Expression profiling of candidate genes in sugar beet leaves treated with leonardite-based biostimulant

Leonardite-based biostimulants are a large class of compounds, including humic acid substances. Foliar application of biostimulants at field level improves plant growth, yield and quality through metabolic changes and stimulation of plant proton pumps. The present study aimed at identifying optimum dosage of BLACKJAK, a humic acid-based substance, which is able to modify genes involved in sugar beet growth. Thirty-three genes belonging to various biochemical pathway categories were tested in leaves of treated sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) samples to assess gene expression profiling in response to BLACKJAK. Seedlings of a diploid and multigerm variety were grown in plastic pots and sprayed with two dilutions of BLACKJAK (dilution 1:500-1.0 mg C L-1 and dilution 1:1000-0.5 mg C L-1). Leaf samples were collected after 24, 48, and 72 h treatment with BLACKJAK for each dilution. RNA was extracted and the quantification of gene expression was performed while using an OpenArray platform. Results of analysis of variance demonstrated that, 15 genes out of a total of 33 genes tested with OpenArray qPCR were significantly affected by treatment and exposure time. Analysis for annotation of gene products and pathways revealed that genes belonging to the mitochondrial respiratory pathways, nitrogen and hormone metabolisms, and nutrient uptake were up-regulated in the BLACKJAK treated samples. Among the up-regulated genes, Bv_PHT2;1 and Bv_GLN1 expression exerted a 2-fold change in 1:1000 and 1:500 BLACKJAK concentrations. Overall, the gene expression data in the BLACKJAK treated leaves demonstrated the induction of plant growth-related genes that were contributed almost to amino acid and nitrogen metabolism, plant defense system, and plant growth

A contiguous de novo genome assembly of sugar beet EL10 (Beta vulgaris L.)

A contiguous assembly of the inbred ‘EL10’ sugar beet (Beta vulgaris ssp. vulgaris) genome was constructed using PacBio long-read sequencing, BioNano optical mapping, Hi-C scaffolding, and Illumina short-read error correction. The EL10.1 assembly was 540 Mb, of which 96.2% was contained in nine chromosome-sized pseudomolecules with lengths from 52 to 65 Mb, and 31 contigs with a median size of 282 kb that remained unassembled. Gene annotation incorporating RNA-seq data and curated sequences via the MAKER annotation pipeline generated 24,255 gene models. Results indicated that the EL10.1 genome assembly is a contiguous genome assembly highly congruent with the published sugar beet reference genome. Gross duplicate gene analyses of EL10.1 revealed little large-scale intra-genome duplication. Reduced gene copy number for well-annotated gene families relative to other core eudicots was observed, especially for transcription factors. Variation in genome size in B. vulgaris was investigated by flow cytometry among 50 individuals producing estimates from 633 to 875 Mb/1C. Read-depth mapping with short-read whole-genome sequences from other sugar beet germplasm suggested that relatively few regions of the sugar beet genome appeared associated with high-copy number variation

Improving the hyperpolarization of (31)p nuclei by synthetic design

Traditional (31)P NMR or MRI measurements suffer from low sensitivity relative to (1)H detection and consequently require longer scan times. We show here that hyperpolarization of (31)P nuclei through reversible interactions with parahydrogen can deliver substantial signal enhancements in a range of regioisomeric phosphonate esters containing a heteroaromatic motif which were synthesized in order to identify the optimum molecular scaffold for polarization transfer. A 3588-fold (31)P signal enhancement (2.34% polarization) was returned for a partially deuterated pyridyl substituted phosphonate ester. This hyperpolarization level is sufficient to allow single scan (31)P MR images of a phantom to be recorded at a 9.4 T observation field in seconds that have signal-to-noise ratios of up to 94.4 when the analyte concentration is 10 mM. In contrast, a 12 h 2048 scan measurement under standard conditions yields a signal-to-noise ratio of just 11.4. (31)P-hyperpolarized images are also reported from a 7 T preclinical scanner

The Physics of the B Factories

This work is on the Physics of the B Factories. Part A of this book contains a brief description of the SLAC and KEK B Factories as well as their detectors, BaBar and Belle, and data taking related issues. Part B discusses tools and methods used by the experiments in order to obtain results. The results themselves can be found in Part C