Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of plants: Basic principles and influencing factors

Transformation is an important topic in plant biology and transgenic plants have become a major focus in plant research and breeding programs. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation as a practical and common method for introducing specific DNA fragments into plant genomes is well established and the number of transgenic plants produced using this method is increasing. Despite the popularity of the method, low efficiency of transformation is a major challenge for scientists. Modification of differentgenetic and environmental aspects of transformation method may lead to better understanding of the system and result in high efficiency transformation. In this review, we deal with recent genetic findingsas well as different environmental factors which potentially influence Agrobacterium-mediated transformation

News from Arabidopsis on the Meiotic Roles of Blap75/Rmi1 and Top3α

International audienc

News from Arabidopsis on the Meiotic Roles of Blap75/Rmi1 and Top3α

International audienc

What is a smart device? - a conceptualisation within the paradigm of the internet of things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an interconnected network of objects which range from simple sensors to smartphones and tablets; it is a relatively novel paradigm that has been rapidly gaining ground in the scenario of modern wireless telecommunications with an expected growth of 25 to 50 billion of connected devices for 2020 Due to the recent rise of this paradigm, authors across the literature use inconsistent terms to address the devices present in the IoT, such as mobile device, smart device, mobile technologies or mobile smart device. Based on the existing literature, this paper chooses the term smart device as a starting point towards the development of an appropriate definition for the devices present in the IoT. This investigation aims at exploring the concept and main features of smart devices as well as their role in the IoT. This paper follows a systematic approach for reviewing compendium of literature to explore the current research in this field. It has been identified smart devices as the primary objects interconnected in the network of IoT, having an essential role in this paradigm. The developed concept for defining smart device is based on three main features, namely context-awareness, autonomy and device connectivity. Other features such as mobility and userinteraction were highly mentioned in the literature, but were not considered because of the nature of the IoT as a network mainly oriented to device-to-device connectivity whether they are mobile or not and whether they interact with people or not. What emerges from this paper is a concept which can be used to homogenise the terminology used on further research in the Field of digitalisation and smart technologies

The Arabidopsis BLAP75/Rmi1 Homologue Plays Crucial Roles in Meiotic Double-Strand Break Repair

In human cells and in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, BLAP75/Rmi1 acts together with BLM/Sgs1 and TopoIIIα/Top3 to maintain genome stability by limiting crossover (CO) formation in favour of NCO events, probably through the dissolution of double Holliday junction intermediates (dHJ). So far, very limited data is available on the involvement of these complexes in meiotic DNA repair. In this paper, we present the first meiotic study of a member of the BLAP75 family through characterisation of the Arabidopsis thaliana homologue. In A. thaliana blap75 mutants, meiotic recombination is initiated, and recombination progresses until the formation of bivalent-like structures, even in the absence of ZMM proteins. However, chromosome fragmentation can be detected as soon as metaphase I and is drastic at anaphase I, while no second meiotic division is observed. Using genetic and imunolocalisation studies, we showed that these defects reflect a role of A. thaliana BLAP75 in meiotic double-strand break (DSB) repair—that it acts after the invasion step mediated by RAD51 and associated proteins and that it is necessary to repair meiotic DSBs onto sister chromatids as well as onto the homologous chromosome. In conclusion, our results show for the first time that BLAP75/Rmi1 is a key protein of the meiotic homologous recombination machinery. In A. thaliana, we found that this protein is dispensable for homologous chromosome recognition and synapsis but necessary for the repair of meiotic DSBs. Furthermore, in the absence of BLAP75, bivalent formation can happen even in the absence of ZMM proteins, showing that in blap75 mutants, recombination intermediates exist that are stable enough to form bivalent structures, even when ZMM are absent

Corporate Cash Holdings in the Oil and Gas Industry:The Role of Energy Directives

With the implementation of energy directives and increasing competition among the market players, energy firms face more uncertainty than past. As being one of the most prominent factors for energy firms, industry-specific regulations and directives related to the energy security and climate change have a considerable impact not only on their performances but also on their corporate strategies. In this chapter, we investigate the impact of the energy directives on the corporate cash holding decisions of the energy firms in Europe. Using a large number of firms and a variety of econometric approaches, our findings suggest that there are significant differences among countries in terms of cash holding decisions and the impact of energy directives. We find that the energy firms in the Northern and Western Europe increase their cash holdings as a buffer against the unexpected cash shortages with the implementation of the Second and Third Energy Directives. However, directives do not have any impact on the cash accumulation of the energy companies in the UK and Eastern Europe. Our results also suggest that speed of adjustment toward the target cash position for the energy firms in Eastern Europe (Northern Europe) decreases (increases) with the implementation of the Second and the Third Energy Directives. Overall, the results suggest that energy directives have a strong influence on the energy firms in Northern, Western, and Eastern Europe, but firms in the UK are less sensitive to the changes in the industry dynamics in terms of cash accumulation and the speed of adjustment toward the target cash position. The findings of this study shed important lights on how industry-specific regulations affect the cash holding decision of energy firms, which is often a neglected issue in the energy economics