Pistil transcriptome analysis to disclose genes and gene products related to aposporous apomixis in Hypericum perforatum L.

Unlike sexual reproduction, apomixis encompasses a number of reproductive strategies,which permit maternal genome inheritance without genetic recombination and syngamy. The key biological features of apomixis are the circumvention of meiosis (i.e., apomeiosis),the differentiation of unreduced embryo sacs and egg cells, and their autonomous development in functional embryos through parthenogenesis, and the formation of viable endosperm either via fertilization-independent means or following fertilization with a sperm cell. Despite the importance of apomixis for breeding of crop plants and although much research has been conducted to study this process, the genetic control of apomixis is still not well understood. Hypericum perforatum is becoming an attractive model system for the study of aposporous apomixis. Here we report results from a global gene expression analysis of H. perforatum pistils collected from sexual and aposporous plant accessions for the purpose of identifying genes, biological processes and molecular functions associated with the aposporous apomixis pathway. Across two developmental stages corresponding to the expression of aposporous apomeiosis and parthenogenesis in ovules, a total of 224 and 973 unigenes were found to be significantly up- and down-regulated with a fold change >= 2 in at least one comparison, respectively.Differentially expressed genes were enriched for multiple gene ontology (GO) terms,including cell cycle, DNA metabolic process, and single-organism cellular process. For molecular functions, the highest scores were recorded for GO terms associated withDNA binding, DNA (cytosine-5-)-methyltransferase activity and heterocyclic compound binding. As deregulation of single components of the sexual developmental pathway is believed to be a trigger of the apomictic reproductive program, all genes involved in sporogenesis, gametogenesis and response to hormonal stimuli were analyzed in great detail. Overall, our data suggest that phenotypic expression of apospory is concomitant with the modulation of key genes involved in the sexual reproductive pathway. Furthermore, based on gene annotation and co-expression, we underline a putative role of hormones and key actors playing in the RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway in regulating the developmental changes occurring during aposporous apomixis in H. perforatum

Stand‐Alone Eastern Pacific Coastal Warming Events

A pronounced warm anomaly occurred at the Peruvian coast in early 2017. This “Coastal Niño” caused heavy rainfalls, leading to flooding in Peru and Ecuador. At the same time, neutral conditions prevailed in the equatorial Pacific. Using observational sea surface temperature data sets and an ocean reanalysis product for the time period 1900 to 2010, previous similar events are investigated. Eighteen coastal warming events without corresponding equatorial Pacific warming are identified. Further analysis shows, however, that only four of these events are not connected to the central equatorial Pacific. All other periods of strong coastal warm anomalies are directly followed or preceded by El Niño‐like conditions. The “stand‐alone” coastal warming events are characterized by comparatively low equatorial heat content. We thus hypothesize that the depleted heat content in the equatorial Pacific in the wake of the strong 2015/2016 El Niño prevented the warming to spread westward in 2017

The Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn Sum Rule and the Spin Structure of the Nucleon

The Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn sum rule is one of several dispersive sum rules that connect the Compton scattering amplitudes to the inclusive photoproduction cross sections of the target under investigation. Being based on such universal principles as causality, unitarity, and gauge invariance, these sum rules provide a unique testing ground to study the internal degrees of freedom that hold the system together. The present article reviews these sum rules for the spin-dependent cross sections of the nucleon by presenting an overview of recent experiments and theoretical approaches. The generalization from real to virtual photons provides a microscope of variable resolution: At small virtuality of the photon, the data sample information about the long range phenomena, which are described by effective degrees of freedom (Goldstone bosons and collective resonances), whereas the primary degrees of freedom (quarks and gluons) become visible at the larger virtualities. Through a rich body of new data and several theoretical developments, a unified picture of virtual Compton scattering emerges, which ranges from coherent to incoherent processes, and from the generalized spin polarizabilities on the low-energy side to higher twist effects in deep inelastic lepton scattering.Comment: 32 pages, 19 figures, review articl

Effect of Different Drying Methods on Nutrient Quality of the Yellow Mealworm (Tenebrio molitor L.)

Yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor L.) represents a sustainable source of proteins and fatty acids for feed and food. Industrial production of mealworms necessitates optimized processing techniques, where drying as the first postharvest procedure is of utmost importance for the quality of the final product. This study examines the nutritional quality of mealworm larvae processed by rack oven drying, vacuum drying or freeze drying, respectively. Proximate composition and fatty acid profile were comparable between the dried larvae. In contrast, larvae color impressions and volatile compound profiles were very much dependent on processing procedure. High-temperature rack oven drying caused pronounced darkening with rather low content of volatiles, pointing toward the progress of Maillard reaction. On the other hand, vacuum drying or freeze drying led to enrichment of volatile Maillard reaction and lipid oxidation intermediates, whose actual sensory relevance needs to be clarified in the future. Beyond sensory and visual importance drying intermediates have to be considered with regard to their metal ion chelating ability; in particular for essential trace elements such as Zn2+. This study found comparable total zinc contents for the differently dried mealworm samples. However, dried larvae, in particular after rack oven drying, had only low zinc accessibility, which was between 20% and 40%. Therefore, bioaccessibility rather than total zinc has to be considered when their contribution to meeting the nutritional requirements for zinc in humans and animals is evaluated.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli

Selective Induction of Apoptosis in Melanoma Cells by Tyrosinase Promoter-Controlled CD95 Ligand Overexpression

Induction of apoptosis has been demonstrated previously by overexpression of CD95 ligand (CD95L) in cultured human melanoma cells. For in vivo approaches based on CD95L, however, targeted expression is a prerequisite and tyrosinase promoters have been considered for selection. Luciferase reporter gene assays performed for a representative panel of melanoma cell lines characterized by strong (SK-Mel-19), moderate (SK-Mel-13, MeWo), weak (A-375), and missing expression (M-5) of endogenous tyrosinase revealed high tyrosinase promoter activities in SK-Mel-19, SK-Mel-13, and MeWo, but only weak activities in A-375 and M-5 as well as in non-melanoma cell lines. After transfection of a CMV promoter CD95L expression construct, melanoma cells were found highly sensitive, as compared with non-melanoma cells. By applying a tyrosinase promoter CD95L construct, apoptosis was selectively induced in SK-Mel-19, SK-Mel-13, MeWo as well as in A-375, which was characterized by high CD95 surface expression and high sensitivity to agonistic CD95 activation. M5 and non-melanoma cell lines remained uninfluenced. Also, resistance to agonistic CD95 activation seen in MeWo characterized by weak CD95 surface expression was overcome by overexpression of CD95L. Our investigations provide evidence that tyrosinase promoter CD95L constructs may be of value for selective induction of apoptosis in therapeutic strategies for melanoma

Generation of annotated multimodal ground truth datasets for abdominal medical image registration

Sparsity of annotated data is a major limitation in medical image processing tasks such as registration. Registered multimodal image data are essential for the diagnosis of medical conditions and the success of interventional medical procedures. To overcome the shortage of data, we present a method that allows the generation of annotated multimodal 4D datasets. We use a CycleGAN network architecture to generate multimodal synthetic data from the 4D extended cardiac-torso (XCAT) phantom and real patient data. Organ masks are provided by the XCAT phantom, therefore the generated dataset can serve as ground truth for image segmentation and registration. Realistic simulation of respiration and heartbeat is possible within the XCAT framework. To underline the usability as a registration ground truth, a proof of principle registration is performed. Compared to real patient data, the synthetic data showed good agreement regarding the image voxel intensity distribution and the noise characteristics. The generated T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), and cone beam CT (CBCT) images are inherently co-registered. Thus, the synthetic dataset allowed us to optimize registration parameters of a multimodal non-rigid registration, utilizing liver organ masks for evaluation. Our proposed framework provides not only annotated but also multimodal synthetic data which can serve as a ground truth for various tasks in medical imaging processing. We demonstrated the applicability of synthetic data for the development of multimodal medical image registration algorithms.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. This work has been published in the International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery volum

Gold nanoparticles functionalised with stable, fast water exchanging Gd3+ chelates as high relaxivity contrast agents for MRI

Gold nanoparticles functionalized with Gd3+ chelates displaying fast water exchange, superb pH stability and inertness towards transmetalation with Zn2+ have been prepared and characterized as a new high relaxivity (29 mM-1s-1, 30 MHz, 25 ºC) Contrast Agent potentially safe for in vivo MRI applications. The Lipari-Szabo treatment for internal rotation was used to evaluate the effect of linker flexibility on the relaxivity of the gold nanoparticles. The relaxivity is limited by chelate flexibility. The effect of fast water exchange on the relaxivity of gold nanoparticles functionalized with Gd3+ chelates is also addressed in this communication.Fundação para a Ciência e TecnologiaProjecto PTDC/QUI/70063/2006PhD grant SFRH/BD/63994/2008 to Miguel FerreiraRede Nacional de RMN REDE/1517/RMN/2005 for the acquisition of the Varian VNMRS 600 NMR spectrometer in Coimbra and the Bruker Avance-3 400 Plus in BragaB. Mousavi and L. Helm acknowledge financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation.COST D38 Actio

Identification of Habitat-Specific Biomes of Aquatic Fungal Communities Using a Comprehensive Nearly Full-Length 18S rRNA Dataset Enriched with Contextual Data

Molecular diversity surveys have demonstrated that aquatic fungi are highly diverse, and that they play fundamental ecological roles in aquatic systems. Unfortunately, comparative studies of aquatic fungal communities are few and far between, due to the scarcity of adequate datasets. We combined all publicly available fungal 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences with new sequence data from a marine fungi culture collection. We further enriched this dataset by adding validated contextual data. Specifically, we included data on the habitat type of the samples assigning fungal taxa to ten different habitat categories. This dataset has been created with the intention to serve as a valuable reference dataset for aquatic fungi including a phylogenetic reference tree. The combined data enabled us to infer fungal community patterns in aquatic systems. Pairwise habitat comparisons showed significant phylogenetic differences, indicating that habitat strongly affects fungal community structure. Fungal taxonomic composition differed considerably even on phylum and class level. Freshwater fungal assemblage was most different from all other habitat types and was dominated by basal fungal lineages. For most communities, phylogenetic signals indicated clustering of sequences suggesting that environmental factors were the main drivers of fungal community structure, rather than species competition. Thus, the diversification process of aquatic fungi must be highly clade specific in some cases.The combined data enabled us to infer fungal community patterns in aquatic systems. Pairwise habitat comparisons showed significant phylogenetic differences, indicating that habitat strongly affects fungal community structure. Fungal taxonomic composition differed considerably even on phylum and class level. Freshwater fungal assemblage was most different from all other habitat types and was dominated by basal fungal lineages. For most communities, phylogenetic signals indicated clustering of sequences suggesting that environmental factors were the main drivers of fungal community structure, rather than species competition. Thus, the diversification process of aquatic fungi must be highly clade specific in some cases

Sound quality assessment of a medium-range aircraft with enhanced fan-noise shielding design

The investigation of technologies that can improve the sustainability of the air transport system requires not only the development of alternative fuel concepts and novel vehicle technologies but also the definition of appropriate assessment strategies. Regarding noise, the assessment should reflect the situation of communities living near airports, i.e., not only addressing sound levels but also accounting for the annoyance caused by aircraft noise. For this purpose, conventional A-weighted sound pressure level metrics provide initial but limited information as the level- and frequency-dependency of the human hearing is accounted for in a simplified manner. Ideally, subjective evaluations are required to adequately quantify the perceived short-term annoyance associated with aircraft noise. However, listening tests are time-consuming and not suitable to be applied during the conceptual aircraft design stage, where a large solution space needs to be explored. Aiming at bridging this gap, this work presents a methodology for the sound quality assessment of computational aircraft noise predictions, which is hereby conducted in terms of objective psychoacoustic metrics. The proposed methodology is applied to a novel medium-range vehicle with fan noise shielding architecture during take-off and landing procedures. The relevance of individual sound sources, i.e., airframe and engine noise contributions, and their dependencies on the aircraft architecture and flight procedures are assessed in terms of loudness, sharpness, and tonality. Moreover, the methodology is steered towards community noise assessment, where the impacts on short-term annoyance brought by the novel aircraft design are analysed. The assessment is based on the modified psychoacoustic annoyance, a metric that provides a quantitative description of human annoyance as a combination of different hearing sensations. The present work is understood as an essential step towards low-annoyance aircraft design