Molecular cloning of the double-stranded RNA of beet cryptic viruses.

Three of the four dsRNA components of purified beet cryptic virus (BCV) were copied into cDNA and cloned into pUC9. Clones corresponding to RNAs 1, 3 and 4 did not hybridize to each other or to RNA 2, suggesting that there is no significant sequence homology between the four dsRNA components. RNA extracted from 15 BCV-infected beet plants was analysed by Northern blotting using the cDNA clones as probes. Nine plants were found to contain RNAs 1, 3 and 4 whereas in six plants only RNAs 3 and 4 were detectable. The results are compatible with the occurrence of two different viruses. The sensitivity and specificity of the cDNA hybridization assay was greater than that of immunosorbent electron microscopy in the detection of BCVs. Beet cryptic virus (BCV) has isometric particles about 30 nm in diameter and is widespread in different cultivars of Beta vulgaris but induces no apparent symptoms (Kassanis et al., 1977). Furthermore, it is transmitted only through seed and pollen, and cannot be transmitted by mechanical inoculation (Kassanis et al., 1977, 1978). BCV purified from seedlings of beet cv. Sharpes Klein E contains two proteins (mol. wt. 52 500 and 54 500) and four dsRNA components (mol. wt. 1.36 × 10 6, 1.15 x 10 6, 0-94 x 106 and 0.87 x 10 6) (Accotto & Boccardo, 1986). Bee

The Purification and Properties of One of the ‘b’ Proteins from Virus-Infected Tobacco Plants

The b1 protein, produced in leaves of Nicotiana tabacum cv. Xanthi-nc following infection with tobacco mosaic virus, has been purified to homogeneity by a procedure which involves gel chromatography and absorption on to DEAE-cellulose. One gel chromatography step was sufficient when the procedure was applied to leaf extracts made in an acid buffer, whereas two were necessary with extracts made at pH 8. The final product migrates as a single protein band on electrophoresis in both acrylamide and SDS-acrylamide gels. Its mol. wt. is estimated to be 15000 by electrophoresis and 14200 by ultracentrifugation. Amino acid analysis suggests that it contains about 136 residues of which 39 are potentially acidic, 13 basic and 16 aromatic. The absorbance coefficient A 1% 280 nm is estimated to be 18.9. No evidence was found for the presence of a nucleotide component

Doing Occidentalism in Contemporary Japan: Nation Anthropomorphism and Sexualized Parody in Axis Power Hetalia,

Axis Powers Hetalia (2006–present), a Japanese gag comic and animation series, depicts relations between nations personified as cute boys against a background of World War I and World War II. The stereotypical rendering of national characteristics as well as the reduction of historically charged issues into amusing quarrels between nice-looking but incompetent boys was immensely popular, especially among female audiences in Japan and Asia, and among Euro-American manga, anime, and cosplay fans, but it also met with vehement criticism. Netizens from South Korea, for example, considered the Korean character insulting and in early 2009 mounted a protest campaign that was discussed in the Korean national assembly. Hetalia's controversial success relies to a great extent on the inventive conflation of male-oriented otaku fantasies about nations, weapons, and concepts represented as cute little girls, and of female-oriented yaoi parodies of male-male intimacy between powerful "white" characters and more passive Japanese ones. This investigation of the original Hetalia by male author Hidekaz Himaruya (b. 1985) and its many adaptations in female-oriented dōjinshi (fanzine) texts and conventions (between 2009 and 2011, Hetalia was by far the most adapted work) refers to notions of interrelationality, intersectionality, and positionality in order to address hegemonic representations of "the West," the orientalized "Rest" of the world, and "Japan" in the cross-gendered and sexually parodied mediascape of Japanese transnational subcultures