369 research outputs found
Cloning and Functional Analysis of three Cold Regulated <em>CBF</em> Genes in the Overwintering Crucifer <em>Boechera stricta</em>
In this research, we isolated three CBF (C-repeat-Binding Factors) genes from two genotypes of Boechera stricta with contrasting freezing tolerance and characterized their structure and expression patterns in response to cold treatment. An amino acid sequence comparison revealed that the CBF genes in B. stricta showed high conservation in the AP2 domain and PKKP/RAGR motif like other cold adaptable Brassicaceae. The pairwise sequence alignment of the CBF genes isolated from two genotypes of B. stricta showed non-synonymous mutations in CBF 2 and 3. Gene expression analysis demonstrated that CBF genes in B. stricta have expression patterns similar to CBFs in A. thaliana in response to cold treatment, while differential expression at the molecular level in CBF and COR genes was presented between two genotypes of B. stricta. Our results suggest that signal transduction of three CBF genes can be one of the central pathways in the development of freezing tolerance in B. stricta
Induced ferroelectric phases in TbMn_2O_5
The magnetostructural transitions and magnetoelectric effects reported in
TbMn2O5 are described theoretically and shown to correspond to two essentially
different mechanisms for the induced ferroelectricity. The incommensurate and
commensurate phases observed between 38 and 24 K exhibit a hybrid pseudoproper
ferroelectric nature resulting from an effective bilinear coupling of the
polarization with the antiferromagnetic order parameter. This explains the high
sensitivity of the dielectric properties of the material under applied magnetic
field. Below 24 K the incommensurate phase shows a standard improper
ferroelectric character induced by the coupling of two distinct magnetic order
parameters. The complex dielectric behavior observed in the material reflects
the crossover from one to the other transition regime. The temperature
dependences of the pertinent physical quantities are worked out, and previous
theoretical models are discussed
Statistical similarity between the compression of a porous material and earthquakes
It has been long stated that there are profound analogies between fracture
experiments and earthquakes; however, few works attempt a complete
characterization of the parallelisms between these so separate phenomena. We
study the Acoustic Emission events produced during the compression of Vycor
(SiO2). The Gutenberg-Richter law, the modified Omori's law, and the law of
aftershock productivity are found to hold for a minimum of 5 decades, are
independent of the compression rate, and keep stationary for all the duration
of the experiments. The waiting-time distribution fulfills a unified scaling
law with a power-law exponent close to 2.45 for long times, which is explained
in terms of the temporal variations of the activity rate.Comment: 4 pages and a bit more, 4 figure
Finite strain Landau theory of high pressure phase transformations
The properties of materials near structural phase transitions are often
successfully described in the framework of Landau theory. While the focus is
usually on phase transitions, which are induced by temperature changes
approaching a critical temperature T-c, here we will discuss structural phase
transformations driven by high hydrostatic pressure, as they are of major
importance for understanding processes in the interior of the earth. Since at
very high pressures the deformations of a material are generally very large,
one needs to apply a fully nonlinear description taking physical as well as
geometrical nonlinearities (finite strains) into account. In particular it is
necessary to retune conventional Landau theory to describe such phase
transitions. In Troster et al (2002 Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 55503) we constructed a
Landau-type free energy based on an order parameter part, an order
parameter-(finite) strain coupling and a nonlinear elastic term. This model
provides an excellent and efficient framework for the systematic study of phase
transformations for a wide range of materials up to ultrahigh pressures
О некоторых тенденциях, осложнивших в начале ХХI века перспективы курортно-рекреационного развития Крыма
Целью работы явился анализ взаимовлияния различных факторов, сужающих потенциал туристско-рекреационной привлекательности Крыма, для уточнения возможностей объективного прогнозирования его перспективного развития
Confinement effects on glass forming liquids probed by DMA
Many molecular glass forming liquids show a shift of the glass transition T-g
to lower temperatures when the liquid is confined into mesoporous host
matrices. Two contrary explanations for this effect are given in literature:
First, confinement induced acceleration of the dynamics of the molecules leads
to an effective downshift of T-g increasing with decreasing pore size. Second,
due to thermal mismatch between the liquid and the surrounding host matrix,
negative pressure develops inside the pores with decreasing temperature, which
also shifts T-g to lower temperatures. Here we present dynamic mechanical
analysis measurements of the glass forming liquid salol in Vycor and Gelsil
with pore sizes of d=2.6, 5.0 and 7.5 nm. The dynamic complex elastic
susceptibility data can be consistently described with the assumption of two
relaxation processes inside the pores: A surface induced slowed down relaxation
due to interaction with rough pore interfaces and a second relaxation within
the core of the pores. This core relaxation time is reduced with decreasing
pore size d, leading to a downshift of T-g proportional to 1/d in perfect
agreement with recent differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements.
Thermal expansion measurements of empty and salol filled mesoporous samples
revealed that the contribution of negative pressure to the downshift of T-g is
small (<30%) and the main effect is due to the suppression of dynamically
correlated regions of size xi when the pore size xi approaches
Whole Genome and Tandem Duplicate Retention facilitated Glucosinolate Pathway Diversification in the Mustard Family.
Plants share a common history of successive whole genome duplication (WGD) events retaining genomic patterns of duplicate gene copies (ohnologs) organized in conserved syntenic blocks. Duplication was often proposed to affect the origin of novel traits during evolution. However, genetic evidence linking WGD to pathway diversification is scarce. We show that WGD and Tandem Duplication (TD) accelerated genetic versatility of plant secondary metabolism, exemplified with the glucosinolate (GS) pathway in the Mustard Family. GS biosynthesis is a well-studied trait, employing at least 52 biosynthetic and regulatory genes in the model plant Arabidopsis. In a phylogenomics approach, we identified 67 GS loci in Aethionema arabicum of the tribe Aethionemae, sister group to all Mustard Family members. All but one of the Arabidopsis GS gene families evolved orthologs in Aethionema and all but one of the orthologous sequence pairs exhibit synteny. The 45% fraction of duplicates among all protein-coding genes in Arabidopsis was increased to 95 and 97% for Arabidopsis and Aethionema GS pathway inventory, respectively. Compared to the 22% average for all protein-coding genes in Arabidopsis, 52 and 56% of Aethionema and Arabidopsis GS loci align to ohnolog copies dating back to the last common WGD event. While 15% of all Arabidopsis genes are organized in tandem arrays, 45% and 48% of GS loci in Arabidopsis and Aethionema descend from TD, respectively. We describe a sequential combination of tandem- and whole genome duplication events driving gene family extension, thereby expanding the evolutionary playground for functional diversification and thus potential novelty and success
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