Suppression subtractive hybridization analysis of genes regulated by magnaporthe oryzae infection in wheat adult plants.

Blast (also known as brusone), caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, is a serious disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum) across central and southern Brazil. The pathogen is a hemibiotrophic ascomycete that attacks several grass species. The disease was first described in rice in 1600 in China and it was reported infecting wheat ears in 1985 in Paraná state, Brazil, and since spread to all growing-regions in the country. Currently has been also reported on wheat fields in Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. The rice blast disease has emerged as a model for the study of phytopathogenic fungi showing that this pathogen initially colonizes host tissues as a biotroph, without causing detectable symptoms. Approximately 72?96 h after infection, lesions become apparent in the plant, characterizing the necrotrophic growth of M. oryzae. In wheat plants, depending on the developmental stage at which infection occurs blast can be devastating. Infected heads produce small and wrinkled grains with low specific weight. Few cultivars are described as resistant to wheat blast and fungicides have low control efficiency of the disease. Little is known about the molecular mechanism of wheat resistance to the pathogen. Here, we investigated the responses of wheat to M. oryzae infection in reproductive stage at 40 h after inoculation. The aim of this study was to identify genes that are differentially up- or downregulated in adults plants of Triticum aestivum infected with Magnaporthe oryzae. For this, we used a suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) approach. A total of 420 high-quality contigs were isolated, 415 of them were mapped in Triticum aestivum genome. The 420 contigs were searched against the non-redundant nucleotide and protein databases in GenBank to predict the function for the corresponding genes. Fifty-five contigs corresponded to defense-related genes. We used the quantitative RT-PCR analysis to validate the differential expression patterns for 16 Triticum aestivum genes between control and inoculated spikes. Nine genes presented higher transcript levels under inoculation, including one gene previously described as responsive to Magnaporthe infection on wheat seedlings. This gene coding one protein membrane-associated that may increase the adhesion of the plasma membrane to the cell wall during pathogen infection. In contrast, the other 7 genes presented higher expression in mock-inoculated spikes. The study of these genes and the associated defense mechanisms can provide a significant advance in our understanding of the putative determinants of the resistance mechanisms of this wheat resistant genotype

Characterization of Eucalyptus grandis' DOF gene family of transcription factors.

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Characterization of eucalyptus grandis dof gene family of transcription factors.

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Understanding the complex organisational processes that help and hinder creativity and innovation

This study looks at the topics of creativity and innovation and how they are experienced as ordinary, everyday work. In business publications there is much hype and hope around the words “creativity” and “innovation”, but there is also a limited understanding of how creativity and innovation are enacted in organisations. Consequently, academics have stressed the need for ‘opening the black box’ of the firm and understanding how innovation really works (Birdi et al, 2003). This research uses the Complex Responsive Processes approach to understand the ordinary, everyday experiences of people involved in work which was novel for the organisations concerned. I selected three organisational cases from the health and education sectors. I selected these because, in each case, people were working on complex challenges which had no single, obvious solution and which required the generation and development of new and useful ideas. The research makes a novel contribution to knowledge in three ways. First, it has been unusual in that it has extended the application of complex responsive processes to understand the processes which impact on creativity and innovation in the health and education sectors. While complex responsive processes thinking has been applied to these sectors before, to my knowledge, this is the first time it has been applied to understand processes impacting on creativity and innovation in these sectors. Second, this research finds a pattern of dynamics between trust and a paradoxical concept of diversity, comprising both sufficient difference and sufficient common-ground between organizational members. In this research, trust was a necessary foundation for the exploration of ideas. However, for risks to be taken and ideas to be implemented, in contexts of high uncertainty and risk, trust alone was insufficient. The quality of conversational life flourished where both trust and diversity were present. Finally, this research makes a methodological contribution through using Stacey’s five areas for focusing attention as a conceptual framework. The use of this framework helps provide a depth of compelling detail and insights which would not have been obtained through traditional lenses from the domains of creativity and innovation. This is the first time this framework for focusing attention has been applied in this way to understanding creativity and innovation in empirical settings.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Base genética da resistência de trigo à brusone: avanços via estudos de QTLs.

Encouraged by the recent results from neutrino oscillation experiments, we perform an analytical study of $SO(10)$-inspired models and leptogenesis with hierarchical right-handed (RH) neutrino spectrum. Under the approximation of negligible misalignment between the neutrino Yukawa basis and the charged lepton basis, we find an analytical expression for the final asymmetry directly in terms of the low energy neutrino parameters that fully reproduces previous numerical results. This expression also shows that is possible to identify an effective leptogenesis phase for these models. When we also impose the wash-out of a large pre-existing asymmetry $N^{\rm p,i}_{B-L}$, the strong thermal (ST) condition, we derive analytically all those constraints on the low energy neutrino parameters that characterise the {\rm ST}-$SO(10)$-inspired leptogenesis solution, confirming previous numerical results. In particular we show why, though neutrino masses have to be necessarily normally ordered, the solution implies an analytical lower bound on the effective neutrino-less double beta decay neutrino mass, $m_{ee} \gtrsim 8\,{\rm meV}$, for $N^{\rm p,i}_{B-L}=10^{-3}$, testable with next generation experiments. This, in combination with an upper bound on the atmospheric mixing angle, necessarily in the first octant, forces the lightest neutrino mass within a narrow range $m_1 \simeq (10$-$30)\,{\rm meV}$ (corresponding to $\sum_i \, m_i \simeq (75$-$125)\,{\rm meV}$). We also show why the solution could correctly predict a non-vanishing reactor neutrino mixing angle and requires the Dirac phase to be in the fourth quadrant, implying $\sin\delta$ (and $J_{CP}$) negative as hinted by current global analyses. Many of the analytical results presented (expressions for the orthogonal matrix, RH neutrino mixing matrix, masses and phases) can have applications beyond leptogenesis.Comment: 46 pages, 10 figures; v2: Ref.'s added, typos corrected; v3: added fig. 10, matches version to appear in NP