Highly efficient inoculation method of apple viruses to apple seedlings

Virus inoculation to original plants is an important step in research for many reasons. For example, it is used to satisfy Koch’s postulates, to test resistance to viruses in breeding programs, and to analyze gene function by virus vectors etc. However, it is generally difficult to inoculate viruses to woody fruit trees like apple, and an efficient inoculation method has not been developed thus far. In this study, we showed that a biolistic inoculation of total RNAs from infected tissues or virus RNAs resulted in a high infection rate in apple seedlings. Total RNAs extracted from Chenopodium quinoa leaves infected with Apple latent spherical virus (ALSV) or Apple chlorotic leaf spot virus (ACLSV) and ALSV- RNAs from purified virus were biolistically inoculated to the cotyledons of apple seedlings by a Helios Gene Gun system (BIO-RAD) or a PDS-1000/He Particle Delivery System (BIO-RAD). Analysis of true leaves 2-4 weeks after inoculation by Northern blot hybridization, RT-PCR, or ELISA showed that 36 out of 38 plants (95%) inoculated with total RNAs from ALSV-infected tissues, 39 out of 41 plants (95%) inoculated with ALSV-RNAs, and 6 out of 7 plants (86%) inoculated with total RNAs from ACLSV-infected tissues were infected with each virus. Thus, the biolistic inoculation of total RNAs from infected tissues or virus RNAs from purified virus to apple seedlings is found to be an efficient inoculation method of apple viruses. We think that the method can be applied to other virus-fruit tree combinations.Keywords: ALSV, ACLSV, biolistic inoculation, apple, cotyledo

Large-scale distributions of mid- and far-infrared emission from the center to the halo of M82 revealed with AKARI

The edge-on starburst galaxy M82 exhibits complicated distributions of gaseous materials in its halo, which include ionized superwinds driven by nuclear starbursts, neutral materials entrained by the superwinds, and large-scale neutral streamers probably caused by a past tidal interaction with M81. We investigate detailed distributions of dust grains and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) around M82 to understand their interplay with the gaseous components. We performed mid- (MIR) and far-infrared (FIR) observations of M82 with the Infrared Camera and Far-Infrared Surveyor on board AKARI. We obtain new MIR and FIR images of M82, which reveal both faint extended emission in the halo and very bright emission in the center with signal dynamic ranges as large as five and three orders of magnitude for the MIR and FIR, respectively. We detect MIR and FIR emission in the regions far away from the disk of the galaxy, reflecting the presence of dust and PAHs in the halo of M82. We find that the dust and PAHs are contained in both ionized and neutral gas components, implying that they have been expelled into the halo of M82 by both starbursts and galaxy interaction. In particular, we obtain a tight correlation between the PAH and H$\alpha$ emission, which provides evidence that the PAHs are well mixed in the ionized superwind gas and outflowing from the disk.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Fermionic One-Loop Corrections to Soliton Energies in 1+1 Dimensions

We demonstrate an unambiguous and robust method for computing fermionic corrections to the energies of classical background field configurations. We consider the particular case of a sequence of background field configurations that interpolates continuously between the trivial vacuum and a widely separated soliton/antisoliton pair in 1+1 dimensions. Working in the continuum, we use phase shifts, the Born approximation, and Levinson's theorem to avoid ambiguities of renormalization procedure and boundary conditions. We carry out the calculation analytically at both ends of the interpolation and numerically in between, and show how the relevant physical quantities vary continuously. In the process, we elucidate properties of the fermionic phase shifts and zero modes.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, uses BoxedEPS;v2: fixed numerical error in figure dat

HSPH1 (heat shock 105kDa/110kDa protein 1)

Review on HSPH1 (heat shock 105kDa/110kDa protein 1), with data on DNA, on the protein encoded, and where the gene is implicated

Energy, Central Charge, and the BPS Bound for 1+1 Dimensional Supersymmetric Solitons

We consider one-loop quantum corrections to soliton energies and central charges in the supersymmetric $\phi^4$ and sine-Gordon models in 1+1 dimensions. In both models, we unambiguously calculate the correction to the energy in a simple renormalization scheme and obtain $\Delta H = - m/(2\pi)$, in agreement with previous results. Furthermore, we show that there is an identical correction to the central charge, so that the BPS bound remains saturated in the one-loop approximation. We extend these results to arbitrary 1+1 dimensional supersymmetric theories.Comment: 15 pages, RevTeX; v2: generalized energy result, added minor clarifications, and fixed typos; v3: more minor clarifications and corrections; v4: fixed factor of 2 in eq. (25); v5: fixed minor error in eq. (55