Glucanase Inhibitor Protein (GIP)

Several key cellular events, such as adhesion to the host surface, penetration, and colonization of host tissue, take place during plant infection by oomycetes that can also manipulate biochemical and physiological processes in their host plants through a diverse array of virulence or avirulence molecules, known as effectors (Birch et al. 2006; Ellis et al. 2006; Kamoun 2007; Schornack et al. 2009). In susceptible plants, these effectors promote infection by suppressing defense responses, enhancing susceptibility, or inducing disease symptoms. In resistant plants, the products of the resistance genes are able to recognize the effectors, promoting an efective defense response known as hypersensitive response (HR) which restricts the pathogen to an area of scorched earth besides host cell death (Kamoun 2003; Kamoun 2007; Schornack et al. 2009). Phytophthora effectors that suppress host defense responses have be ...info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Expressed sequence tags from the oomycete fish pathogen Saprolegnia parasitica reveal putative virulence factors

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Stranger in a strange land:the experiences of immigrant researchers

Continuing with our Q&A series discussing issues of diversity in STEM fields, Genome Biology spoke with three researchers on their experiences as immigrants.  International collaborations are key to advancing scientific research globally and often require mobility on the part of researchers. Migration of scientists enables the spread of ideas and skills around the world, giving researchers the opportunity to follow the best resources. Of course, migration adds a new set of challenges to the already monumental task of starting and running a lab. Genome Biology spoke to Sophien Kamoun, Rosa Lozano-Durán, and Luay Nakhleh about their personal experiences

Role assigning and taking in cloud computing

The widespread use of cloud computing (CC) has brought to the forefront information technology (IT) governance issues, rendering the lack of expertise in handling CC-based IT controls a major challenge for business enterprises and other societal organizations. In the cloud-computing context, this study identifies and ranks the determinants of role assigning and taking by IT people. The study’s integrative research links CC and IT governance to humane arrangements, as it validates and ranks role assigning and taking components through in-depth interviews with twelve IT decision-makers and forty-four Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) members, engaged as panelists in a Delphi technique implementation. The empirical results recognize skills and competencies as prioritized determinants of IT controls, while IT security, risk and compliance emerge as capabilities crucial to evaluate and manage CC service providers. Despite the study’s generalizability limitations, its findings highlight future research paths and provide practical guidelines toward the high technology of open-market IT self-governance. The latter entails the humane flows of collegial control and responsibility, as opposed to the inhumane flows of authority and power, under the sequestered technique of the bureaucratically-hierarchized IT hetero-governanc

Meeting report:Fungal genomics meets social media: Highlights of the 28th fungal genetics conference at asilomar

International audienc

Preparation and characterization of water-absorbing composite membrane for medical applications

The present work introduces a novel method for the formation of water absorbing composite membrane. The prepared composite is based on chitosan, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), and Montmorillonite. Prepared composite membrane exhibits high water absorbing and holding capacity with increasing clay content. The water absorbency was studied as a function of the hydrogel composition and the medium pH. Structure and morphologies of the prepared composite have been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), and transmission electron microscope (TEM). TEM study showed that the formed membrane is homogenous and prepared uniformly.Keywords: Composite, clay, superabsorber, chitosan, carboxymethyl cellulose, composite membrane

Suppression of Cdc27B expression induces plant defence responses

Non-host resistance is the most general form of disease resistance in plants because it is effective against most phytopathogens. The importance of hypersensitive responses (HRs) in non-host resistance of Nicotiana species to the oomycete Phytophthora is clear. INF1 elicitin, an elicitor obtained from the late-blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans, is sufficient to induce a typical HR in Nicotiana species. The molecular mechanisms that underlie the non-host resistance component of plant defence responses have been investigated using differential-display polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in a model HR system between INF1 elicitin and tobacco BY-2 cells. Differential-display PCR has revealed that Cdc27B is down-regulated in tobacco BY- 2 cells after treatment with INF1 elicitin. Cdc27B is one of 13 essential components of the anaphase- promoting complex or cyclosome ( APC/ C)-type E3 ubiquitin ligase complex in yeast. This APC/C-type E3 ubiquitin ligase complex regulates G2-to-M phase transition of the cell cycle by proteolytic degradation. In this study, we investigated the roles of this gene, NbCdc27B, in plant defence responses using virus-induced gene silencing. Suppression of NbCdc27B in Nicotiana benthamiana plants induced defence responses and a gain of resistance to Colletotrichum lagenarium fungus. Elicitin-induced hypersensitive cell death (HCD) was inhibited mildly in plants silenced with tobacco rattle virus:: Cdc27B. Cdc27B could manage the signalling pathways of plant defence responses as a negative regulator without HCD.</p

New Horizons for Plant Translational Research

The world’s human population continues to expand and is predicted to reach ~9 billion by 2040, up from its current level of just over 7 billion. Some estimate that with this rate of population growth, accommodating the increased demand for food will require the world’s agricultural production to increase 50% by 2030. The planet’s water resources are also under pressure. As Pamela Ronald highlights in her accompanying Essay, the amount of fresh water available per person has decreased 4-fold in the last 60 years and of the water that is available ~70% is already used for agriculture. Thus, agricultural production must be intensified to feed more people with less water on the same amount of land (given that little undeveloped arable land remains and what does is being lost to urbanization, desertification, and environmental damage). Furthermore, pathogens that cause devastating crop losses continue to spread in the face of increased global commerce and climate change. Given these challenges, there is a pressing need for plant research to produce solutions to ensure food security in a sustainable and safe way. The need is acute in both developed countries and in the less developed parts of the world, where many people endure chronic malnutrition and suffer the long term consequences on their health and well being. Plant scientists, therefore, urgently need to increase the productivity, pathogen resistance, and sustainability of existing crops, and are challenged to domesticate new crops

Использование технологии критического мышления в обучении слушателей английскому языку на примере учебной дисциплины "Чтение иноязычных текстов"

Разработан сценарий практического занятия для дисциплины "Чтение иноязычных текстов" для слушателей 2 ступени обучения (английский язык) в рамках программы повышения квалификации ППС на основе базовой модели технологии критического мышления, проведен анализ и сопоставление целей и задач базовой модели технологии критического мышления и дисциплины "Чтение иноязычных текстов"

Cutting Edge: Lessons from fraxinus, a crowd-sourced citizen science game in genomics

In 2013, in response to an epidemic of ash dieback disease in England the previous year, we launched a Facebook-based game called Fraxinus to enable non-scientists to contribute to genomics studies of the pathogen that causes the disease and the ash trees that are devastated by it. Over a period of 51 weeks players were able to match computational alignments of genetic sequences in 78% of cases, and to improve them in 15% of cases. We also found that most players were only transiently interested in the game, and that the majority of the work done was performed by a small group of dedicated players. Based on our experiences we have built a linear model for the length of time that contributors are likely to donate to a crowd-sourced citizen science project. This model could serve a guide for the design and implementation of future crowd-sourced citizen science initiatives