Ecological and Evolutionary Benefits of Temperate Phage: What Does or Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

Infection by a temperate phage can lead to death of the bacterial cell, but sometimes these phages integrate into the bacterial chromosome, offering the potential for a more long-lasting relationship to be established. Here we define three major ecological and evolutionary benefits of temperate phage for bacteria: as agents of horizontal gene transfer (HGT), as sources of genetic variation for evolutionary innovation, and as weapons of bacterial competition. We suggest that a coevolutionary perspective is required to understand the roles of temperate phages in bacterial populations

Constitutively active Smad2/3 are broad scope potentiators of transcription factor-mediated cellular reprogramming

Reprogramming of cellular identity using exogenous expression of transcription factors (TFs) is a powerful and exciting tool for tissue engineering, disease modeling, and regenerative medicine. However, generation of desired cell types using this approach is often plagued by inefficiency, slow conversion, and an inability to produce mature functional cells. Here, we show that expression of constitutively active SMAD2/3 significantly improves the efficiency of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) generation by the Yamanaka factors. Mechanistically, SMAD3 interacts with reprogramming factors and co-activators and co-occupies OCT4 target loci during reprogramming. Unexpectedly, active SMAD2/3 also markedly enhances three other TF-mediated direct reprogramming conversions, from B cells to macrophages, myoblasts to adipocytes, and human fibroblasts to neurons, highlighting broad and general roles for SMAD2/3 as cell-reprogramming potentiators. Our results suggest that co-expression of active SMAD2/3 could enhance multiple types of TF-based cell identity conversion and therefore be a powerful tool for cellular engineering. Ruetz et al. show that constitutively active SMAD2/3 has a surprising ability to boost the efficiency of cell reprogramming both to iPSCs and across lineages and may therefore be a general factor that can enhance transcription-factor-mediated reprogramming in a variety of contexts

Social comparison processes in organizations

We systematically analyze the role of social comparison processes in organizations. Specifically, we describe how social comparison processes have been used to explain six key areas of organizational inquiry: (1) organizational justice, (2) performance appraisal, (3) virtual work environments, (4) affective behavior in the workplace, (5) stress, and (6) leadership. Additionally, we describe how unique contextual factors in organizations offer new insight into two widely studied sub-processes of social comparison, acquiring social information and thinking about that information. Our analyses underscore the merit of integrating organizational phenomena and social comparison processes in future research and theory

Managing Phenol Contents in Crop Plants by Phytochemical Farming and Breeding—Visions and Constraints

Two main fields of interest form the background of actual demand for optimized levels of phenolic compounds in crop plants. These are human health and plant resistance to pathogens and to biotic and abiotic stress factors. A survey of agricultural technologies influencing the biosynthesis and accumulation of phenolic compounds in crop plants is presented, including observations on the effects of light, temperature, mineral nutrition, water management, grafting, elevated atmospheric CO2, growth and differentiation of the plant and application of elicitors, stimulating agents and plant activators. The underlying mechanisms are discussed with respect to carbohydrate availability, trade-offs to competing demands as well as to regulatory elements. Outlines are given for genetic engineering and plant breeding. Constraints and possible physiological feedbacks are considered for successful and sustainable application of agricultural techniques with respect to management of plant phenol profiles and concentrations