• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.225-231
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• 2011

Previously, we identified the 20S proteasome ${\alpha}$-subunit of Magnaporthe oryzae (M. oryzae) induced during appressorium formation, and detected an increase in multiple protein ubiquitination during the early appressorium formation process (Kim et al., 2004). In this study, we further attempted to determine whether the proteasome is involved in the appressorium formation of M. oryzae both in vitro and in planta, using proteasome inhibitors. A significant increase in 20S proteasome during fungal germination and appressorium formation was observed using Western blot analysis with 20S proteasome antibody, demonstrating that proteasome-mediated protein degradation was involved in appressorium formation. Pharmacological analysis using proteasome inhibitors, MG-132, proteasome inhibitor I (PI) and proteasome inhibitor II (PII) revealed that germination and appressorium formation were delayed for 4 to 6 h on rice leaf wax-coated plates. Similarly, the treatment of proteasome inhibitors with fungal conidia on the rice leaf surface delayed appressorium formation and host infection processes as well. Additionally, fungal pathogenicity was strongly reduced at 4 days' postfungal infection. These data indicated that the fungal 20S proteasome might be involved in the pathogenicity of M. oryzae by the suppression of germination and appressorium formation.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.183-192
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• 1982

The variability of rice productivity during last 2 decades (1961-1980) of ten years before and after the introduction of"Tongil" was reviewed from the epochal, regional and varietal points of view. During that period the cultivated area of paddy rice have remained almost unchanged, while the total rice production have got elevated from 3, 463 million metric tons in 1961 to 6.006 million metric tons in 1977, recording 73.4% increase. This remarkable increase in rice production is considered to be attributable much to the development and release of new high yielding variety, "Tongil", coupled with the amelioration of cultural techniques. However, in 1978 Tongil type varieties experienced the epidemic outbreak of blast disease due to the shifted race population of blast fungus and in 1980 recorded poor rice production as low as in 1960's due to the unfavorable weather stress throughout the rice growing season, giving rise to many problems awaiting solutions for securing the stabilized high production of rice. The rice yield has continued the gradual increase during last two decades but its difference between farmer and research organization have got wider from 79kg/10a during 1960 to 1971 to 101kg/l0a during 1972 to 1980, and also the inter-regional differences have been increased from 50-60kg/10a to 80kg/10a during those periods. Therefore, this proves that we have raised the upper boundary of rice yield by increasing the yield potential of rice variety but have not changed those absolute deviations. Estimates indicate that the increased rice production during that period was indebted 40 percent to the varietal improvement and 13 percent to the ameliorated agro-technologies, and the rest, 47 percent, could be ascribed to the other factors besides varieties and cultural technologies such as the improved agricultural environments, etc. Of course, even though it cannot be expected to unify the cultural environments and the cultural technologies, provided that much efforts are to be endeavored to minimize the yield difference of 20 percent between farmer and research organizations and the inter-regional yield difference of 20 percent, much increased rice production can be expected to be achieved with the current level of cultural technology and the yielding potential of the present rice varieties. In order to expedite the above effects on rice production the followings are to be put into practices consitently and steadfastly. 1. Reinforcement of breeding for varieties with high yielding potential and less susceptible to climatic-stress and pests, and of basic physicoecological studies of rice plant for improving the cultural technologies. 2. Continuous endeavor to secure the stabilized cultural environments by improving the soil fertility and increasing the drainage and irrigation facilities. 3. Political back-up to encourage the farmers' incentives for production 4. Precise surveys for agricultural statistics to facilitate the long-term planninge long-term planning.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.323-328
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• 2006

Serratia marcescens W1, isolated from cucumber-cultivated soil in Suwon, Korea, evidenced profound antifungal activity and produced the extracellular hydrolytic enzymes, chitinase and protease. In order to isolate the antifungal genes from S. marcescens W1, a cosmid genomic library was constructed and expressed in Escherichia coli. Transformants exhibiting chitinase and protease expression were selected, as well as those transformants evidencing antifungal effects against the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe grisea, and the cucumber leaf spot fungus, Cercospora citrullina. Cosmid clones expressing chitinase or protease exerted no inhibitory effects against the growth of fungal pathogens. However, two cosmid clones evidencing profound antifungal activities were selected for further characterization. An 8.2 kb HindIII fragment from these clones conditioned the expression of antagonistic activity, and harbored seven predicted complete open reading frames(ORFs) and two incomplete ORFs. The deduced amino acid sequences indicated that six ORFs were highly homologous with genes from S. marcescens generating pyrroloquinoline quinone(PQQ). Only subclones harboring the full set of pqq genes were shown to solubilize insoluble phosphate and inhibit fungal pathogen growth. The results of this study indicate that the functional expression of the pqq genes of S. marcescens W1 in E. coli may be involved in antifungal activity, via as-yet unknown mechanisms.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.13 no.4 s.21
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• pp.245-249
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• 1974

In order to establish a dose limits for subsequent induced mutation research itl Pyricularia oryzae, X-ray sensitivity of the conidia and the vegetative hypae of the fungus, race N-1, was investigated. Conidia of the fungus irradiated with X-rays reduced significantly in spore germination inversely with radiation doses. A severe suppression of conidia germination in about $80\%$ was found at the dose of 120kR, and the rests of the conidia produce very short and lysed germ tubes. A stimulated effect was observed in the elongation of hyphae from the conidia of 10 kR irradiation at initial stage of the growth. The radiosensitivity of hyphae was exremely higher than that of conidia with the increase of radiation doses. It was also recognized that the frequency of X-ray induced mutation in pathogenicity was directly proportional to radiation doses.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.1158-1162
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• 2006

The glyoxylate cycle can conserve carbons and adequately supply tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle intermediates for biosynthesis when microorganisms grow on $C_{2}$ carbon sources. It has been reported that isocitrate lyase (ICL1), a key enzyme of the glyoxylate cycle, is highly induced when Magnaporthe grisea, the causal agent of rice blast, infects its host. Therefore, the glyoxylate cycle is considered as a new target for antifungal agents. A 1.6-kb DNA fragment encoding the ICL1 from M. grisea KJ201 was amplified by PCR, cloned into a vector providing His-tag at the N-terminus, expressed in Escherichia coli, and purified using Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. The molecular mass of the purified ICL1 was approximately 60 kDa, as determined by SDS-PAGE. The ICL1 inhibitory effects of TCA cycle intermediates and their analogs were investigated. Among them, 3-nitropropionate was found to be the strongest inhibitor with an $IC_{50}$ value of $11.0{\mu}g/ml$. 3-Nitropropionate inhibited the appressorium development in M. grisea at the ${\mu}M$ level, whereas conidia germination remained unaffected. This compound also inhibited the mycelial growth of the fungus on minimal medium containing acetate as a $C_{2}$ carbon source. These results suggest that ICL1 plays a crucial role in appressorium formation of M. grisea and is a new target for the control of phytopathogenic fungal infection.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.86-88
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• 2005

Antifungal activity of the extracts of plants and marine microalgae against Magnaporthe grisea was investigated. Acetone extracts of promegranate rind, leek seed, and maize husk demonstrated high antifungal activity against M. grisea. MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) of acetone extracts of promegranate rind, leek seed, and maize husk was 100 ng/ml, $50\;{\mu}g/ml,\;and\;100\;{\mu}g/ml$ respectively. Ethanol extract of Amphiprora gigantea showed antifungal activity against M. grisea with MIC of $100\;{\mu}g/ml$.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.87-98
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• 2018

The fungal species contain diverse transposable elements and repetitive sequences up to ~10% of their genome. It has been reported that distribution of transposable elements tends to correlate with the host range of the pathogen. Moreover, transposable elements cause the loss of an avirulence gene in the pathogen, which resulted in disease on a resistance cultivar. Thus, the transposable elements in the fungal pathogens may be one of the key factors driving the plant-fungus interactive evolution. In this article, we reviewed classification and biological functions of transposable elements in Magnaporthe species.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.21 no.3 s.52
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• pp.113-122
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• 1982

Appressorial formation of Pyricularia oryzae on leaves showed no marked difference between highly resistant Tongil and susceptible Norm No. 6. Race N-2 of the blast fungus penetrated directly into motor cells of susceptible cultivar Norm No. 6, later extensively spreading hyphae were developed, while in the cultivar Tongil, after penetration, no further hyphal extension resulted. In discoloration of infected tissues, the highly resistant cultivar Tongil not only discolored rapidly, but also the percentage of discolored cells was higher than the susceptible cultivars, Jinheung and Norm No. 6. The respiratory rate, was generally higher in infected tissue than in healthy tissue. No significant difference in the respiration rate of resistant Suwon No. 180 was not found between the infected and healthy leaf tissue, whereas, in susceptible Jinheung, a marked increase in respiratory rate was caused by blast infection. The respiratory rate increased at the appearance of the first visible symptom in all cultivars resistant or susceptible. Higher peroxidase activity was found in infected tissues as compared with healthy tissue. Peroxidase activity increased in resistant and susceptible reactions. Particularly, in resistant reaction, the increase of the activity was more pronounced. In highly resistant reaction, there was no difference in peroxidase activity between healthy and infected tissues. Ascorbic acid oxidase, hydroquinone oxidase and catechol oxidase had the same trend as the peroxidase. In contrast, activity of catalase rather decreased in leaf tissues infected with compatible races of the fungus.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.5_6
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• pp.19-26
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• 1968

Results obtained from the observation of 1,000 matured resting conidia of Pyricularia oryzae CAV. were as fellows. The percentage of a condium conitaining was 95.5, while that of a multinucleate conidium was 4.5. Formation of the three-celled mature conidium containing a nucleus in each cell, which was derived from the immatured conidium, could be recognized. Chromosomes could be observed in the conidium when the nuclear division took place. The number of chromosomes was n=3, 4, 5 or 6 but rile majority was 5. The nucleus was moved into the germ-tube from the conidium by following ways: (a) a resting nucleus divided into two nuclei in the conidium and one of them was moved into the germ-tube. The other nucleus remained in the conidium (43 per cent): (b) a nucleus was moved into the germ-tube from the conidium without nuclear division (57 Per cent). The appressorium without a nucleus was abundantly observed when stain was made. However, tile number of a mononucleate appressorium was 476 out of 500 appressoria which had nuclear sap. On the ground of this experiment, we could support the conidium of blast fungus contained mononucleus and also homokaryon seemed to b: appealed on the conidia even though those were multilocular. As the results, it could be concluded that use of inoculum derived from single spore isolate was reasonable for any experiments in the rice blast fungus.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2010

The phytopathogenic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae is a major limiting factor in rice production. To understand the genetic basis of M. oryzae pathogenic development, we previously analyzed a library of T-DNA insertional mutants of M. oryzae, and identified ATMT0879A1 as one of the pathogenicity-defective mutants. Molecular analyses and database searches revealed that a single TDNA insertion in ATMT0879A1 resulted in functional interference with an annotated gene, MGG00056, which encodes a short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase (SDR). The mutant and annotated gene were designated as $MoSDR1^{T-DNA}$ and MoSDR1, respectively. Like other SDR family members, MoSDR1 possesses both a cofactor-binding motif and a catalytic site. The expression pattern of MoSDR1 suggests that the gene is associated with pathogenicity and plays an important role in M. oryzae development. To understand the roles of MoSDR1, the deletion mutant ${\Delta}Mosdr1$ for the gene was obtained via homology-dependent gene replacement. As expected, ${\Delta}Mosdr1$ was nonpathogenic; moreover, the mutant displayed pleiotropic defects in conidiation, conidial germination, appressorium formation, penetration, and growth inside host tissues. These results suggest that MoSDR1 functions as a key metabolic enzyme in the regulation of development and pathogenicity in M. oryzae.