of 2,896 cDNA clones has related with energy metabolism genes. The 349 known genes were categorized into nine groups according to their functional classification, aerobic respiration(48.4%), accessory proteins of electron transport and membrane associated energy conservation(17.2%), glycolysis and gluconeogenesis(3.4%), electron transport and membrane associated energy conservation(2.9%), respiration(2.0%), glycolysis methylglyoxal bypass(1.7%), metabolism of energy reserves(0.6%) and alcohol fermentation(0.3%).

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2010.10a
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• pp.11-11
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• 2010

The Korean ginseng, Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer is a popular medicinal herb in Araliaceae. Genetic map in crops provides valuable information for breeding, genetic and genomic researches. However, little information is available for construction of genetic map in ginseng. Up to now, we have produced large amounts of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from four ginseng cultivars (37Mb, 49Mb, 39Mb, 47Mb from Gopoong, Gumpoong, Chunpoong and Yunpoong respectively using pyrosequencing technique and 5Mb from normalized full-length cDNA library of Chunpoong) to obtain comprehensive information of gene expression, and constructed EST database including ESTs from public database. Till now, we designed 261 SSR primer sets using EST sequences and identified 106 intergenic polymorphic markers. And 44 of the 106 showed polymorphisms among panax ginseng cultivars. Among 44 markers, 27 SSR polymorphic markers were inspected to 51 $F_2$ population from Yunpoong x Chunpoong, which showed good at the fitness of Mendellian segregation ratio 1:2:1. To enrich the number of markers, and thus construct high resolution genetic map which can be used as frame map for further genome sequencing. we are planning to develop large scale EST-derived SNP markers which are available in the F2 population. This study provides genetic information as well as foundation for ginseng researches such as genetics, genomics, breeding, and the final goal for whole genome sequencing. This study was supported by Technology Development Program for Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Republic of Korea (Grant No. 609001-051SB210).

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.26
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• pp.10.1-10.7
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• 2011

Objects: Chironomus riparius, a non-biting midge (Chironomidae, Diptera), is extensively used as a model organism in aquatic ecotoxicological studies, and considering the potential of C. riparius larvae as a bio-monitoring species, little is known about its genome sequences. This study reports the results of an Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) sequencing project conducted on C. riparius larvae using 454 pyrosequencing. Method: To gain a better understanding of C. riparius transcriptome, we generated ESTs database of C.ripairus using pyrosequencing method. Results: Sequencing runs, using normalized cDNA collections from fourth instar larvae, yielded 20,020 expressed sequence tags, which were assembled into 8,565 contigs and 11,455 singletons. Sequence analysis was performed by BlastX search against the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) nucleotide (nr) and uniprot protein database. Based on the gene ontology classifications, 24% (E-value${\leq}1^{-5}$) of the sequences had known gene functions, 24% had unknown functions and 52% of sequences did not match any known sequences in the existing database. Sequence comparison revealed 81% of the genes have homologous genes among other insects belonging to the order Diptera providing tools for comparative genome analyses. Targeted searches using these annotations identified genes associated with essential metabolic pathways, signaling pathways, detoxification of toxic metabolites and stress response genes of ecotoxicological interest. Conclusions: The results obtained from this study would eventually make ecotoxicogenomics possible in a truly environmentally relevant species, such as, C. riparius.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.221-228
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• 2011

Rodent malaria parasites, such as Plasmodium berghei, are practical and useful model organisms for human malaria research because of their analogies to the human malaria in terms of structure, physiology, and life cycle. Exploiting the available genetic sequence information, we constructed a cDNA library from the erythrocytic stages of P. berghei and analyzed the expressed sequence tag (EST). A total of 10,040 ESTs were generated and assembled into 2,462 clusters. These EST clusters were compared against public protein databases and 48 putative new transcripts, most of which were hypothetical proteins with unknown function, were identified. Genes encoding ribosomal or membrane proteins and purine nucleotide phosphorylases were highly abundant clusters in P. berghei. Protein domain analyses and the Gene Ontology functional categorization revealed translation/protein folding, metabolism, protein degradation, and multiple family of variant antigens to be mainly prevalent. The presently-collected ESTs and its bioinformatic analysis will be useful resources to identify for drug target and vaccine candidates and validate gene predictions of P. berghei.