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Not AvailableSoils of large areas of the globe are affected by deficiency or toxicity of iron (Fe), making it one of the major limitations to higher productivity of rice. Deficiency of Fe, an essential micronutrient for growth and development of rice, produces grain with low Fe-content. Consumption of low-Fe rice causes malnutrition affecting human health. Biofortification is an easy and low-cost way to enhance Fe content in rice, the staple food of more than half of the global population. Identification of relevant quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and genes controlling the stresses are needed for developing tolerant genotype(s). Fe deficiency is commonly observed in alkaline and aerobic soils, while toxicity is seen in low pH soils of lowland rice ecology. Rice plants cope up under deficiency or toxicity conditions through various morphological, physiological and differential gene expression strategies.Rice plant uses various transporter genes like OsNAS1, OsNAS2, OsIRT1, OsIRT2, OsNRAMP1, OsYSL15 and OsYSL16 under deficiency stress while OsIRT1, OsFRO2, OsVIT1, OsVIT2, OsNRAMP6, OsNAAT1, OsNAS3, OsNAC4, OsNAC5 and OsNAC6 under toxicity condition are involved for Fe homeostasis. Several QTLs including qFe3:1, qFe3:2, qFe7:1, qFe9:1, qFe9:2, qFe10:1, Fe11:1, qFe3.3 and qFe7.3 associated with grain-Fe content have been identified. Many Fe binding and transporters genes like OsZIP1, OsHMA4, OsACA2, OsZIP2, OsCNGC, OsZIP3, OsZIP5, OsZIP9, OsHma2, ABC transporter, OsNAS3, heavy metal transporter, Chy zinc finger and OsACA9 have been identified to improve grain-Fe content. Donor lines for grain-Fe content have been identified from rice germplasms showing even up to 147 μg g−1 in brown rice. Fe content in rice grain has been enhanced to many folds using ferritin genes of soybean and common bean, NAS gene and mugineic acid synthase genes (HvNAS1 and HvNAAT-A,-B or IDS3) of barley, nicotianamine transporter gene (OsYSL2) and nicotinamine synthase genes (OsNAS1, OsNAS2 and OsNAS3) through transgenic approach. The paper analyses the mechanisms of tolerance to Fe-deficiency and toxicity, identification of genes/QTLs responsible for tolerance under the stresses and helping for biofortification, assesses the stress affected symptoms, reviews the screening and summarizes the efforts for breeding programs for improving tolerance to Fe-deficiency and toxicity in rice.Not Availabl

Metal Halide Perovskite Polycrystalline Films Exhibiting Properties of Single Crystals

Metal halide perovskites are generating enormous excitement for use in solar cells and light-emission applications, but devices still show substantial non-radiative losses. Here, we show that by combining light and atmospheric treatments, we can increase the internal luminescence quantum efficiencies of polycrystalline perovskite films from 1% to 89%, with carrier lifetimes of 32 μs and diffusion lengths of 77 μm, comparable with perovskite single crystals. Remarkably, the surface recombination velocity of holes in the treated films is 0.4 cm/s, approaching the values for fully passivated crystalline silicon, which has the lowest values for any semiconductor to date. The enhancements translate to solar cell power-conversion efficiencies of 19.2%, with a near-instant rise to stabilized power output, consistent with suppression of ion migration. We propose a mechanism in which light creates superoxide species from oxygen that remove shallow surface states. The work reveals an industrially scalable post-treatment capable of producing state-of-the-art semiconducting films.S.D.S. has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (Marie Curie Actions) under REA grant number PIOF-GA-2013-622630. This work made use of the Shared Experimental Facilities supported in part by the MRSEC Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) under award number MDR – 1419807. R.B. acknowledges support from the MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). A.O. acknowledges support from the NSF under grant no. 1605406 (EP/L000202). D.G. acknowledges the China Scholarship Council for funding, file no. 201504910812. The authors acknowledge funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under EP/P02484X/1 and the Programme Grant EP/M005143/1. M.S.I. and C.E. acknowledge support from the EPSRC Program grant on Energy Materials (EP/KO16288) and the Archer HPC/MCC Consortium (EP/L000202). E.M.H. gratefully acknowledges the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Echo number 712.014.007 for funding. The work was also partially supported by Eni S.p.A. via the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. The authors thank Mengfei Wu and Marc Baldo for access to an integrating sphere, Jay Patel and Michael Johnston for EQE verifications, and Eli Yablonovitch and Luis Pazos-Outón for helpful discussion

Paternal obesity is associated with IGF2 hypomethylation in newborns: results from a Newborn Epigenetics Study (NEST) cohort

Data from epidemiological and animal model studies suggest that nutrition during pregnancy may affect the health status of subsequent generations. These transgenerational effects are now being explained by disruptions at the level of the epigenetic machinery. Besides in vitro environmental exposures, the possible impact on the reprogramming of methylation profiles at imprinted genes at a much earlier time point, such as during spermatogenesis or oogenesis, has not previously been considered. In this study, our aim was to determine associations between preconceptional obesity and DNA methylation profiles in the offspring, particularly at the differentially methylated regions (DMRs) of the imprinted Insulin-like Growth Factor 2 (IGF2) gene

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Purification of bluetongue virus (BTV) group-specific VP7 protein, expressed in prokaryotic system as histidine-tagged fusion protein is described in the present study. The major antigenic portion of VP7 gene of BTV 23 was amplified from the extracted RNA by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and cloned. The recombinant expression construct (pET-VP7) was identified by the polymerase chain reaction and sequencing analysis. Expression of histidine-tagged fusion truncated VP7 protein with a molecular mass of 36 kDa was determined by Western blot analysis using anti-His antibody. The expressed VP7 was purified to near homogeneity by chromatography on nickel-agarose column as judged by sodium dodesyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis. The purified VP7 protein was recognized by antibody to BTV in Western blot analysis. The capability of the recombinant VP7 protein to differentiate hyperimmune serum of rabbit to BTV from normal rabbit serum was evident in the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The purified VP7 reacted well with the 24 BTV serotype-specific sera obtained from OIE Reference Laboratory on bluetongue. Our results indicated that the expressed VP7 protein could be used as antigen for development of antibody-capture ELISA for detection BTV group-specific antibodies. This recombinant protein may also be used as antigen in competitive ELISA format

Optogenetic Control of Subcellular Protein Location and Signaling in Vertebrate Embryos.

This chapter describes the use of optogenetic heterodimerization in single cells within whole-vertebrate embryos. This method allows the use of light to reversibly bind together an "anchor" protein and a "bait" protein. Proteins can therefore be directed to specific subcellular compartments, altering biological processes such as cell polarity and signaling. I detail methods for achieving transient expression of fusion proteins encoding the phytochrome heterodimerization system in early zebrafish embryos (Buckley et al., Dev Cell 36(1):117-126, 2016) and describe the imaging parameters used to achieve subcellular light patterning