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Butterflies are expedient biodiversity indicators of a healthy environment. As virtuous pollinators, they provide environmental and economic benefits to the agricultural and natural ecosystem. The global loss of the butterfly community, especially in tropical regions, is causing irreparable damage to the ecological landscape. This decline in population is due to habitat degradation, forest succession, loss of symbiotic relations, economic loss due to flooding, forest development plans, low grassland area, global warming, and reforestation. Moreover, the limited information on the molecular resources of butterflies impedes informed conservation planning. The Threatened Species Initiative (TSI) of Korea has started to utilize the benefits of transcriptome‐guided discovery of molecular resources of a few butterfly species, and a few others are in the pipeline. The cataloging of new genes and genetic markers provides the possibility to promote selective utilization of fitness traits for adaptation of the species to the wild and a newer habitat. In this review, we assessed the versatility of whole‐transcriptome information of the Korean threatened butterfly species, such as the lycaenid Protantigius superans and Spindasis takanosis, the Nymphalid butterfly, Fabriciana nerippe, and the Papilionid species Parnassius bremeri. The schema employed under TSI, including the sequencing and downstream bioinformatics pipeline, could act as a reference for research outside of Korean butterflies. While the molecular resources are available to be exploited, their utilization for conservation is still in its infancy. It is important to synthesize these studies together to catalyze further conservation work applying genomics approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ticks are ectoparasites capable of directly damaging their hosts and transmitting vector-borne diseases. The ixodid tick Haemaphysalis flava has a broad distribution that extends from East to South Asia. This tick is a reservoir of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) that causes severe hemorrhagic disease, with cases reported from China, Japan and South Korea. Recently, the distribution of H. flava in South Korea was found to overlap with the occurrence of SFTSV. Methods: This study was undertaken to discover the molecular resources of H. flava female ticks using the Illumina HiSeq 4000 system, the Trinity de novo sequence assembler and annotation against public databases. The locally curated Protostome database (PANM-DB) was used to screen the putative adaptation-related transcripts classified to gene families, such as angiotensin-converting enzyme, aquaporin, adenylate cyclase, AMP-activated protein kinase, glutamate receptors, heat shock proteins, molecular chaperones, insulin receptor, mitogen-activated protein kinase and solute carrier family proteins. Also, the repeats and simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were screened from the unigenes using RepeatMasker (v4.0.6) and MISA (v1.0) software tools, followed by the designing of SSRs flanking primers using BatchPrimer 3 (v1.0) software. Results: The transcriptome produced a total of 69,822 unigenes, of which 46,175 annotated to the homologous proteins in the PANM-DB. The unigenes were also mapped to the EuKaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOG), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) specializations. Promiscuous presence of protein kinase, zinc finger (C2H2-type), reverse transcriptase, and RNA recognition motif domains was observed in the unigenes. A total of 3480 SSRs were screened, of which 1907 and 1274 were found as tri- and dinucleotide repeats, respectively. A list of primer sequences flanking the SSR motifs was detailed for validation of polymorphism in H. flava and the related tick species. Conclusions: The reference transcriptome information on H. flava female ticks will be useful for an enriched understanding of tick biology, its competency to act as a vector and the study of species diversity related to disease transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tumor spread through airspaces (STAS) is a recently determined pathologic phenomenon of lung cancer with significant prognostic impact. This study aimed to analyze the unexplored correlation between preoperative biopsy procedure and a higher risk of STAS and its impact on STAS-related outcomes in resected stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).Research Question: Does preoperative biopsy procedure affect the risk of STAS and STAS-related outcomes in surgically treated stage I NSCLC?Study Design and Methods: We examined 2,169 patients who underwent surgery for pathologic stage I NSCLC from January 2011 through December 2019 at the Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, a tertiary center in South Korea. Factors including percutaneous needle biopsy (PCNB) and bronchoscopic biopsy were assessed for determining the association between preoperative biopsy procedure and an elevated risk of STAS. In addition, the impact of preoperative biopsy on STAS-related prognosis (recurrence and lung cancer-specific mortality) was evaluated with multivariate Cox regression analyses.Results: STAS findings were positive in 638 of 2,169 patients (29.4%). An insignificant association was found between preoperative biopsy (both PCNB and bronchoscopic biopsy) and STAS. After adjustments for preoperative tumor biopsy, STAS was a significant risk factor for cancer recurrence (hazard ratio [HR], 1.72; 95% CI, 1.20-2.48). Additionally, sublobar resection remained a significant risk factor for recurrence (HR, 3.20; 95% CI, 1.65-6.21) and lung cancer-specific mortality (HR, 12.71; 95% CI, 3.68-43.92) in patients with positive STAS findings. However, this association was insignificant for patients without STAS. Preoperative biopsy was not a significant risk factor for either recurrence and mortality, regardless of STAS positivity.Interpretation: Preoperative biopsy in stage I NSCLC neither was associated with an elevated risk of STAS nor influenced the prognosis related to STAS. Physicians can be less apprehensive about performing preoperative biopsy in relationship to STAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, is widely distributed in China, Japan, and Korea and may transmit infectious diseases. Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an important tick‐borne disease caused by the SFTS virus (SFTSV). Deep sequencing to confirm the presence of SFTSV in ticks has not been reported in Korea. To detect SFTSV, RNA was extracted from tick samples and analyzed using high‐throughput deep sequencing. Based on BLASTN results, numerous SFTSV reads were identified. Moreover, a nearly complete genome of SFTSV (JNU‐1 isolate) was obtained using Sanger sequencing. The genome of the JNU‐1 isolate includes three segments of 6,286, 3,299 and 1,642 nucleotides (nt) termed large (L), medium (M), and small (S), respectively. Also, phylogenetic and recombination analyses for each segment of SFTSV were performed using the JNU‐1 isolate. The three segments of JNU‐1 isolate were closely related to the genotype B known human‐derived Korean SFTSV isolate; the JNU‐1 isolate showed no recombination sites with other isolates. This study is the first report of detection of SFTSV from ticks using deep sequencing in Korea and provides information on the genetic diversity of SFTSV in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mal de debarquement syndrome (MdDS) is characterized by a subjective perception of self-motion after exposure to passive motion, mostly after sea travel. A transient form of MdDS (t-MdDS) is common in healthy individuals without pathophysiological certainty. In the present cross-sectional study, the possible neuropsychiatric and functional neuroimaging changes in local fishermen with t-MdDS were evaluated. Methods: The present study included 28 fishermen from Buan County in South Korea; 15 (15/28, 53.6%) participants experienced t-MdDS for 1–6 h, and 13 were asymptomatic (13/28, 46.4%). Vestibular function tests were performed using video-oculography, the video head impulse test, and ocular and cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials. Visuospatial function was also assessed by the Corsi block test. Brain imaging comprised structural MRI, resting-state functional MRI, and [18F]FDG PET scans. Results: The results of vestibular function tests did not differ between the fishermen with and those without t-MdDS. However, participants with t-MdDS showed better performance in visuospatial memory function than those without t-MdDS (6.40 vs. 5.31, p -value = 0.016) as determined by the Corsi block test. Structural brain MRIs were normal in both groups. [18F]FDG PET showed a relative hypermetabolism in the bilateral occipital and prefrontal cortices and hypometabolism in the vestibulocerebellum (nodulus and uvula) in participants with t-MdDS compared to those without t-MdDS. Resting-state functional connectivities were significantly decreased between the vestibular regions of the flocculus, superior temporal gyrus, and parietal operculum and the visual association areas of the middle occipital gyrus, fusiform gyrus, and cuneus in participants with t-MdDS. Analysis of functional connectivity of the significant regions in the PET scans revealed decreased connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and visual processing areas in the t-MdDS group. Conclusion: Increased visuospatial memory, altered metabolism in the prefrontal cortex, visual cognition cortices, and the vestibulocerebellum, and decreased functional connectivity between these two functional areas might indicate reductions in the integration of vestibular input and enhancement of visuospatial attention in subjects with t-MdDS. Current functional neuroimaging similarities from transient MdDS via chronic MdDS to functional dizziness and anxiety disorders suggest a shared mechanism of enhanced self-awareness as a kind of continuum or as overlap disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the first case of citrus leaf blotch virus (CLBV) infection among lemon trees in Korea. Lemon plants with foliage discoloration, mosaic, and mottling were observed in Jeju island, with approximately 5% of the lemon plants showing symptoms. High-throughput sequencing (HTS) was used to analyze the RNA of symptomatic leaves, and a large contig with high identity to CLBV was identified. Further testing confirmed the presence of CLBV in the lemon plants. This finding is significant as CLBV has previously been reported to infect satsuma mandarin, and additional surveys will be conducted to gather epidemiological data and mitigate CLBV infection in lemon and satsuma mandarin in Korea. The study was supported by the Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry. [Extracted from the article]

Moreover, PiVX was confirmed by one-step RT-PCR using PiVX-specific primers designed from a region of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) gene PiVX 1755 UP (5'-ATCGTAGGGACCCTGATCATIIIIIAGAAACCT-3') and PiVX 2412 DN (5'-CTCCCTGTGGATGGCCTTTIIIIITTAGGTATC-3') (Park et al. [1]). Keywords: Korea; Dragon fruits; PiVX; HTS; RdRp gene EN Korea Dragon fruits PiVX HTS RdRp gene 1149 1149 1 09/15/23 20230801 NES 230801 In June 2021, virus-like symptoms, such as clear mosaic, foliage discoloration, and mottling were observed on the leaves of dragon fruits grown in a greenhouse in Yeongam, Korea. [Extracted from the article]

The purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive and systematic method and standard for evaluating children's physical activity competency as a solution to the problem of increasing child obesity rates due to a decrease in physical activity among children. This study was used a cross-sectional study design. A literature review and Delphi survey were conducted to develop children's physical activity competency evaluation. The evaluation criteria were presented based on the measurement data of metropolitan area kindergarten students (228 subjects) on the 2016 winter vacation. Items in the evaluation of children's physical activity competency test battery include health physical strength, basic movement skills, physical activity habits, and physical activity attitudes. Physical fitness for health consisted of muscle strength and endurance (sit-up), flexibility (sit and reach, trunk lift) and body composition (BMI). Fundamental movement skills consisted of mobility (run, hop, jump), stability (static balance, dynamic balance), and control (throw kick). Physical activity habits consisted of the amount of daily steps (steps), exercise time, screen time, and sleep time. Physical activity attitudes consisted of preference, enjoyment, and confidence. The evaluation criteria for child physical activity competency test battery were presented in five stages, divided by age and gender. With the developed evaluation of children's physical activity competency, the overall level of physical fitness for health, fundamental movement skills, physical activity habits, and physical activity attitudes of kindergarteners in the metropolitan area could be confirmed, and standards were presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]