The aim of this study was to establish the condition of regeneration for white balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorum DC. cv. Jangback) and to manage for the raising of seedling with in vitro regenerated plants. It was examined that 0.5 mg/L of NAA and 1.0 mg/L of BA was the best composition for the callus and shoot induction (up to 600%). NAA was better than IBA for the induction of root and it took 16.9 days for the induction of rooting on the MS soild media containing 0.5 mg/L of NAA and the final rooting ratio was up to 75%. Out of 5 different bed soils purchased from local market, "Tosil" was identified to be the best for the acclimation and growth of in vitro regenerated balloon flower. In detail, on 8 weeks after planting of in vitro regenerated plants in pots containing "Tosil" bed soils, the plant hight was increased up to 2-fold (12.8 cm), 3.5-fold (27) for the number of leaf and 1.5-fold (4.5 cm) for the leaf length when compared to the other four bed soils, respectively. Our preliminary results indicate that it is possible to prevent the occurrence of blue balloon flower in the massive cultivated area of white balloon flower by providing the seedlings raised from in vitro regenerated plants.

Potato is the 4th important crop along with rice, wheat and maize. It contains high quality of starch with relatively high content of vitamin C and protein. However, there is a nutritionally limiting factor due to a low level of sulphur-containing essential amino acid including methionine and cysteine. Recently, recombinant DNA technology and metabolic engineering with genes involved in the bio-synthetic pathway have been applied to enhance the level of these essential amino acids. In this report, it has been discussed about the current status and bottleneck on the development of transgenic potato containing high level of sulphur-containing essential amino acids.

Considering that the world population is expected to total 9 billion by 2050, it will clearly be necessary to sustain and even accelerate the rate of improvement in crop productivity. In the 21st century, we now face another, perhaps more devastating, environmental threat, namely climate change, which could cause irreversible damage to agricultural ecosystem and loss of production potential. Enhancing intrinsic yield, plant abiotic stress tolerance, and pest and pathogen resistance through agricultural biotechnology will be a critical part of feeding, clothing, and providing energy for the human population, and overcoming climate change. Development and commercialization of genetically engineered crops have significantly contributed to increase of crop yield and farmer's income, decrease of environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide, and to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from this cropping area. Advances in plant genomics, proteomics and system biology have offered an unprecedented opportunities to identify genes, pathways and networks that control agricultural important traits. Because such advances will provide further details and complete understanding of interaction of plant systems and environmental variables, biotechnology is likely to be the most prominent part of the next generation of successful agricultural industry. In this article, we review the prospects for modification of agricultural target traits by genetic engineering, including enhancement of photosynthesis, abiotic stress tolerance, and pest and pathogen resistance associated with such opportunities and challenges under climate change.

In addition, the AtCBP63 transgenic potato showed significantly enhanced resistance against a pathogen causing bacterial soft rot, Erwinia carotovora ssp. Carotovora (ECC). These results suggest that a CaM binding protein from Arabidopsis, AtCBP63, plays a positive role in pathogen resistance in potato.

The total production volume has been sharply increased from year 2008 in Gyeongnam province, SouthKorea by the policy of preservation and promotion of indigenous balloon flower germ lines. In an attempt to assist the Gyeongnam province' s policy, in this study, we tried to establish a technique to differentiate the indigenous balloon flower germ lines with those collected within South Korea and China. Our preliminary results indicated that RAPD analyses with five different primers exhibited high frequency of polymorphic DNA bands up to 76.9% and phylogenetic tree indicated that some of the indigenous lines can be easily differentiated with others. However, it was suggested that more advanced techniques such as single nucleotide polymorphic markers need to be developed in particular, by using extra-chromosomal DNA.