Cytological and molecular characterization of wheat lines with Thinopyrum intermedium chromosome additions, substitutions and translocations resistant to barley yellow dwarf virus

Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) is the most serious viral disease affecting wheat and genes for BYDV resistance have not been found in wheat. BYDV-resistant alien addition and alien substitution lines produced from a wheat × Thinopyrum intermedium (species of Agropyron complex) cross were characterized. Chromosome pairing in the hybrids between two substitution lines showed that they had the same Th. intermedium chromosome. Likewise, two addition lines involved the same alien chromosome. In situ hybridization of chromosomes, confirmed that line P29 is a disomic substitution line. Double monosomic seeds and self-pollinated seeds from monosomic addition plants were irradiated to induce translocations between wheat and Th. intermedium chromosomes. Putative translocations were selected on the basis of BYDV resistance and studied by chromosome analysis, Southern hybridization using Thinopyrum specific probe and RFLP markers. A BYDV-resistant translocation was identified

Inheritance studies of apple scab resistance and identification of Rvi14, a new major gene that acts together with other broad-spectrum QTL

Scab, caused by the fungal pathogen Venturia inaequalis, is the most common disease of cultivated apple (Malus domestica). The fungal races 6 and 7 have now overcome the major resistance gene Vf, which is widely used in apple breeding programmes. New breeding strategies to achieve durable resistance are thus necessary. The aim of this study was to determine the genetic basis of quantitative resistance of the apple cultivar ‘Du¨lmener Rosenapfel’, known to be scab resistant under different environmental conditions. An F1 progeny derived from the cross between the susceptible cultivar ‘Gala’ and ‘Du¨lmener Rosenapfel’ was tested in a greenhouse with a multi-isolate inoculum of V. inaequalis. Rvi14, a new major gene that conditions a chlorotic-type reaction, was mapped on linkage group (LG) 6 in a genomic region not known to be involved in disease resistance. A further three quantitative trait loci (QTL) for resistance were identified. One co-localized with Rvi14 on LG6, whereas the remaining two were detected on LG11 and LG17, in genomic regions already reported to carry broad-spectrum QTL in other genetic backgrounds. Since a selective genotyping approach was used to detect QTL, an expectation-maximization (EM) computation was used to estimate the corrected QTL contributions to phenotypic variation and was validated by entire progeny genotyping

Absence of SPARC results in increased cardiac rupture and dysfunction after acute myocardial infarction

The matricellular protein SPARC (secreted protein, acidic and rich in cysteine, also known as osteonectin) mediates cell–matrix interactions during wound healing and regulates the production and/or assembly of the extracellular matrix (ECM). This study investigated whether SPARC functions in infarct healing and ECM maturation after myocardial infarction (MI). In comparison with wild-type (WT) mice, animals with a targeted inactivation of SPARC exhibited a fourfold increase in mortality that resulted from an increased incidence of cardiac rupture and failure after MI. SPARC-null infarcts had a disorganized granulation tissue and immature collagenous ECM. In contrast, adenoviral overexpression of SPARC in WT mice improved the collagen maturation and prevented cardiac dilatation and dysfunction after MI. In cardiac fibroblasts in vitro, reduction of SPARC by short hairpin RNA attenuated transforming growth factor β (TGF)–mediated increase of Smad2 phosphorylation, whereas addition of recombinant SPARC increased Smad2 phosphorylation concordant with increased Smad2 phosphorylation in SPARC-treated mice. Importantly, infusion of TGF-β rescued cardiac rupture in SPARC-null mice but did not significantly alter infarct healing in WT mice. These findings indicate that local production of SPARC is essential for maintenance of the integrity of cardiac ECM after MI. The protective effects of SPARC emphasize the potential therapeutic applications of this protein to prevent cardiac dilatation and dysfunction after MI

A human glomerular SAGE transcriptome database

Background: To facilitate in the identification of gene products important in regulating renal glomerular structure and function, we have produced an annotated transcriptome database for normal human glomeruli using the SAGE approach. Description: The database contains 22,907 unique SAGE tag sequences, with a total tag count of 48,905. For each SAGE tag, the ratio of its frequency in glomeruli relative to that in 115 non-glomerular tissues or cells, a measure of transcript enrichment in glomeruli, was calculated. A total of 133 SAGE tags representing well-characterized transcripts were enriched 10-fold or more in glomeruli compared to other tissues. Comparison of data from this study with a previous human glomerular Sau3A-anchored SAGE library reveals that 47 of the highly enriched transcripts are common to both libraries. Among these are the SAGE tags representing many podocyte-predominant transcripts like WT-1, podocin and synaptopodin. Enrichment of podocyte transcript tags SAGE library indicates that other SAGE tags observed at much higher frequencies in this glomerular compared to non-glomerular SAGE libraries are likely to be glomerulus-predominant. A higher level of mRNA expression for 19 transcripts represented by glomerulus-enriched SAGE tags was verified by RT-PCR comparing glomeruli to lung, liver and spleen. Conclusions: The database can be retrieved from, or interrogated online at http://cgap.nci.nih.gov/SAGE. The annotated database is also provided as an additional file with gene identification for 9,022, and matches to the human genome or transcript homologs in other species for 1,433 tags. It should be a useful tool for in silico mining of glomerular gene expression

The secretome of alginate-encapsulated limbal epithelial stem cells modulates corneal epithelial cell proliferation

Limbal epithelial stem cells may ameliorate limbal stem cell deficiency through secretion of therapeutic proteins, delivered to the cornea in a controlled manner using hydrogels. In the present study the secretome of alginate-encapsulated limbal epithelial stem cells is investigated. Conditioned medium was generated from limbal epithelial stem cells encapsulated in 1.2% (w/v) calcium alginate gels. Conditioned medium proteins separated by 1-D gel electrophoresis were visualized by silver staining. Proteins of interest including secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine, profilin-1, and galectin-1 were identified by immunoblotting. The effect of conditioned medium (from alginate-encapsulated limbal epithelial stem cells) on corneal epithelial cell proliferation was quantified and shown to significantly inhibit (P</=0.05) their growth. As secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine was previously reported to attenuate proliferation of epithelial cells, this protein may be responsible, at least in part, for inhibition of corneal epithelial cell proliferation. We conclude that limbal epithelial stem cells encapsulated in alginate gels may regulate corneal epithelialisation through secretion of inhibitory proteins