Nitrogen topdressing during heading improve the industrial quality of wheat (Triticum aestivum cv. Mirante) grown with plant growth regulator etyl-trinexapac

O uso de nitrogênio na fase reprodutiva, mesmo em plantas adequadamente supridas de N durante o período vegetativo, pode influenciar positivamente na qualidade industrial do trigo. Entretanto, lavouras adequadamente nutridas podem exibir maior desenvolvimento vegetativo e em consequência disto maior predisposição ao acamamento de plantas. O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar os efeitos da adubação nitrogenada em cobertura, na fase reprodutiva, em plantas previamente tratadas com o redutor de crescimento etil-trinexapac sobre a qualidade industrial de trigo cv. Mirante. O experimento foi conduzido em campo, durante os anos agrícolas de 2011 e 2012, em Lages, SC. Foram utilizadas duas épocas de aplicação de nitrogênio em cobertura, no afilhamento (estádio vegetativo) e no florescimento (estádio reprodutivo) e o redutor de crescimento etiltrinexapac em duas doses de aplicação, a recomendada (100 g i.a. ha-¹), aplicado quando as plantas estavam no estádio 31, e o dobro desta (100+100 g i.a. ha-¹) aplicado de forma sequencial nos estádios 31 e 32 mais a testemunha. De modo geral o etil-trinexapac não influenciou na qualidade industrial do trigo. Entretanto, a aplicação de nitrogênio no estádio reprodutivo aumentou eficientemente o potencial de panificação da farinha de trigo quanto sua extensibilidade, teor de proteína, glúten úmido, glúten seco e força do glúten.The use of nitrogen in the reproductive phase even in plants adequately supplied with N during the vegetative growing stages can positively influence the wheat industrial quality. However, adequately fertilized crops may exhibit greater vegetative development and in consequence higher incidence of plant lodging. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of nitrogen topdressing in the reproductive phase in plants pretreated with the ethyl-trinexapac on industrial quality of wheat grains cv. Mirante. The experiment was carried out in the field conditions at Lages, into 2011 and 2012 growing seasons. The nitrogen topdressing was at tillering (vegetative stage) and flowering (reproductive stage) and plant growth retardant (ethyl-trinexapac) applied at two doses, as commonly used (100 g a.i. ha-¹), on plant shoot at stage 31, and applied twice sequentially in stages 31 plus 32 (100 +100 g a.i. ha-¹). The results pointed that ethyl-trinexapac did not influence the wheat industrial quality. However, the N topdressing, particularly at the reproductive stage effectively increasing to the potential baking of wheat flour as its extensibility, protein content, wet gluten, dry gluten and gluten strength.Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Nitrogen topdressing during heading improve the industrial quality of wheat (Triticum aestivum cv. Mirante) grown with plant growth regulator etyl-trinexapac

O uso de nitrogênio na fase reprodutiva, mesmo em plantas adequadamente supridas de N durante o período vegetativo, pode influenciar positivamente na qualidade industrial do trigo. Entretanto, lavouras adequadamente nutridas podem exibir maior desenvolvimento vegetativo e em consequência disto maior predisposição ao acamamento de plantas. O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar os efeitos da adubação nitrogenada em cobertura, na fase reprodutiva, em plantas previamente tratadas com o redutor de crescimento etil-trinexapac sobre a qualidade industrial de trigo cv. Mirante. O experimento foi conduzido em campo, durante os anos agrícolas de 2011 e 2012, em Lages, SC. Foram utilizadas duas épocas de aplicação de nitrogênio em cobertura, no afilhamento (estádio vegetativo) e no florescimento (estádio reprodutivo) e o redutor de crescimento etiltrinexapac em duas doses de aplicação, a recomendada (100 g i.a. ha-¹), aplicado quando as plantas estavam no estádio 31, e o dobro desta (100+100 g i.a. ha-¹) aplicado de forma sequencial nos estádios 31 e 32 mais a testemunha. De modo geral o etil-trinexapac não influenciou na qualidade industrial do trigo. Entretanto, a aplicação de nitrogênio no estádio reprodutivo aumentou eficientemente o potencial de panificação da farinha de trigo quanto sua extensibilidade, teor de proteína, glúten úmido, glúten seco e força do glúten.The use of nitrogen in the reproductive phase even in plants adequately supplied with N during the vegetative growing stages can positively influence the wheat industrial quality. However, adequately fertilized crops may exhibit greater vegetative development and in consequence higher incidence of plant lodging. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of nitrogen topdressing in the reproductive phase in plants pretreated with the ethyl-trinexapac on industrial quality of wheat grains cv. Mirante. The experiment was carried out in the field conditions at Lages, into 2011 and 2012 growing seasons. The nitrogen topdressing was at tillering (vegetative stage) and flowering (reproductive stage) and plant growth retardant (ethyl-trinexapac) applied at two doses, as commonly used (100 g a.i. ha-¹), on plant shoot at stage 31, and applied twice sequentially in stages 31 plus 32 (100 +100 g a.i. ha-¹). The results pointed that ethyl-trinexapac did not influence the wheat industrial quality. However, the N topdressing, particularly at the reproductive stage effectively increasing to the potential baking of wheat flour as its extensibility, protein content, wet gluten, dry gluten and gluten strength.Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Targeting Protein Homeostasis in Sporadic Inclusion Body Myositis

Sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) is the commonest severe myopathy in patients over age 50. Previous therapeutic trials have targeted the inflammatory features of sIBM, but all have failed. Since protein dyshomeostasis may also play a role in sIBM, we tested the effects of targeting this feature of the disease. Using rat myoblast cultures, we found that up-regulation of the heat shock response with Arimoclomol reduced key pathological markers of sIBM in vitro. Furthermore, in mutant valosin-containing protein VCP mice, which develop an inclusion body myopathy (IBM), treatment with Arimoclomol ameliorated disease pathology and improved muscle function. We therefore evaluated the safety and tolerability of Arimoclomol in an investigator-lead, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, proof-of-concept patient trial and gathered exploratory efficacy data which showed that Arimoclomol was safe and well tolerated. Although Arimoclomol improved some IBM-like pathology in vitro and in vivo in the mutant VCP mouse, we did not see statistically significant evidence of efficacy in this proof of concept patient trial

Re-Evaluation of Sinocastor (Rodentia: Castoridae) with Implications on the Origin of Modern Beavers

The extant beaver, Castor, has played an important role shaping landscapes and ecosystems in Eurasia and North America, yet the origins and early evolution of this lineage remain poorly understood. Here we use a geometric morphometric approach to help re-evaluate the phylogenetic affinities of a fossil skull from the Late Miocene of China. This specimen was originally considered Sinocastor, and later transferred to Castor. The aim of this study was to determine whether this form is an early member of Castor, or if it represents a lineage outside of Castor. The specimen was compared to 38 specimens of modern Castor (both C. canadensis and C. fiber) as well as fossil specimens of C. fiber (Pleistocene), C. californicus (Pliocene) and the early castorids Steneofiber eseri (early Miocene). The results show that the specimen falls outside the Castor morphospace and that compared to Castor, Sinocastor possesses a: 1) narrower post-orbital constriction, 2) anteroposteriorly shortened basioccipital depression, 3) shortened incisive foramen, 4) more posteriorly located palatine foramen, 5) longer rostrum, and 6) longer braincase. Also the specimen shows a much shallower basiocciptal depression than what is seen in living Castor, as well as prominently rooted molars. We conclude that Sinocastor is a valid genus. Given the prevalence of apparently primitive traits, Sinocastor might be a near relative of the lineage that gave rise to Castor, implying a possible Asiatic origin for Castor

Ongoing developments in sporadic inclusion body myositis

Sporadic inclusion body myositis (IBM) is an acquired muscle disorder associated with ageing, for which there is no effective treatment. Ongoing developments include: genetic studies that may provide insights regarding the pathogenesis of IBM, improved histopathological markers, the description of a new IBM autoantibody, scrutiny of the diagnostic utility of clinical features and biomarkers, the refinement of diagnostic criteria, the emerging use of MRI as a diagnostic and monitoring tool, and new pathogenic insights that have led to novel therapeutic approaches being trialled for IBM, including treatments with the objective of restoring protein homeostasis and myostatin blockers. The effect of exercise in IBM continues to be investigated. However, despite these ongoing developments, the aetiopathogenesis of IBM remains uncertain. A translational and multidisciplinary collaborative approach is critical to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with IBM

PathFinder: mining signal transduction pathway segments from protein-protein interaction networks

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A Signal transduction pathway is the chain of processes by which a cell converts an extracellular signal into a response. In most unicellular organisms, the number of signal transduction pathways influences the number of ways the cell can react and respond to the environment. Discovering signal transduction pathways is an arduous problem, even with the use of systematic genomic, proteomic and metabolomic technologies. These techniques lead to an enormous amount of data and how to interpret and process this data becomes a challenging computational problem.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study we present a new framework for identifying signaling pathways in protein-protein interaction networks. Our goal is to find biologically significant pathway segments in a given interaction network. Currently, protein-protein interaction data has excessive amount of noise, e.g., false positive and false negative interactions. First, we eliminate false positives in the protein-protein interaction network by integrating the network with microarray expression profiles, protein subcellular localization and sequence information. In addition, protein families are used to repair false negative interactions. Then the characteristics of known signal transduction pathways and their functional annotations are extracted in the form of association rules.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Given a pair of starting and ending proteins, our methodology returns candidate pathway segments between these two proteins with possible missing links (recovered false negatives). In our study, <it>S. cerevisiae </it>(yeast) data is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.</p

Organization of Physical Interactomes as Uncovered by Network Schemas

Large-scale protein-protein interaction networks provide new opportunities for understanding cellular organization and functioning. We introduce network schemas to elucidate shared mechanisms within interactomes. Network schemas specify descriptions of proteins and the topology of interactions among them. We develop algorithms for systematically uncovering recurring, over-represented schemas in physical interaction networks. We apply our methods to the S. cerevisiae interactome, focusing on schemas consisting of proteins described via sequence motifs and molecular function annotations and interacting with one another in one of four basic network topologies. We identify hundreds of recurring and over-represented network schemas of various complexity, and demonstrate via graph-theoretic representations how more complex schemas are organized in terms of their lower-order constituents. The uncovered schemas span a wide range of cellular activities, with many signaling and transport related higher-order schemas. We establish the functional importance of the schemas by showing that they correspond to functionally cohesive sets of proteins, are enriched in the frequency with which they have instances in the H. sapiens interactome, and are useful for predicting protein function. Our findings suggest that network schemas are a powerful paradigm for organizing, interrogating, and annotating cellular networks

The effects of an intronic polymorphism in TOMM40 and APOE genotypes in sporadic inclusion body myositis

Keywords: Sporadic inclusion body myositis sIBM APOE TOMM40 Age of onset a b s t r a c t A previous study showed that, in carriers of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype ε3/ε3 or ε3/ε4, the presence of a very long (VL) polyT repeat allele in &quot;translocase of outer mitochondrial membrane 40&quot; (TOMM40) was less frequent in patients with sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) compared with controls and associated with a later age of sIBM symptom onset, suggesting a protective effect of this haplotype. To further investigate the influence of these genetic factors in sIBM, we analyzed a large sIBM cohort of 158 cases as part of an International sIBM Genetics Study. No significant association was found between APOE or TOMM40 genotypes and the risk of developing sIBM. We found that the presence of at least 1 VL polyT repeat allele in TOMM40 was significantly associated with about 4 years later onset of sIBM symptoms. The age of onset was delayed by 5 years when the patients were also carriers of the APOE genotype ε3/ε3. In addition, males were likely to have a later age of onset than females. Therefore, the TOMM40 VL polyT repeat, although not influencing disease susceptibility, has a disease-modifying effect on sIBM, which can be enhanced by the APOE genotype ε3/ε3