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Purpose: This study investigates the prevalence of granular corneal dystrophy type 2 (GCD2; Avellino corneal dystrophy) in the Korean population. Methods: GCD2 homozygotes were identified through a collaboration of Korean referral centers for corneal disease. The genetic status of the patients and their immediate families were verified by DNA analysis. A lower bound for the gene prevalence was calculated using a model based on the Hardy-Weinberg principle. A second population-based model was developed to correct for known underestimation in the primary model. The corrected model used population data from the 2005 Korean census and fertility rates from historical Korean census data. Results: We identified 21 individuals homozygous for GCD2 (R124H mutation) from 16 Korean families. From this, we estimate that the overall prevalence (combining heterozygotes and homozygotes) is at least 8.25 affected persons/10,000 persons. Our corrected estimate for overall prevalence is 11.5 affected persons/10,000 persons. Conclusion: We present the first estimate of the prevalence of GCD2. Although uncommon, the prevalence of GCD2 in Korea is greater than anticipated. We believe that our approach could potentially be applied to estimating the prevalence of other rare diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have the potential to be used as microbial inoculants to reduce disease incidence and severity and to increase crop yield. Some of the PGPR have been reported to be able to enter plant tissues and establish endophytic populations. Here, we demonstrated an approach to screen bacterial endophytes that have the capacity to promote the growth of pepper seedlings and protect pepper plants against a bacterial pathogen. Initially, out of 150 bacterial isolates collected from healthy stems of peppers cultivated in the Chungcheong and Gyeongsang provinces of Korea, 23 putative endophytic isolates that were considered to be predominating and representative of each pepper sample were selected. By phenotypic characterization and partial 16S rDNA sequence analysis, the isolates were identified as species of Ochrobacterium, Pantoea, Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, Janthinobacterium, Ralstonia, Arthrobacter, Clavibacter, Sporosarcina, Acidovorax, and Brevundimonas. Among them, two isolates, PS4 and PS27, were selected because they showed consistent colonizing capacity in pepper stems at the levels of 10(6)-10(7) CFU/g tissue, and were found to be most closely related to Pseudomonas rhodesiae and Pantoea ananatis, respectively, by additional analyses of their entire 16S rDNA sequences. Drenching application of the two strains on the pepper seedlings promoted significant growth of peppers, enhancing their root fresh weight by 73.9% and 41.5%, respectively. The two strains also elicited induced systemic resistance of plants against Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vesicatoria.