Kyung-Jin Choi

Molecular Characterization and Physico-Chemical Analysis of a New Giant Embryo Mutant Allele (ge t ) in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

The rice embryo is rich in lipid and protein bodies, bioactive chemicals such as dietary fiber, phytic acids, vitamin B and E, and gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) than the endosperm. In this paper, we report a new giant embryo mutant,get, induced from somaclonal variation derived by anther culture in rice. Sequence analysis of Cytochrome P450 of the get mutant revealed thatget is a new allele of theGE gene with a single point mutation with substitution of amino acid, W395 to L395. The weight of theget mutant embryo was 3.7 times higher than normal embryo. Tocopherol and mineral content were also higher than the previously reported giant embryo rice variety, Keunnun. These results indicated that this new giant embryo rice (get) offers a promising source of genetic material in improving nutritional quality of rice especially tocopherol, essential minerals, and GABA.

Comparative analysis of physicochemicals and antioxidative properties of new giant embryo mutant, YR23517Acp79, in rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Nutritional and physicochemical properties of new giant embryo mutant rice (YR23517Acp79, YR) were analyzed. YR exhibited increased total protein (9.3±0.3%), lipid (3.7±1.1%), amino acid (663.28±1.9 mg/g), and mineral contents (Ca=284.0±6.2, Mg=1417.5±13.6 mg/kg). In YR brown rice four major physicochemicals, including gamma-aminobutyric acid (brown rice= 0.46±0.014 mg/g), γ-oryzanol (0.43±0.021 mg/g), vitamin B1 (6.42±0.3 mg/kg), and tocopherols (alpha= 2.68±0.1, beta=0.11±0.01, gamma=0.05±0.001 mg/100 g) increased in comparison to reported giant embryo (Keunnunbyeo, KB) and normal embryo rice (Ilmibyeo, IB). YR showed higher scavenging activities against 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (0.2 g/mL=57.1±2.25) and 2,2′-Azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (0.2 g/mL=50.2±1.45) radicals but also inhibited lipopolysaccharide-induced nitric oxide production without cytotoxicity. These results indicate YR is a high quality functional rice due to its high nutrition content and antioxidant effects of physicochemicals.

Impacts of Climate Change on Rice Production and Adaptation Method in Korea as Evaluated by Simulation Study

Air temperature in Korea has increased by over the last 100 years, which is nearly twice the global average rate during the same period. Moreover, it is projected that such change in temperature will continue in the 21st century. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential impacts of future climate change on the rice production and adaptation methods in Korea. Climate data for the baseline (1971~2000) and the three future climate (2011~2040, 2041~2070, and 2071~2100) at fifty six sites in South Korea under IPCC SRES A1B scenario were used as the input to the rice crop model ORYZA2000. Six experimental schemes were carried out to evaluate the combined effects of climatic warming, fertilization, and cropping season on rice production. We found that the average production in 2071~2100 would decrease by 23%, 27%, and 29% for early, middle, and middle-late rice maturing type, respectively, when cropping seasons were fixed. In contrast, predicted yield reduction was ~0%, 6%, and 7%, for early, middle, and middle-late rice maturing type, respectively, when cropping seasons were changed. Analysis of variation suggested that climatic warming, fertilization, cropping season, and rice maturing type contributed 60, 10, 12, and 2% of rice yield, respectively. In addition, regression analysis suggested 14~46 and 53~86% of variations in rice yield were explained by grain number and filled grain ratio, respectively, when cropping season was fixed. On the other hand, 46~78 and 22~53% of variations were explained respectively with changing cropping season. It was projected that sterility caused by high temperature would have no effect on rice yield. As a result, rice yield reduction in the future climate in Korea would resulted from low filled grain ratio due to high growing temperature during grain-filling period because the fertilization was insufficient to negate the negative effect of climatic warming. However, adjusting cropping seasons to future climate change may alleviate the rice production reduction by minimizing negative effect of climatic warming without altering positive effect of fertilization, which improves weather condition during the grain-filling period.

Comparative studies on major nutritional components of black waxy rice with giant embryos and its rice bran

The concentration of nutrients in brown rice is mainly associated with embryo size. Various beneficial components have been purified from rice bran. Recently developed black waxy rice with a giant embryo (‘Milyang 263’, BGE), which is the get mutant of the GE gene, was selected and analyzed to produce high quality nutritional components. γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) content in BGE rice bran, one of the most important nutritional compounds in rice, showed a 10.6-fold increase (2.66±0.48 mg/g) compared to that of BGE brown rice (0.25±0.01 mg/g). In addition, brown rice and BGE rice bran showed enriched amylopectin (94.5±0.5 and 97.0±0.0%) and bioactive anthocyanin [Cy-3-G: 75.15±4.18 (brown rice), 82.97±0.81 (rice bran) and Pn-3-G: 1.52±0.50 (brown rice), 4.33±0.20 (rice bran); mg/100 g] contents. These results suggest that BGE rice bran can be used as an excellent raw material to efficiently produce high quality essential amino acids, cyanidin-3 glycoside-enriched anthocyanins, and GABA.

Emergence Characteristics of Weedy Rice Collected in South Korea

In order to provide basic data for efficient control of weedy rice, we analyzed emergence rate of 100 weedy rice genetic resources collected in South Korea according to growth temperature and soil burial depth. Analyzing of emergence rate using low dormancy weedy rice genetic resources, emergence was increased at 12 and 14°C of mean temperature condition. When calculating the effective accumulated temperature above 10°C, emergence rate increased 0.6% and 0.5% in 1 cm and 3 cm of soil depth, respectively according to increase of 1°C. However it reduced as 0.28% in 5 cm of soil depth condition. Analyzing of emergence rate using high dormancy weedy rice, red rice showed 55%, 46%, 41% of emergence rate in 1 cm, 3 cm and 5 cm of soil depth condition, respectively. However those of white rice decreased as 10%, 8% and 5.7% in 1 cm, 3 cm and 5 cm of soil depth condition, respectively. Relative emergence, assuming the final emergence rate as 100%, reached 80%, 90% and 100% when effective accumulated temperature was 83-112°C, 100-123°C, 148-160°C respectively.

Selection of the Korean Rice Cultivars Having Adaptable Heading Characters in Subtropical Regions

[Introduction] Japonica rice is recognized as the premium rice compared to Indica rice in tropical region especially in Philippines. Therefore development of adaptive Japonica rice variety in tropical region has been actively conducting to increase income of local farmers in the tropical regions. Here we tried to investigate the basic vegetative phase and temperature sensitivity during sensitive phase among Korean major cultivars to recommend the Korean rice cultivar which shows the suitable heading characters in tropical region then help to develop adaptive rice cultivars in tropical region.

Changes of Weedy Rice Occurrence in Repeated Wet Direct Seeding and Alternate Transplanting/Wet Direct Seeding of Rice

Weedy rice is one of the major problems in direct-seeded rice field, resulting in poor rice quality and low grain yield. This study was carried out to evaluate the conversion effect to machine transplanting after wetdirect-seeding for 3 years on weedy rice occurrence, in comparison of repeated wet-direct-seeding. Occurrence of weedy rice in the continuous wet-hill-seeded and broadcasted field for 3 years increased 4 folds, when compared with that in machine transplanted rice paddy. In the first year of wet-direct-seeded field converted from machine transplanting, weedy rice occurrence did not increase, demonstrating lesser weedy rice in wet-hill-seeded than broadcasted field. These results indicate that alternate cultivation of wet-hill-seeding and machine transplanting is more effective to prevent weedy rice occurrence than the repeated wet-direct-seeding method for 3 years.

Comparison of Statistic Methods for Evaluating Crop Model Performance

The objective of this short communication is to introduce several evaluation methods to crop model users because the evaluation of crop model performance is an important step to develop or select crop model. In this paper, mean error, mean absolute error, index of agreement, root mean square error, efficiency of model, accuracy factor and bias factor were explained and compared in terms of dimension and observed number. Efficiency of model and index of agreement are dimensionless and independent of number of observation. Relative root mean square, accuracy factor and bias factor are dimensionless and not independent of number of observation. Mean error and mean absolute error are affected by dimension and number of observation.

Leaf Senescence in a Stay-Green Rice Variety, SNU-SG1 and a Mutant, sgr

During leaf senescence, the most characteristic visible change is leaf yellowing due to the preferential breakdown of chlorophyll (Chl) with concomitant chloroplast degradation. In this study, we examined the characteristics for the staygreenness during dark-induced senescence (DIS) in two stay-green varieties, SNU-SG1 and sgr;. During DIS, Chl loss was delayed in SNU-SG1 and sgr; compared with that in wild type (WT), but the photochemical efficiency of PSII (Fv/Fm) was not. The content of the functional PSII during DIS, estimated as (1/Fo 1/Fm) was high in WT, but low in SNU-SG1 and sgr;. In both varieties, Fo parameter increased during DIS, indicating the detachment of LHCII in PSII. In western blot analysis, the D1 and LHCII of WT were detected even when leaves turned yellowed. However, D1 protein in sgr; completely disappeared after 2 days without significant decrease in LHCII. These results suggest that both of the SNU-SG1 variety and sgr; mutant are non-functional stay-green species and largely attributed to the high stability of LHCII with an early degradation of D1 protein as a key protein of PSII.