Effect of Different Seeding Rate on Seed Production of the Rye Variety “Gogu” in Korea

The rye (Secale cereale L.) has been used as an excellent green manure crop and good forage crop in Korea. The rye is usually recommended as a winter crop for forage and green manure after either maize or rice in Korea (Heo et al., 2009). But most of its seeds are being imported from foreign countries because the seed productions have difficulty with latematuring and the heavy raining season in the ripening stage in Korea. Therefore, a new rye variety “Gogu” with an earlymaturing and high performance was bred by National Institute of Crop Science (NICS), Suwon, Korea in 2004. This study was carried out to determine the effect of seeding rate on the seed yield and agronomic characteristics of the rye variety “Gogu” in the north eastern area, Youngwol, Korea

Highly selective surface adsorption-induced efficient photodegradation of cationic dyes on hierarchical ZnO nanorod-decorated hydrolyzed PIM-1 nanofibrous webs

Selectivity of catalysts toward harmful cationic pollutants in industrial wastewater remains challenging but is of crucial importance in environmental remediation processes. Here, we present a complex network of a hydrolyzed polymer of intrinsic microporosity (HPIM)-based electrospun nanofibrous web with surface functional decoration of ZnO nanorods (NRs) as a hierarchical platform for selective and rapid degradation of cationic dyes. Over a single species or binary mixtures, cationic dyes were selectively adsorbed by the HPIM surface, which then rapidly degraded under simultaneous photoirradiation through the ZnO NRs. Both HPIM and ZnO exhibited high electronegative surfaces, which induced the selectivity towards the cationic dyes and rapidly degraded the pollutants with the production of reactive oxygen species under photoirradiation. Further, as a free-standing web, the catalytic network could be easily separated and reused without any significant loss of catalytic activity after multiple cycles of use. The hierarchical platform of ZnO/HPIM-based heterostructures could be a promising catalytic template for selective degradation of synthetic dyes in mixed wastewater samples. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Nanopores of carbon nanotubes as practical hydrogen storage media

We report on hydrogen desorption mechanisms in the nanopores of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The as-grown MWCNTs show continuous walls that do not provide sites for hydrogen storage under ambient conditions. However, after treating the nanotubes with oxygen plasma to create nanopores in the MWCNTs, we observed the appearance of a new hydrogen desorption peak in the 300–350 K range. Furthermore, the calculations of density functional theory and molecular dynamics simulations confirmed that this peak could be attributed to the hydrogen that is physically adsorbed inside nanopores whose diameter is approximately 1 nm. Thus, we demonstrated that 1 nm nanopores in MWCNTs offer a promising route to hydrogen storage media for onboard practical applications

Point Mutation of Hoxd12 in Mice

Purpose: Genes of the HoxD cluster play a major role in vertebrate limb development, and changes that modify the Hoxd12 locus affect other genes also, suggesting that HoxD function is coordinated by a control mechanism involving multiple genes during limb morphogenesis. In this study, mutant phenotypes were produced by treatment of mice with chemical mutagen, N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU). We analyzed mutant mice exhibiting the specific microdactyly phenotype and examined the genes affected. Materials and Methods: We focused on phenotype characteristics including size, bone formation, and digit morphology of ENU-induced microdactyly mice. The expressions of several molecules were analyzed by genome-wide screening and quantitative real-time PCR to define the affected genes. Results: We report on limb phenotypes of an ENU-induced A-to-C mutation in the Hoxd12 gene, resulting in alanine-to-serine conversion. Microdactyly mice exhibited growth defects in the zeugopod and autopod, shortening of digits, a missing tip of digit I, limb growth affected, and dramatic increases in the expressions of Fgf4 and Lmx1b. However, the expression level of Shh was not changed Hoxd12 point mutated mice. Conclusion: These results suggest that point mutation rather than the entire deletion of Hoxd12, such as in knockout and transgenic mice, causes the abnormal limb phenotype in microdactyly mice. The precise nature of the spectrum of differences requires further investigation.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Specific Intracellular Uptake of Herceptin-Conjugated CdSe/ZnS Quantum Dots into Breast Cancer Cells

Herceptin, a typical monoclonal antibody, was immobilized on the surface of CdSe/ZnS core-shell quantum dots (QDs) to enhance their specific interactions with breast cancer cells (SK-BR3). the mean size of the core-shell quantum dots (28 nm), as determined by dynamic light scattering, increased to 86 nm after herceptin immobilization. the in vitro cell culture experiment showed that the keratin forming cancer cells (KB) proliferated well in the presence of herceptin-conjugated QDs (QD-Her, 5 nmol/mL), whereas most of the breast cancer cells (SK-BR3) had died. to clarify the mechanism of cell death, the interaction of SK-BR3 cells with QD-Her was examined by confocal laser scanning microscopy. as a result, the QD-Her bound specifically to the membrane of SK-BR3, which became almost saturated after 6 hours incubation. This suggests that the growth signal of breast cancer cells is inhibited completely by the specific binding of herceptin to the Her-2 receptor of SK-BR3 membrane, resulting in cell death