Methods and compositions for modulating gene expression in plants

The present invention provides methods and compositions for regulation of gene expression in plants. In particular, the invention provides nucleic acids that can confer tissue specific and constitutive expression to operably linked polynucleotides of interest

Detecting Slow Wave Sleep Using a Single EEG Signal Channel

Background: In addition to the cost and complexity of processing multiple signal channels, manual sleep staging is also tedious, time consuming, and error-prone. The aim of this paper is to propose an automatic slow wave sleep (SWS) detection method that uses only one channel of the electroencephalography (EEG) signal. New Method: The proposed approach distinguishes itself from previous automatic sleep staging methods by using three specially designed feature groups. The first feature group characterizes the waveform pattern of the EEG signal. The remaining two feature groups are developed to resolve the difficulties caused by interpersonal EEG signal differences. Results and comparison with existing methods: The proposed approach was tested with 1,003 subjects, and the SWS detection results show kappa coefficient at 0.66, an accuracy level of 0.973, a sensitivity score of 0.644 and a positive predictive value of 0.709. By excluding sleep apnea patients and persons whose age is older than 55, the SWS detection results improved to kappa coefficient, 0.76; accuracy, 0.963; sensitivity, 0.758; and positive predictive value, 0.812. Conclusions: With newly developed signal features, this study proposed and tested a single-channel EEG-based SWS detection method. The effectiveness of the proposed approach was demonstrated by applying it to detect the SWS of 1003 subjects. Our test results show that a low SWS ratio and sleep apnea can degrade the performance of SWS detection. The results also show that a large and accurately staged sleep dataset is of great importance when developing automatic sleep staging methods

Heterologous expression of a rice \u3ci\u3emiR395\u3c/i\u3e gene in \u3ci\u3eNicotiana tabacum\u3c/i\u3e impairs sulfate homeostasis

Sulfur participates in many important mechanisms and pathways of plant development. The most common source of sulfur in soil –SO42−– is absorbed into root tissue and distributed into aerial part through vasculature system, where it is reduced into sulfite and finally sulfide within the subcellular organs such as chloroplasts and mitochondria and used for cysteine and methionine biosynthesis. MicroRNAs are involved in many regulation pathways by repressing the expression of their target genes. MiR395 family in Arabidopsis thaliana has been reported to be an important regulator involved in sulfate transport and assimilation, and a high-affinity sulphate transporter and three ATP sulfurylases (ATPS) were the target genes of AthmiR395 (Arabidopsis thaliana miR395). We have cloned a miR395 gene from rice (Oryza sativa) and studied its function in plant nutritional response. Our results indicated that in rice, transcript level of OsamiR395 (Oryza sativa miR395) increased under sulfate deficiency conditions, and the two predicted target genes of miR395 were down-regulated under the same conditions. Overexpression of OsamiR395h in tobacco impaired its sulfate homeostasis, and sulfate distribution was also slightly impacted among leaves of different ages. One sulfate transporter (SULTR) gene NtaSULTR2 was identified to be the target of miR395 in Nicotiana tobacum, which belongs to low affinity sulfate transporter group. Both miR395 and NtaSULTR2 respond to sulfate starvation in tobacco

Methods and compositions for transgenic plants with enhanced cold tolerance, ability to flower without vernalization requirement and impacted fertility

The present invention provides transgenic plants having increased tolerance to cold and altered flowering characteristics. Also provided are methods and compositions for producing said transgenic plants

Heterologous expression of a rice miR395 gene in Nicotiana tabacum impairs sulfate homeostasis

Sulfur participates in many important mechanisms and pathways of plant development. The most common source of sulfur in soil –SO42−– is absorbed into root tissue and distributed into aerial part through vasculature system, where it is reduced into sulfite and finally sulfide within the subcellular organs such as chloroplasts and mitochondria and used for cysteine and methionine biosynthesis. MicroRNAs are involved in many regulation pathways by repressing the expression of their target genes. MiR395 family in Arabidopsis thaliana has been reported to be an important regulator involved in sulfate transport and assimilation, and a high-affinity sulphate transporter and three ATP sulfurylases (ATPS) were the target genes of AthmiR395 (Arabidopsis thaliana miR395). We have cloned a miR395 gene from rice (Oryza sativa) and studied its function in plant nutritional response. Our results indicated that in rice, transcript level of OsamiR395 (Oryza sativa miR395) increased under sulfate deficiency conditions, and the two predicted target genes of miR395 were down-regulated under the same conditions. Overexpression of OsamiR395h in tobacco impaired its sulfate homeostasis, and sulfate distribution was also slightly impacted among leaves of different ages. One sulfate transporter (SULTR) gene NtaSULTR2 was identified to be the target of miR395 in Nicotiana tobacum, which belongs to low affinity sulfate transporter group. Both miR395 and NtaSULTR2 respond to sulfate starvation in tobacco

Two distinct strategies of cotton and soybean differing in leaf movement to perform photosynthesis under drought in the field

This paper reports an experimental test of the hypothesis that cotton and soybean differing in leaf movement have distinct strategies to perform photosynthesis under drought. Cotton and soybean were exposed to two water regimes: drought stressed and well watered. Drought-stressed cotton and soybean had lower maximum CO2 assimilation rates than well-watered (control) plants. Drought reduced the light saturation point and photorespiration of both species – especially in soybean. Area-based leaf nitrogen decreased in drought-stressed soybean but increased in drought-stressed cotton. Drought decreased PSII quantum yield (FPSII) in soybean leaves, but increased FPSII in cotton leaves. Drought induced an increase in light absorbed by the PSII antennae that is dissipated thermally via DpH- and xanthophylls-regulated processes in soybean leaves, but a decrease in cotton leaves. Soybean leaves appeared to have greater cyclic electron flow (CEF) around PSI than cotton leaves and drought further increased CEF in soybean leaves. In contrast, CEF slightly decreased in cotton under drought. These results suggest that the difference in leaf movement between cotton and soybean leaves gives rise to different strategies to perform photosynthesis and to contrasting photoprotective mechanisms for utilisation or dissipation of excess light energy. We suggest that soybean preferentially uses light-regulated non-photochemical energy dissipation, which may have been enhanced by the higher CEF in drought-stressed leaves. In contrast, cotton appears to rely on enhanced electron transport flux for light energy utilisation under drought, for example, in enhanced nitrogen assimilation

On Steam Pipe Network Modeling and Flow Rate Calculation

AbstractThe paper demonstrates the method to set up the pipe network hydraulic-thermal synthetic mode by applying hydraulic and thermal models of single pipe, and proposes the algorithm based on searching for the problem that iterative calculation sometimes cannot derive convergent reasonable result as well. Compared the calculated values with the measurements, it shows the validation of the model and effectiveness of the algorithm