Purification of Starch Granules from Arabidopsis Leaves and Determination of Granule-Bound Starch Synthase Activity

Starch constitutes the most important carbon reserve in plants and is composed of branched amylopectin and linear amylose. The latter is synthesized exclusively by the Granule-Bound Starch Synthase (GBSS, EC 2.4.1.21). Here we report a readily reproducible, specific and highly sensitive protocol, which includes the isolation of intact starch granules from Arabidopsis thaliana leaves and the subsequent determination of GBSS activity. We have applied this method to study GBSS activity in diurnal cycles in vegetative growth and during the photoperiodic transition to flowering in Arabidopsis (Tenorio et al., 2003; Ortiz-Marchena et al., 2014).España,MINECO CSD2007-00057, BIO2008-02292, and BIO2011-28847-C02-00España, Junta de Andalucía P06-CVI-01450 and P08-AGR-0358

Catálogo de la flora bentónica marina de Punta Sonabia a Punta Cotolino (Cantabria)

Sin resume

The CBRB regulon: Promoter dissection reveals novel insights into the CbrAB expression network in Pseudomonas putida

CbrAB is a high ranked global regulatory system exclusive of the Pseudomonads that responds to carbon limiting conditions. It has become necessary to define the particular regulon of CbrB and discriminate it from the downstream cascades through other regulatory components. We have performed in vivo binding analysis of CbrB in P. putida and determined that it directly controls the expression of at least 61 genes; 20% involved in regulatory functions, including the previously identified CrcZ and CrcY small regulatory RNAs. The remaining are porines or transporters (20%), metabolic enzymes (16%), activities related to protein translation (5%) and orfs of uncharacterised function (38%). Amongst the later, we have selected the operon PP2810-13 to make an exhaustive analysis of the CbrB binding sequences, together with those of crcZ and crcY. We describe the implication of three independent non-palindromic subsites with a variable spacing in three different targets; CrcZ, CrcY and operon PP2810-13 in the CbrAB activation. CbrB is a quite peculiar σN—depen-dent activator since it is barely dependent on phosphorylation for transcriptional activation. With the depiction of the precise contacts of CbrB with the DNA, the analysis of the multi-merisation status and its dependence on other factors such as RpoN o IHF, we propose a model of transcriptional activation.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BIO2014-57545-

A catabogne on tite benthic marine flora of ida Tina Menor and Pechon’s coast (Cantabria, Spain)

FERNÁNDEZ-MONTERO, L.; PÉREZ-RUZAFA, 1. M.; CUBERO, 1. & GALLARDO, T., 1997. Catálogo de la flora bentónica marina de la Ría lina Menor y costa de Pechón (Cantabria)- Bot Cotnplutensis 22: 83-100. Los muestreos efectuados en la Ría lina Menor y costa de Peehón durante el otoño e invmerno de 1995 y la primavera, verano y otoño de 1996 han dado como resultado un catálogo de 202 especies (4 Cyanophyceae, 127 Rhodophyceae, 39 Phaeopltvceae. 1 Chlorophyceae, 18 Ulvophyceae, 6 Cladophorophyceae, 6 Bryopsidophyceae, y 1 Magnoliophyta). El número total de nuevas citas para las costas de Cantabria es de 87.FERNÁNDEZ-MONTERO, L.; PÉREZ-RUZAFA, 1. M.~ CUBERO, 1. & GAlLARDO, 1., 1997. A catalogue on the benthic marine flora of Ría Tina Menor and Pechón's eoast (Cantabria, Spain). Rbi. Complutensis 22: 83-100. Samples, done in Ría Tina Menor and Pechón's coast (Cantabria, Spain) during the aututu aud winterot 1995 andthe spring, summer and autum of 1996, sho'w a 11sf of 202 species (4 Cyanophyceae, 127 Rhodophyceae, 39 Phaeophyceae, 1 Chlorophyceae, ¡8 UIvophyceae, 6 Cladophorophyceae, 6 Brvopsidophyceac, and 1 Magnolioplmvta). Ihe number ol new records for Cantabria is 87

Sexually Selected Egg Coloration in Spotless Starlings

It has been recently proposed that the blue-green coloration in eggs of many avian species may constitute a sexually selected female signal. Blue-green color intensity would reflect the physiological condition of females, and hence it might also affect the allocation of male parental care. In this study, we use three different experimental approaches to explore the importance of sexual selection on blue-green egg coloration of spotless starling (Sturnus unicolor) eggs. First, experimental deterioration of female body condition (by means of wing feather removal) negatively affected the intensity of blue-green egg coloration. Second, blue-green color intensity of artificial model eggs had a significant positive influence on paternal feeding effort. Finally, we found a negative relationship between the effect of experimental food supply on nestling immunocompetence and the intensity of blue-green coloration of eggs, suggesting that egg color predicts nutritional conditions that nestlings will experience during development. All these results taken together strongly support a role of sexual selection in the blue-green coloration of spotless starling eggs.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER; CGL2004-01777/BOS).Peer reviewe

A study of temperature-related non-linearity at the metal-silicon interface

In this paper, we investigate the temperature dependencies of metal-semiconductor interfaces in an effort to better reproduce the current-voltage-temperature (IVT) characteristics of any Schottky diode, regardless of homogeneity. Four silicon Schottky diodes were fabricated for this work, each displaying different degrees of inhomogeneity; a relatively homogeneous NiV/Si diode, a Ti/Si and Cr/Si diode with double bumps at only the lowest temperatures, and a Nb/Si diode displaying extensive non-linearity. The 77–300 K IVT responses are modelled using a semi-automated implementation of Tung's electron transport model, and each of the diodes are well reproduced. However, in achieving this, it is revealed that each of the three key fitting parameters within the model display a significant temperature dependency. In analysing these dependencies, we reveal how a rise in thermal energy “activates” exponentially more interfacial patches, the activation rate being dependent on the carrier concentration at the patch saddle point (the patch's maximum barrier height), which in turn is linked to the relative homogeneity of each diode. Finally, in a review of Tung's model, problems in the divergence of the current paths at low temperature are explained to be inherent due to the simplification of an interface that will contain competing defects and inhomogeneities

Hybrid multiple diffraction in semipolar wurtzite materials: (0112)-oriented ZnMgO/ZnO heterostructures as an illustration

X-ray diffraction has been widely used to characterize the structural properties (strain and structural quality) of semiconductor heterostructures. This work employs hybrid multiple diffraction to analyze r-oriented Zn1xMgxO layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy on ZnO substrates. In such a low-symmetry material system, additional features appear in symmetric reflection scans, which are described as arising from hybrid multiple diffraction. First, the Bragg conditions necessary for these high-order processes to occur are introduced and applied to explain all the observed satellite reflections, identify the planes that contribute and compute a priori the angles at which they are observed. Furthermore, thanks to this hybrid multiple-diffraction technique, it is possible to determine the layer lattice parameters (in-plane and out-of-plane) in an easy and accurate way by using one single measurement in standard symmetric conditions. The achieved precision is at least as high as that obtained from the combination of symmetric and asymmetric reciprocal space map measurements