A Versatile High Throughput Screening Platform for Plant Metabolic Engineering Highlights the Major Role of ABI3 in Lipid Metabolism Regulation

Traditional functional genetic studies in crops are time consuming, complicated andcannot be readily scaled up. The reason is that mutant or transformed crops need tobe generated to study the effect of gene modifications on specific traits of interest.However, many crop species have a complex genome and a long generation time. Asa result, it usually takes several months to over a year to obtain desired mutants ortransgenic plants, which represents a significant bottleneck in the development of newcrop varieties. To overcome this major issue, we are currently establishing a versatileplant genetic screening platform, amenable to high throughput screening in almost anycrop species, with a unique workflow. This platform combines protoplast transformationand fluorescence activated cell sorting. Here we show that tobacco protoplasts canaccumulate high levels of lipid if transiently transformed with genes involved in lipidbiosynthesis and can be sorted based on lipid content. Hence, protoplasts can be usedas a predictive tool for plant lipid engineering. Using this newly established strategy, wedemonstrate the major role ofABI3in plant lipid accumulation. We anticipate that thisworkflow can be applied to numerous highly valuable metabolic traits other than storagelipid accumulation. This new strategy represents a significant step toward screeningcomplex genetic libraries, in a single experiment and in a matter of days, as opposed toyears by conventional means.This work was partly funded through the CSIRO Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform and the CSIRO Research Office CERC Postdoctoral Fellowship schem

The Road to Servomechanisms: The Influence of Cybernetics on Hayek from the Sensory Order to the Social Order

This paper explores the ways in which c ybernetics influenced the works of F. A. Hayek from the late 1940s onwar d. It shows that the concept of negative feedback, borrowed from cybernetics, was central to Hayek's attempt of giving an explanation of the principle to the emergence of human purposive behavior. Next, the paper discusses Ha yek's later uses of cybernetic ideas in his works on the spontaneous formation of social orders. Finally, Hayek's view on the appropriate scope of the use of cybernetics is considered

Catalysis of iron core formation in Pyrococcus furiosus ferritin

The hollow sphere-shaped 24-meric ferritin can store large amounts of iron as a ferrihydrite-like mineral core. In all subunits of homomeric ferritins and in catalytically active subunits of heteromeric ferritins a diiron binding site is found that is commonly addressed as the ferroxidase center (FC). The FC is involved in the catalytic Fe(II) oxidation by the protein; however, structural differences among different ferritins may be linked to different mechanisms of iron oxidation. Non-heme ferritins are generally believed to operate by the so-called substrate FC model in which the FC cycles by filling with Fe(II), oxidizing the iron, and donating labile Fe(III)–O–Fe(III) units to the cavity. In contrast, the heme-containing bacterial ferritin from Escherichia coli has been proposed to carry a stable FC that indirectly catalyzes Fe(II) oxidation by electron transfer from a core that oxidizes Fe(II). Here, we put forth yet another mechanism for the non-heme archaeal 24-meric ferritin from Pyrococcus furiosus in which a stable iron-containing FC acts as a catalytic center for the oxidation of Fe(II), which is subsequently transferred to a core that is not involved in Fe(II)-oxidation catalysis. The proposal is based on optical spectroscopy and steady-state kinetic measurements of iron oxidation and dioxygen consumption by apoferritin and by ferritin preloaded with different amounts of iron. Oxidation of the first 48 Fe(II) added to apoferritin is spectrally and kinetically different from subsequent iron oxidation and this is interpreted to reflect FC building followed by FC-catalyzed core formation

Selective Ion Changes during Spontaneous Mitochondrial Transients in Intact Astrocytes

The bioenergetic status of cells is tightly regulated by the activity of cytosolic enzymes and mitochondrial ATP production. To adapt their metabolism to cellular energy needs, mitochondria have been shown to exhibit changes in their ionic composition as the result of changes in cytosolic ion concentrations. Individual mitochondria also exhibit spontaneous changes in their electrical potential without altering those of neighboring mitochondria. We recently reported that individual mitochondria of intact astrocytes exhibit spontaneous transient increases in their Na+ concentration. Here, we investigated whether the concentration of other ionic species were involved during mitochondrial transients. By combining fluorescence imaging methods, we performed a multiparameter study of spontaneous mitochondrial transients in intact resting astrocytes. We show that mitochondria exhibit coincident changes in their Na+ concentration, electrical potential, matrix pH and mitochondrial reactive oxygen species production during a mitochondrial transient without involving detectable changes in their Ca2+ concentration. Using widefield and total internal reflection fluorescence imaging, we found evidence for localized transient decreases in the free Mg2+ concentration accompanying mitochondrial Na+ spikes that could indicate an associated local and transient enrichment in the ATP concentration. Therefore, we propose a sequential model for mitochondrial transients involving a localized ATP microdomain that triggers a Na+-mediated mitochondrial depolarization, transiently enhancing the activity of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Our work provides a model describing ionic changes that could support a bidirectional cytosol-to-mitochondria ionic communication

Disrupted Membrane Structure and Intracellular Ca2+ Signaling in Adult Skeletal Muscle with Acute Knockdown of Bin1

Efficient intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i) homeostasis in skeletal muscle requires intact triad junctional complexes comprised of t-tubule invaginations of plasma membrane and terminal cisternae of sarcoplasmic reticulum. Bin1 consists of a specialized BAR domain that is associated with t-tubule development in skeletal muscle and involved in tethering the dihydropyridine receptors (DHPR) to the t-tubule. Here, we show that Bin1 is important for Ca2+ homeostasis in adult skeletal muscle. Since systemic ablation of Bin1 in mice results in postnatal lethality, in vivo electroporation mediated transfection method was used to deliver RFP-tagged plasmid that produced short –hairpin (sh)RNA targeting Bin1 (shRNA-Bin1) to study the effect of Bin1 knockdown in adult mouse FDB skeletal muscle. Upon confirming the reduction of endogenous Bin1 expression, we showed that shRNA-Bin1 muscle displayed swollen t-tubule structures, indicating that Bin1 is required for the maintenance of intact membrane structure in adult skeletal muscle. Reduced Bin1 expression led to disruption of t-tubule structure that was linked with alterations to intracellular Ca2+ release. Voltage-induced Ca2+ released in isolated single muscle fibers of shRNA-Bin1 showed that both the mean amplitude of Ca2+ current and SR Ca2+ transient were reduced when compared to the shRNA-control, indicating compromised coupling between DHPR and ryanodine receptor 1. The mean frequency of osmotic stress induced Ca2+ sparks was reduced in shRNA-Bin1, indicating compromised DHPR activation. ShRNA-Bin1 fibers also displayed reduced Ca2+ sparks' amplitude that was attributed to decreased total Ca2+ stores in the shRNA-Bin1 fibers. Human mutation of Bin1 is associated with centronuclear myopathy and SH3 domain of Bin1 is important for sarcomeric protein organization in skeletal muscle. Our study showing the importance of Bin1 in the maintenance of intact t-tubule structure and ([Ca2+]i) homeostasis in adult skeletal muscle could provide mechanistic insight on the potential role of Bin1 in skeletal muscle contractility and pathology of myopathy

An integrated bioinformatics analysis reveals divergent evolutionary pattern of oil biosynthesis in high- and low-oil plants

Seed oils provide a renewable source of food, biofuel and industrial raw materials that is important for humans. Although many genes and pathways for acyl-lipid metabolism have been identified, little is known about whether there is a specific mechanism for high-oil content in high-oil plants. Based on the distinct differences in seed oil content between four high-oil dicots (20~50%) and three low-oil grasses (<3%), comparative genome, transcriptome and differential expression analyses were used to investigate this mechanism. Among 4,051 dicot-specific soybean genes identified from 252,443 genes in the seven species, 54 genes were shown to directly participate in acyl-lipid metabolism, and 93 genes were found to be associated with acyl-lipid metabolism. Among the 93 dicot-specific genes, 42 and 27 genes, including CBM20-like SBDs and GPT2, participate in carbohydrate degradation and transport, respectively. 40 genes highly up-regulated during seed oil rapid accumulation period are mainly involved in initial fatty acid synthesis, triacylglyceride assembly and oil-body formation, for example, ACCase, PP, DGAT1, PDAT1, OLEs and STEROs, which were also found to be differentially expressed between high- and low-oil soybean accessions. Phylogenetic analysis revealed distinct differences of oleosin in patterns of gene duplication and loss between high-oil dicots and low-oil grasses. In addition, seed-specific GmGRF5, ABI5 and GmTZF4 were predicted to be candidate regulators in seed oil accumulation. This study facilitates future research on lipid biosynthesis and potential genetic improvement of seed oil content

Measuring Macroprudential Risk Through Financial Fragility: A Minskyan Approach

This paper presents a method to capture the growth of financial fragility within a country and across countries. This is done by focusing on housing finance in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Following the theoretical framework developed by Hyman P. Minsky, the paper focuses on the risk of amplification of shock via a debt deflation instead of the risk of a shock per se. Thus, instead of focusing on credit risk, for example, financial fragility is defined in relation to the means used to service debts, given credit risk and all other sources of shocks. The greater the expected reliance on capital gains and debt refinancing to meet debt commitments, the greater the financial fragility, and so the higher the risk of debt deflation induced by a shock if no government intervention occurs. In the context of housing finance, this implies that the growth of subprime lending was not by itself a source of financial fragility; instead, it was the change in the underwriting methods in all sectors of the mortgage markets that created a financial situation favorable to the emergence of a debt deflation. Stated alternatively, when nonprime and prime mortgage lending moved to asset-based lending instead of income-based lending, the financial fragility of the economy grew rapidly