Serine Protease PRSS23 Is Upregulated by Estrogen Receptor α and Associated with Proliferation of Breast Cancer Cells

Serine protease PRSS23 is a newly discovered protein that has been associated with tumor progression in various types of cancers. Interestingly, PRSS23 is coexpressed with estrogen receptor α (ERα), which is a prominent biomarker and therapeutic target for human breast cancer. Estrogen signaling through ERα is also known to affect cell proliferation, apoptosis, and survival, which promotes tumorigenesis by regulating the production of numerous downstream effector proteins

P3HT-Based Solar Cells: Structural Properties and Photovoltaic Performance

Each year we are bombarded with B.Sc. and Ph.D. applications from students that want to improve the world. They have learned that their future depends on changing the type of fuel we use and that solar energy is our future. The hope and energy of these young people will transform future energy technologies, but it will not happen quickly. Organic photovoltaic devices are easy to sketch, but the materials, processing steps, and ways of measuring the properties of the materials are very complicated. It is not trivial to make a systematic measurement that will change the way other research groups think or practice. In approaching this chapter, we thought about what a new researcher would need to know about organic photovoltaic devices and materials in order to have a good start in the subject. Then, we simplified that to focus on what a new researcher would need to know about poly-3-hexylthiophene:phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester blends (P3HT: PCBM) to make research progress with these materials. This chapter is by no means authoritative or a compendium of all things on P3HT:PCBM. We have selected to explain how the sample fabrication techniques lead to control of morphology and structural features and how these morphological features have specific optical and electronic consequences for organic photovoltaic device applications

A sampling protocol to detect latent infections in potato tubers

A sampling protocol for detecting latent infections in potato tubers stored in bins, based on the preparation of standard samples of 200 tubers, was tested for reliability. Bins of tubers were manually distributed in windrows and 1% of tubers were replaced with painted tubers, simulating tubers with latent infections. The painted tubers were distributed in windrows with clustered, regular and random distribution. Tubers were harvested and transferred to bins. Each bin was considered to be divided into layers 15 cm in depth, and 20 tubers were collected along an X-shaped sampling path of each bin layer. A simulated sampling approach was applied to obtain 10 bulk samples (200 tubers) for each kind of tuber distribution. The number of marked tubers, the mean percentage and the standard deviation of the bulk samples of each group was computed. The results confirmed that the sampling design adopted in this study ensured preparation of representative bulk samples. In fact, marked tubers were effectively detected; the observed mean percentages of marked tubers were acceptable in value, even though an overestimate of the true percentage was generally obtained. The percentage of marked tubers was underestimated in 50% of cases when considering a regular distribution of marked tubers. However, it was never underestimated when considering the clustered distribution, which is most representative of the situation for tubers with latent infections

Histopathological Study of the Alternaria solani Infection Process in Potato Cultivars with Different Levels of Early Blight Resistance

Histopathological analyses of the infection process of Alternaria solani were accomplished in three potato cultivars with different levels of early blight resistance. Leaflets of Aracy (resistant), Delta (moderately resistant) and Bintje (susceptible) cultivars were inoculated at the beginning of the flowering stage. In order to study the effect of leaf age, leaf samples were collected separately, in the lower, middle and upper third of the plants. Conidia germination, appressoria formation, penetration and number of penetration sites exhibiting hypersensitive response (HR) were qualitatively and quantitatively assessed at 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h after inoculation. Penetration occurred most frequently through the junctions of the epidermal cells. Penetrations through stomata were rarely observed. There was no association between the events and the resistance levels, except for the number of penetration sites showing HR that was highest in Aracy, intermediate in Delta and lowest in Bintje. Similarly, the number of sites with HR was the only event associated with the leaf age. Regardless of cultivar resistance levels, the number of the penetration sites with HR was higher in leaves in the upper part of the plant. These results suggest that HR may be one of the mechanisms associated with age‐related and genetic resistance to early blight in potato

Assessing plant health in a network of experiments on hardy winter wheat varieties in France: multivariate and risk factor analyses

International audienceA large network of field experiments has been conducted over several years across France to identify combinations of winter wheat cultivars and management practices in which partial resistances under limited chemical protection would achieve adequate disease management, while leading to satisfactory yield performance, and so achieve the double objective of ecological sustainability and economic viability. Little information is available to document the variation in multiple disease levels, a n ecessary step towards a chemical extensification process, in wheat networked experiments. This article provides a description of dis- ease intensities in a set of 101 experiments totalling 3525 individual wheat plots over eight successive years (2003 – 2010). The diseases considered are brown rust (BR, Puccinia triticina ), yellow rust (YR, Puccinia striiformis ), fusarium head blight (FHB, Fusarium graminearum , F. culmorum ,and F. avenaceum ), pow- dery mildew (PM, Blumeria graminis ), and septoria tritici blotch (STB, Zymoseptoria tritici ). Hierarchical cluster analysis led to the identification of three variety groups associated with (1) moderate-low disease levels in general, except for YR (moderate levels) – 16 varie- ties; (2) moderate-low BR, YR, and FHB levels, and moderate PM and STB levels – 12 varieties; (3) com- paratively higher BR, YR, FHB, and STB levels, and moderate PM levels – 17 varieties. The association of disease levels represented as binary categories (i.e., epidemics vs. non-epidemics) with climatic years corresponded to chi-square values ( χ 2 =87.0 – 1402) that were one to two orders of magnitude larger than the values corresponding to the associations of diseases with variety groups ( χ 2 =6.41 – 321) or with levels of crop management ( χ 2 =21.2 – 82.1). Multivariate non parametric analyses indicated the existence of three disease syndromes, two of which being dominated by BR or STB, and a third associated with diverse diseases and frequent FHB. This suggests that STB and BR might each be considered as key-stone species dominat- ing specific wheat disease syndromes. Multiple corre- spondence analysis highlighted the linkages between multiple epidemic occurrence and the three character- ized variety groups. Risk factors analyses conducted through logistic regressions provided quantitative estimates of the contribution of climatic years, variety groups, and crop management, to the likelihood of epidemic occurrence for each of the five diseases considered. The results indicate that climatic years, wheat varieties, and crop management, in this decreasing order, define disease epidemic risk in the multiple wheat-diseases pathosystem