BackgroundBakanae or foot rot disease is a prominent disease of rice caused by Gibberella fujikuroi. This disease may infect rice plants from the pre-emergence stage to the mature stage. In recent years, raising rice seedlings in seed boxes for mechanical transplanting has increased the incidence of many seedling diseases; only a few rice varieties have been reported to exhibit resistance to bakanae disease. In this study, we attempted to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) conferring bakanae disease resistance from the highly resistant japonica variety Wonseadaesoo.ResultsA primary QTL study using the genotypes/phenotypes of the recombinant inbred lines (RILs) indicated that the locus qBK1WD conferring resistance to bakanae disease from Wonseadaesoo was located in a 1.59 Mb interval delimited on the physical map between chr01_13542347 (13.54 Mb) and chr01_15132528 (15.13 Mb). The log of odds (LOD) score of qBK1WD was 8.29, accounting for 20.2% of the total phenotypic variation. We further identified a gene pyramiding effect of two QTLs, qBKWD and previously developed qBK1. The mean proportion of healthy plant for 31 F4 RILs that had no resistance genes was 35.3%, which was similar to that of the susceptible check variety Ilpum. The proportion of healthy plants for the lines with only qBKWD or qBK1 was 66.1% and 55.5%, respectively, which was significantly higher than that of the lines without resistance genes and that of Ilpum. The mean proportion of the healthy plant for 15 F4 RILs harboring both qBKWD and qBK1 was 80.2%, which was significantly higher than that of the lines with only qBKWD or qBK1.ConclusionIntroducing qBKWD or pyramiding the QTLs qBKWD and qBK1 could provide effective tools for breeding rice with bakanae disease resistance. To our knowledge, this is the first report on a gene pyramiding effect that provides higher resistance against bakanae disease.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12284-017-0197-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are often characterized by the elevated expression of drug-resistance related stem-cell surface markers, such as CD133 and ABCG2. Recently, we reported that CSCs have a high level of expression of the IL-6 receptor (IL-6R). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of anticancer drugs on the expression of the drug resistance-related cancer stem cell markers, ABCG2, IL-6R, and CD133 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines. A549, H460, and H23 NSCLC cell lines were treated with the anticancer drugs 5-fluorouracil (5-FU; 25 µg/ml) and methotrexate (MTX; 50 µg/ml), and the expression of putative CSC markers was analyzed by fluorescent activated cell sorter (FACS) and the gene expression level of abcg2, il-6r and cd133 by reverse transcriptasepolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). We found that the fraction of ABCG2-positive(+) cells was significantly increased by treatment with both 5-FU and MTX in NSCLC cells, and the elevation of abcg2, il-6r and cd133 expressions in response to these drugs was also confirmed using RT-PCR. Also, the number of IL-6R(+) cells was increased by MTX in the 3 cell lines mentioned and increased by 5-FU in the H460 cell line. The number of CD133(+) cells was also significantly increased by both 5-FU and MTX treatment in all of the cell lines tested. These results indicate that 5-FU and MTX considerably enhance the expression of drug-resistance related CSC markers in NSCLC cell lines. Thus, we suggest that antimetabolite cancer drugs, such as 5-FU and MTX, can lead to the propagation of CSCs through altering the expression of CSC markers.

BackgroundWe have studied the in vitro and in vivo utility of polyethylene glycol (PEG)-hydrogels for the development of an anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) delivery system.MethodsA 5-FU-loaded PEG-hydrogel was implanted subcutaneously to evaluate the drug retention time and the anticancer effect. For the pharmacokinetic study, two groups of male rats were administered either an aqueous solution of 5-FU (control group)/or a 5-FU-loaded PEG-hydrogel (treated group) at a dose of 100 mg/kg. For the pharmacodynamic study, a human non-small-cell lung adenocarcinoma (NSCLC) cell line, A549 was inoculated to male nude mice with a cell density of 3 × 106. Once tumors start growing, the mice were injected with 5-FU/or 5-FU-loaded PEG-hydrogel once a week for 4 weeks. The growth of the tumors was monitored by measuring the tumor volume and calculating the tumor inhibition rate (IR) over the duration of the study.ResultsIn the pharmacokinetic study, the 5-FU-loaded PEG-hydrogel gave a mean residence time (MRT) of 8.0 h and the elimination half-life of 0.9 h; these values were 14- and 6-fold, respectively, longer than those for the free solution of 5-FU (p < 0.05). In the pharmacodynamic study, A549 tumor growth was significantly inhibited in the 5-FU-loaded PEG-hydrogel group in comparison to the untreated group beginning on Day 14 (p < 0.05-0.01). Moreover, the 5-FU-loaded PEG-hydrogel group had a significantly enhanced tumor IR (p < 0.05) compared to the free 5-FU drug treatment group.ConclusionWe suggest that 5-FU-loaded PEG-hydrogels could provide a useful tool for the development of an anticancer drug delivery system.

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