Structural dynamics and divergence of the polygalacturonase gene family in land plants

A distinct feature of eukaryotic genomes is the presence of gene families. The polygalacturonase (PG) (EC3.2.1.15) gene family is one of the largest gene families in plants. PG is a pectin-digesting enzyme with a glycoside hydrolase 28 domain. It is involved in numerous plant developmental processes. The evolutionary processes accounting for the functional divergence and the specialized functions of PGs in land plants are unclear. Here, phylogenetic and gene structure analysis of PG genes in algae and land plants revealed that land plant PG genes resulted from differential intron gain and loss, with the latter event predominating. PG genes in land plants contained 15 homologous intron blocks and 13 novel intron blocks. Intron position and phase were not conserved between PGs of algae and land plants but conserved among PG genes of land plants from moss to vascular plants, indicating that the current introns in the PGs in land plants appeared after the split between unicellular algae and multicelluar land plants. These findings demonstrate that the functional divergence and differentiation of PGs in land plants is attributable to intronic loss. Moreover, they underscore the importance of intron gain and loss in genomic adaptation to selective pressure

Comparison of Electrospray Ionization and Atmospheric Chemical Ionization Coupled with the Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry for the Analysis of Cholesteryl Esters

The approach of two different ionization techniques including electrospray ionization (ESI) and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) coupled with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was tested for the analysis of cholesteryl esters (CEs). The retention time (RT), signal intensity, protonated ion, and product ion of CEs were compared between ESI and APCI. RT of CEs from both ionizations decreased with increasing double bonds, while it increased with longer carbon chain length. The ESI process generated strong signal intensity of precursor ions corresponding to [M+Na]+ and [M+NH4]+ regardless of the number of carbon chains and double bonds in CEs. On the other hand, the APCI process produced a protonated ion of CEs [M+H]+ with a weak signal intensity, and it is selectively sensitive to detect precursor ions of CEs with unsaturated fatty acids. The ESI technique proved to be effective in ionizing more kinds of CEs than the APCI technique

An Efficient Calibration Method for a Stereo Camera System with Heterogeneous Lenses Using an Embedded Checkerboard Pattern

We present two simple approaches to calibrate a stereo camera setup with heterogeneous lenses: a wide-angle fish-eye lens and a narrow-angle lens in left and right sides, respectively. Instead of using a conventional black-white checkerboard pattern, we design an embedded checkerboard pattern by combining two differently colored patterns. In both approaches, we split the captured stereo images into RGB channels and extract R and inverted G channels from left and right camera images, respectively. In our first approach, we consider the checkerboard pattern as the world coordinate system and calculate left and right transformation matrices corresponding to it. We use these two transformation matrices to estimate the relative pose of the right camera by multiplying the inversed left transformation with the right. In the second approach, we calculate a planar homography transformation to identify common object points in left-right image pairs and treat them with the well-known Zhangs camera calibration method. We analyze the robustness of these two approaches by comparing reprojection errors and image rectification results. Experimental results show that the second method is more accurate than the first one

Calibration of a Stereo Radiation Detection Camera Using Planar Homography

This paper proposes a calibration technique of a stereo gamma detection camera. Calibration of the internal and external parameters of a stereo vision camera is a well-known research problem in the computer vision society. However, few or no stereo calibration has been investigated in the radiation measurement research. Since no visual information can be obtained from a stereo radiation camera, it is impossible to use a general stereo calibration algorithm directly. In this paper, we develop a hybrid-type stereo system which is equipped with both radiation and vision cameras. To calibrate the stereo radiation cameras, stereo images of a calibration pattern captured from the vision cameras are transformed in the view of the radiation cameras. The homography transformation is calibrated based on the geometric relationship between visual and radiation camera coordinates. The accuracy of the stereo parameters of the radiation camera is analyzed by distance measurements to both visual light and gamma sources. The experimental results show that the measurement error is about 3%