632 research outputs found

    Enhanced iron and zinc accumulation in genetically engineered wheat plants using sickle alfalfa (Medicago falcata L.) ferritin gene

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    Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional disorder, affecting over 30% of the world’s human population. The primary method used to alleviate this problem is nutrient biofortification of crops so as to improve the iron content and its availability in food sources. The over-expression of ferritin is an effective method to increase iron concentration in transgenic crops. For the research reported herein, sickle alfalfa (Medicago falcata L.) ferritin was transformed into wheat driven by the seed-storage protein glutelin GluB-1 gene promoter. The integration of ferritin into the wheat was assessed by PCR, RT-PCR and Western blotting. The concentration of certain minerals in the transgenic wheat grain was determined by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry, the results showed that grain Fe and Zn concentration of transgenic wheat increased by 73% and 44% compared to nontransformed wheat, respectively. However, grain Cu and Cd concentration of transgenic wheat grain decreased significantly in comparison with non-transformed wheat. The results suggest that the over-expression of sickle alfalfa ferritin, controlled by the seed-storage protein glutelin GluB-1 gene promoter, increases the grain Fe and Zn concentration, but also affects the homeostasis of other minerals in transgenic wheat grain

    Responses of chemical composition, amino acid and fatty acid profiles of breast muscle to dietary crude fibre levels in China Micro-Ducks

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    The effects of dietary crude fibre (CF) levels on the chemical composition, amino acid (AA) and fatty acid (FA) profiles of breast muscle in male China Micro-ducks (21 - 56 d) were investigated in this study. The birds were randomly allocated to four treatments, of which dietary CF levels were 16.7, 42.6, 77.9 and 101.6 g/kg of dry matter (DM), respectively. No influences on the proportions of crude ash, crude protein, lysine, methionine, threonine, phenylalanine, histidine, arginine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, glycine, alanine, serine, cysteine, tyrosine, proline, C12:0, C18:0, C18:1n9, C20:0 and C22:1n9 in muscle were observed across the treatments. Consequently, the concentrations of semi-essential AA, non-essential AA, total AA, aromatic AA and delicious AA in muscle, along with the Δ-9-desaturase (18) index, were not affected by the treatments. Significant lower concentrations of valine, leucine, isoleucine, essential AA, branched-chain AA, C16:1n7 and monounsaturated FA in muscle, along with a lower ratio of branched-chain to aromatic AA, were noted in a dietary treatment with a CF level of 16.7 g/kg DM compared to other dietary treatments. The rise of the dietary CF level significantly increased the proportions of DM, ether extract, gross energy, C18:2n6, C18:3n3, C20:4n6, unsaturated FA, total FA, polyunsaturated FA, n-3 polyunsaturated FA, n-6 polyunsaturated FA, essential FA, and the Δ-9-desaturase (16) index. Furthermore, the rise of the dietary CF level increased the ratios of unsaturated to saturated FA, polyunsaturated to saturated FA, and n-6 to n-3 polyunsaturated FA in muscle. However, it decreased the atherogenic index and the proportions of C14:0, C16:0, and saturated FA significantly. In conclusion, depending largely on dietary levels, CF profoundly and positively influenced the nutritional quality of breast muscle, especially the FA profile.Keywords: China Micro-duck, dietary fibre, fatty acid, nutritional quality of meat, fatty aci

    Nucleon-nucleon momentum correlation function for light nuclei

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    Nucleon-nucleon momentum correlation function have been presented for nuclear reactions with neutron-rich or proton-rich projectiles using a nuclear transport theory, namely Isospin-Dependent Quantum Molecular Dynamics model. The relationship between the binding energy of projectiles and the strength of proton-neutron correlation function at small relative momentum has been explored, while proton-proton correlation function shows its sensitivity to the proton density distribution. Those results show that nucleon-nucleon correlation function is useful to reflect some features of the neutron- or proton-halo nuclei and therefore provide a potential tool for the studies of radioactive beam physics.Comment: Talk given at the 18th International IUPAP Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (FB18), Santos, Brasil, August 21-26, 2006. To appear in Nucl. Phys.

    Effects of Allelic Variation in Glutenin Subunits and Gliadins on Baking-Quality in Near-isogenic Lines of Common Wheat cv. Longmai 19

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    Two lines, L-19-613 and L-19-626, were produced from the common wheat cultivar Longmai 19 (L-19) by six consecutive backcrosses using biochemical marker-assisted selection. L-19 (Glu-D1a, Glu-A3c/Gli-A1?; Gli-A1? is a gene coding for unnamed gliadin) and L-19-613 (Glu-D1d, Glu-A3c/Gli-A1?) formed a set of near-isogenic lines (NILs) for HMW-GS, while L-19-613 and L-19-626 (Glu-D1d, Glu-A3e/Gli-A1m) constituted another set of NILs for the LMW-GS/gliadins. The three L-19 NILs were grown in the wheat breeding nursery in 2007 and 2008. The field experiments were designed using the three-column contrast arrangement method with four replicates. The three lines were ranked as follows for measurements of gluten strength, which was determined by the gluten index, Zeleny sedimentation, the stability and breakdown time of the farinogram, the maximum resistance and area of the extensogram, and the P andWvalues of the alveogram: L-19-613 > L-19-626 > L-19. The parameters listed above were significantly different between lines at the 0.05 or 0.01 level. The Glu-D1 and Glu-A3/Gli-A1 loci had additive effects on the gluten index, Zeleny sedimentation, stability, breakdown time, maximum resistance, area, P and W values. Although genetic variation at the Glu-A3/Gli-A1 locus had a great influence on wheat quality, the genetic difference between Glu-D1d and Glu-D1a at the Glu-D1 locus was much larger than that of Glu-A3c/Gli-A1? and Glu-A3e/Gli-A1m at the Glu-A3/Gli-A1 locus. Glu-D1d had negative effects on the extensibility and the L value compared with Glu-D1a. In contrast, Glu-A3c/Gli-A1? had a positive effect on these traits compared with Glu-A3e/Gli-A1m

    Search for Invisible Decays of η\eta and ηâ€Č\eta^\prime in J/ψ→ϕηJ/\psi \to \phi\eta and ϕηâ€Č\phi \eta^\prime

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    Using a data sample of 58×10658\times 10^6 J/ψJ/\psi decays collected with the BES II detector at the BEPC, searches for invisible decays of η\eta and ηâ€Č\eta^\prime in J/ψJ/\psi to ϕη\phi\eta and ϕηâ€Č\phi\eta^\prime are performed. The ϕ\phi signals, which are reconstructed in K+K−K^+K^- final states, are used to tag the η\eta and ηâ€Č\eta^\prime decays. No signals are found for the invisible decays of either η\eta or ηâ€Č\eta^\prime, and upper limits at the 90% confidence level are determined to be 1.65×10−31.65 \times 10^{-3} for the ratio B(η→invisible)B(η→γγ)\frac{B(\eta\to \text{invisible})}{B(\eta\to\gamma\gamma)} and 6.69×10−26.69\times 10^{-2} for B(ηâ€Č→invisible)B(ηâ€Č→γγ)\frac{B(\eta^\prime\to \text{invisible})}{B(\eta^\prime\to\gamma\gamma)}. These are the first searches for η\eta and ηâ€Č\eta^\prime decays into invisible final states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; Added references, Corrected typo

    Observation of Two New N* Peaks in J/psi -> ppi−nˉp pi^- \bar n and pˉπ+n\bar p\pi^+n Decays

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    The πN\pi N system in decays of J/ψ→NˉNπJ/\psi\to\bar NN\pi is limited to be isospin 1/2 by isospin conservation. This provides a big advantage in studying N∗→πNN^*\to \pi N compared with πN\pi N and ÎłN\gamma N experiments which mix isospin 1/2 and 3/2 for the πN\pi N system. Using 58 million J/ψJ/\psi decays collected with the Beijing Electron Positron Collider, more than 100 thousand J/ψ→pπ−nˉ+c.c.J/\psi \to p \pi^- \bar n + c.c. events are obtained. Besides two well known N∗N^* peaks at 1500 MeV and 1670 MeV, there are two new, clear N∗N^* peaks in the pπp\pi invariant mass spectrum around 1360 MeV and 2030 MeV. They are the first direct observation of the N∗(1440)N^*(1440) peak and a long-sought "missing" N∗N^* peak above 2 GeV in the πN\pi N invariant mass spectrum. A simple Breit-Wigner fit gives the mass and width for the N∗(1440)N^*(1440) peak as 1358±6±161358\pm 6 \pm 16 MeV and 179±26±50179\pm 26\pm 50 MeV, and for the new N∗N^* peak above 2 GeV as 2068±3−40+152068\pm 3^{+15}_{-40} MeV and 165±14±40165\pm 14\pm 40 MeV, respectively

    Applicability of perturbative QCD to Λb→Λc\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c decays

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    We develop perturbative QCD factorization theorem for the semileptonic heavy baryon decay Λb→ΛclΜˉ\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c l\bar{\nu}, whose form factors are expressed as the convolutions of hard bb quark decay amplitudes with universal Λb\Lambda_b and Λc\Lambda_c baryon wave functions. Large logarithmic corrections are organized to all orders by the Sudakov resummation, which renders perturbative expansions more reliable. It is observed that perturbative QCD is applicable to Λb→Λc\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c decays for velocity transfer greater than 1.2. Under requirement of heavy quark symmetry, we predict the branching ratio B(Λb→ΛclΜˉ)∌2B(\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c l{\bar\nu})\sim 2%, and determine the Λb\Lambda_b and Λc\Lambda_c baryon wave functions.Comment: 12 pages in Latex file, 3 figures in postscript files, some results are changed, but the conclusion is the sam
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