|
Non-member Achievement
Professor
Philip Nelson Wins 2007 World Food Prize
Austin Nov.5, '07
.
More often than not, those guiding multifaceted plant breeding
programs tend to
forget,
that side by side with the production of high yielding nutritious
varieties, they need to
ensure proper storage of food grains, vegetables, fruits and other
perishable food products in order to minimize post-harvest loss due to
diseases and insect attacks, unfavorable
temperature changes as well as quality
degradation in color, flavor and freshness during transportation.
Purdue University's Professor Dr.
Philip Nelson, the current year's World Food Prize Winner dedicated his
whole life in developing methods and
suitable equipment for application of those methods for safe
storage of all kinds of
food both in enormous
quantities for shipment cross
countries as well as in small quantities from local distribution centers to
individual
consumers. The World Food Prize Committee have honored the outstanding
scientist for his visionary approach to solution of food problems in
countries
where
food shortage is a chronic problem for mitigating hunger and
meeting nutritional
requirements of the population.
More >> Biotic
and abiotic stress responses in plants meeting.
_______________________________
A
Cluster of Three Genes conferring submergence Tolerance to Rice
Austin,
Aug. 10, ’06.
In today’s
(10 August 2006) Nature
442, 705-708, Kenong
Xu and nine other rice geneticists affiliated to UCD, UCR and IRRI have
published a ground breaking paper entitled, “Sub1A is an
ethylene-response-factor-like gene that confers submergence
tolerance to rice.” They have
identified a cluster of three genes at the Sub1
locus, encoding putative ethylene response factors. Earlier authors
have shown that a major QTL, Sub1 on chromosome 9
of.
indica rice
cultivar FR13A, confers
flood tolerance up to two weeks of complete submergence. The above
authors have shown that two of the three genes, Sub1B
and Sub1C always characterize the Sub1
region of all rice accessions known for flood tolerance. These
authors confirmed that Sub1A-1
is a primary
determinant to complete
submergence by over-expressing this gene in a flood-intolerant O.
sativa ssp. japonica concomitant with
down regulating Sub1C
and upregulating Alcohol
dehydrogenase 1 (Adh1).
By incorporating the FR13A Sub1
gene into a widely grown Asian rice cultivar, these authors were
able to produce a flood
tolerant variety, combining
the high yield and other agronomic traits of the recurrent parent. The
authors believe that planting
of this new variety will ensure enhanced rice production by
protecting this crop against flood damage.
Bangladesh, visited by flash floods at least once if not twice a
year, will benefit greatly from this work as it will give the rice
breeders a valuable clue to design breeding programs for evolving
submergence tolerant rice varieties. IRRI has already developed an
Indian rice variety called ‘Swarna’ incorporating the flood
tolerance sub-1 locus and has currently launched a project of
introducing the submergence locus into a Bangladeshi variety,
BR11. You can
view
the full paper by clicking the title of the paper.
___________________________
Unraveling Mystery of how Malarial Parasites Elude the Immune
System
Austin Aug 9, 06.
An article of great interest to scientists
in general and biotechnologists in particular has been published on
August 4 online in
Science. It
contains exciting findings of Volker Heussler and coworkers at the
Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg,
Germany. Until now scientists were unable to solve the mystery as to
how the malarial parasites get away with immune system during their
passage from the liver to the blood stream. With the help of
intravital imaging, Volker’s team was able to trace the migration
of the parasites from the liver in infected mice to their blood
stream. Their study reveal that after infected mosquito bites,
malarial parasites make their way to the liver and change into a new
form, infect red blood cells and multiply there at a very fast
rate. In that process they destroy the liver cells where they
migrate. Thereafter, the infected cells detach themselves from their
neighbors. Infected cells are then squashed and they exit through
tiny gaps in the walls of blood vessels in the liver. The mechanism
“ensures both the migration of parasites into the blood stream and
their protection from host immunity.” The finding would usher in a
new field of research leading to development of ways of stopping the
malarial parasites in their tracks.
_________________________
IRRI
Scientists to Bioengineer Rice Plants from C3 to C4 for More Yield
Austin Aug.15, ’06.
In the 28th July issue of Science (vol. 313, p. 423),
Dennis Normile reports of a consortium meeting held recently in IRRI.
He reports that
in a bid to feed ever growing population in
Asia
likely to rise by 50%, rice researchers considered how to achieve
a goal to increase rice yield by 50%. They came to the conclusion
that this is achievable not by the existing breeding tools but by
changing the photosynthetic machinery of C3 rice plants to that of
maize or any another C4 crop that are 50 % more efficient at
utilizing sunlight for production of more biomass, requiring less
water and a reduced dosage of fertilizers. According to rice
experts, if successfully bioengineered, the yield of a C4 rice
plant would increase by 50%. This is because C4 plants are capable
of utilizing elevated level of carbon dioxide around RuBisCO by the
activity of an additional enzyme called PEP carboxylase. In C4
plants photorespiration, characteristic of C3 plants is also
suppressed. IRRI breeders, led by
John E. Sheehy, an expert in crop ecology and crop modeling,
hope to come up with such a photosynthetically more efficient
variety by the year 2010. In addition to transfer C4 genes from
maize, the IRRI breeders will screen their rich germplasm comprising
6000 wild rice collection and hopefully may detect C4 pathway,
already in existence in some of their material.
__________________________________
Nutritional Enzyme in GM Wheat Withstand Boiling Temp
without Damage
Austin June 27, 2006.
That cooked food lose their nutritional enzymes due to excessive
heat during their preparation is a well known fact. For instance, at
63 degrees Celsius, the enzyme phytase, which helps the human
system to absorb zinc and iron is inactivated in wheat and barley.
It has been estimated that due to destruction of these enzymes
during cooking, 2-3 billion people worldwide, mostly in developing
countries suffer from nutritional deficiency. The effect is more
acute among children making them susceptible to pneumonia and watery
diarrhea claiming a heavy toll of their lives.
Henrik Brinch-Pedersen and co-workers at the Danish Institute of
Agricultural Sciences have come up with a solution. By inserting a
phytase gene from the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, they have
bioengineered transgenic wheat and barley lines in which phytase
remains stable up to 89 degrees of Celsius. They have demonstrated
that even after boiling for 20 minutes bioengineered (GM) wheat
grains retain enough phytase activity enabling consumers to intake
sufficient amounts of minerals. The above finding has been published
in the 2nd June issue of the Journal of Agricultural and
Food Chemistry.
Henrik Brinch-Pedersen, Frank
Hatzack, Eva Stöger, Elsa Arcalis, Katrine Pontopidan, and Preben B.
HolmHeat-Stable Phytases in Transgenic
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.): Deposition Pattern,
Thermostability, and Phytate Hydrolysis.
J. Agric. Food Chem.; 2006; 54(13)
pp 4624 - 4632.
(Courtesy
SciDev.net, 28th June, 2006)
____________________________
ENGINEERING
LIFE: Building a FAB for Biology
Austin 29th of May, ’06. An article entitled, Engineering life: Building a FAB
for Biology has been published in the June issue of Scientific
American (Vol. 294 Issue 6, p44-51).
Nine top class scientists headed by Baker David,
representing different facets of biotechnology advocate that time is
rife, when current computational
knowledge should be combined with that of latest DNA manufacture
technology. The article begins by an introductory remark that the best
available machines for DNA synthesis
have the capacity of adding a nitrogenous base: adenine,
cytosine, guanine and thymine every
five minutes. Compared to man made machinery, its biological
counterpart such as DNA polymerase
adds 500 bases a second with an error of only one base in a
billion. Since a number of polymerases
work simultaneously in a living organism of which one of the
examples is a
bacterium, a long stretch of DNA
comprising about five million nitrogenous bases are
synthesized in a matter of 20 minutes. The fabrication of biological
systems as applied to bioengineering
requires participation of the following: systems (human
encoded functions of biological devices), devices
(combination of parts each
of which carries out a separate task), parts (pieces of DNA
that work with a matching binding protein to regulate gene activity
and DNA (DNA parts specified by designers.). I
may also mention here about a very
useful site that will help the readers
understand this article. Read
the whole summary by clicking
here.
_________________________________
Vaccine against cervical
cancer will save millions of lives
Austin June 9, 2006.
The world woke up today with an exceptionally
good news – the news of the approval of a cancer vaccine by FDA. The
vaccine will work against four strains of
human papilloma virus
that
cause cervical cancer (cf.
Hopkins virologist Keerti Shah)
by immunizing the majority of would-be
victims. Instead of injections, the vaccine can be inhaled to
prevent the attack of the cancer. Interestingly, women of developing
countries will benefit most where, reports say, the incidence of
attack every year is nearly 400,000. The mortality among women of
developed countries from this disease is considerably less because
of the facility available to them for annual screening and treatment
thereafter.
Researchers at Professor
Richard Schlege’s lab of Georgetown University Medical Center
Washington D.C. took nearly 20 years to develop the vaccine. The
vaccine is composed of a protein molecule that makes up the outer
shell of the virus. The protein molecule elicits an immune response
which ultimately results in the destruction of the virus.
The name of the
vaccine
made by Merck is
Gardasil.
The company claims that it is 100 per cent effective
against
vaginal and
vulval cancers. That HPV causes both these diseases has been
established. The name of the second vaccine, to be marketed by
GlaxoSmithKline's,
is called Cervarix. It has been shown to generate an antibody
response in women aged 26–55 years. It prevents the occurrence of
the above diseases by almost 100 per cent. By clicking the
hyperlink, you may be able to view the image of this virus
illustrated in the article provided by
SciDevNet.
____________________________
ENGINEERING
LIFE: Building a FAB for Biology
Austin
29th of May, ’06.
An article entitled,
Engineering life: Building a FAB for Biology has
been published in the June issue of Scientific
American (Vol. 294 Issue 6, p44-51).
Nine top class scientists headed by Baker
David, representing different facets of
biotechnology advocate that time is rife, when
current computational
knowledge should be combined with that of latest DNA
manufacture technology.
The article begins by an introductory remark
that the best available machines for DNA synthesis
have the capacity of adding a nitrogenous
base: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine
every five minutes. Compared to man made
machinery, its biological counterpart such as DNA
polymerase adds
500 bases a second with an error of only one base in
a billion. Since a number of polymerases
work simultaneously in a living organism of
which one of the examples is
a bacterium, a long stretch of DNA
comprising about five million nitrogenous
bases are synthesized in a matter of 20 minutes.
The
fabrication of biological systems as applied to
bioengineering requires participation of the
following: systems (human encoded functions
of biological devices), devices (combination
of parts each
of which carries out a separate task), parts
(pieces of DNA that work with a matching binding
protein to regulate gene activity
and DNA (DNA parts specified by
designers.)
. I may also mention here about a very
useful site that will help the
readers understand this article. Read
the whole summary by clicking
here.
_______________________________
Immobile Protein Assemblies at the Plasma membrane of the yeast
Austin March 1, '06. In a feature article published
in Nature (439, 998-1003),
Tobias C. Walther et al. at the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Biochemistry and
Biophysics, University of California at San Francisco, report of
large immobile protein assemblies at the plasma membrane in the
yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These assemblies are called eisosomes .
They consist primarily of
two cytoplasmic proteins, Pil1 and Lsp1 and serve as endocytic sites. A plasma membrane protein, Sur7, is
associated with eisosomes. They are involved in endocytosis
- a process by which cells internalize molecules with a specific
binding protein in the cell.
_________________________
Mechanism of selenoprotein Translation
Bypassing Nonsense Mediated Decay Austin March 16, '06. In an article captioned, "Nuclear Assembly of UGA
Decoding Complexes on Selenoprotein mRNAs: a Mechanism for Eluding
Nonsense-Mediated Decay." published in Mol. Cell. Biol. vol. 26. 5:1795-1805
(2006), Lucia A. de Jesus at the Dept. Cell, Mol Biol., Univ. of
Hawaii, Honolulu
and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School, have described a novel
mechanism allowing seleno-protein
mRNAs to get around
non-sense mediated decay (NMD) and translating the mRNA into
selenoprotein. Seleno-protein is a protein that contains the
essential trace element selenium in the form of seleno-cysteine. When insertion of selenocysteine into
selenoproteins takes place, it becomes a stop codon, UGA leading to
the decay of the protein, a process called nonsense-mediated decay (NMD).
In other words, seleno-proteins are degraded by NMD. The authors
detected co-localization
of two important proteins, namely, EFsec and SBP2 in
cells where SBP2 was
present in sufficient amounts.
Their findings further revealed that there is shuttling of SBP2
between the nucleus and the cytoplasm and that there is
functional nuclear localization and export signals in the above two
proteins. They also found evidence that EFsec localization is
influenced by the levels of SBP2. Thus, they were able to explain
the mechanism how the nuclear assembly of the
selenocysteine incorporation machinery bypass
nonsense-mediated decay allowing selenoprotein
translation.
__________________________
Assembly of Mammalian Chromosomes at the Equator without Bipolar Attachment
Austin March 28, '06. Kapoor at the Laboratory of Chemistry and Cell Biology, the Rockefeller University, New York and his associates at collaborative institutes, in a report published in a recent issue of Science (vol. 311: 388-91) have shown that in mammalian cell mitosis, chromosomes may move to the equator before they become attached to the opposite poles of the bipolar spindle, a condition termed as "biorientation". This finding runs counter to the former notion that for the mitotic chromosomes to assemble at the equator, each one of them requires to be "bioriented."
These authors employed a number of highly advanced techniques, namely, a) reversible chemical inhibitors, b) live-cell light microscopy, and c) correlative electron microscopy, to prove that mono-oriented chromosomes; i.e., chromosomes attached to the spindle by one of the two kinetochores can move to the equatorial plate by gliding along with other already bioriented chromosomes. The authors suggest that the end-directed microtubule motor
CENP-E (kinesin-7) plays an important role in the movement of mono-oriented chromosomes to the equator.
____________________
Control of Deadly Rice Blast Fungus is possible within Foreseeable Future
Austin March 28, 06. In a paper captioned, "A P-type ATPase required for rice blast disease and induction of host resistance" published in the 23rd March, '06 issue of Nature (40, 535-539), Martin J. Gilbert, Christopher R. Thornton, Gavin E. Wakley and Nicholas J. Talbot at the School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, have reported how the gene MgAPT2 in the rice blast pathogen Magnaporthe grisea paralyses the host defense mechanism causing annually an extensive rice crop loss, enough to feed 60 million people. The base sequence of this deadly fungus has been recently worked out and it is hoped that by manipulating this gene, its virulence can be greatly
minizmised. In the paper, the authors have shown that the mutant form of this gene is unable to infect the rice plant because it fails to secrete extra-cellular enzymes necessary for invading the host with its
appressoria.
________________
An
Exciting finding: FCA - An Abscisic Acid Receptor
Austin 22nd Jan. 06. In
the 19th
January issue of Nature, (vol. 439, 290 - 294),
Robert
D. Hill and his associates
at the Plant Science Department, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg,
Canada reported that FCA, a nuclear RNA-binding protein
involved in the transition to flowering,
is an ABA receptor. The
above authors have shown in Arabidopsis that FCA and ABA
interact, inhibiting the transformation
of shoot meristems from
vegetative to flowering status.
FLC, a MADS box transcription factor, inhibits the transition to
flowering. FCA interacts with a nuclear transcription factor, FY
and, in so doing, prevents formation of FLC, allowing the transition
to flowering. ABA, in binding to FCA, prevents its interaction with
FY, thus, allowing continued synthesis of FLC and delay of the
transition to flowering. Their data have further
revealed that the autoregulation of FCA is inhibited when full
length FCA mRNA binds ABA. Their study further suggests that
ABAP1 protein isolated from barley that bound ABA in vitro
has regions of similar amino acid sequence to that of FCA.
_________________________________
Origins
of DNA: Base invaders
Austin 13 Jan. 06 In
this week's (12th January, 06) Nature, John
Whitfield discloses some exciting information in an article
entitled, "Origins of DNA: Base Invaders" under the section
"News Feature". In the beginning of life, there was no DNA
and all the information was stored only in RNA. RNA is a
multipurpose molecule which also plays the role of an enzyme.
According to Patrick
Forterre, the French evolutionary
biologist, in the course of evolution, viruses took over the world
of RNA insidiously, and brought about the change by adopting DNA as
an information vehicle. Such an invasion by viruses allowed them to
bypass the defense mechanism put up by RNA-based cells.
________________________________
PTC124 a potential Drug in the cure for
Cystic Fibrosis and other Congenital diseases.
Austin Dec 15, '05.
In the December 8
issue of Nature (vol. 438:726-28), Dr. C. Ainsworth
discusses in a news article entitled "Nonsense mutations: Running
the red light", the importance of "Nonsense Mutations" in the cure
for a genetic disease. She briefly describes how a protein is made
from a gene: DNA -> messenger RNA (mRNA)-> ferried across the
nuclear membrane into the ribosomes which act as a molecular factory
where amino acids are assembled into a specific protein according to
the blueprint contained in the mRNA sequence. There are 64 codons of
which 61 encode for 20 essential amino acids that constitute a
functional protein and three signify the end of the message. In
patients suffering from congenital diseases such as cystic
fibrosis, the message is stopped by means of a mutation which
converts an amino acid codon into a 'stop' codon. In other words,
the genetic message terminates before the functional protein is
synthesized. The kind of symptoms exemplified by cystic fibrosis
is called "nonsense mediated decay" (NMD in short). An under trial
drug called PTC124 halts this process. Instead of making faulty
protein, it helps the ribosomal machinery to proceed making the
specific protein by ignoring the stop codon. In patients suffering
from a severe type of congenital anaemia called thalassaemia, a
premature stop codon intervenes the specific mRNA. Scientists
found explanations for rare cases where thalassaemia patients
survived. In these exceptional individuals the premature stop codon
appears too late instead of in the middle of the mRNA message
sparing their lives. In the treatment of diseases such as
cystic fibrosis, the PTC124 drug has entered Phase II efficacy trials on
adult patients in both the United States and Israel.
Recreation
of A Deadly Flu Virus – A Sensational Achievement
First
Report of Gibberellin Receptor
in A Rice Mutant
Gene interrupting Sugar Flow in Rice Pollen
during Cold Spells
_
Simultaneous Incorporation of two Bt genes in indica basmati
rice
_________
Novel
mRNA Changing from Non-coding to Coding Status
upon Cellular Stress
Austin Nov 22, 2005.
A new kind of novel messenger RNA has
been reported by CSHL research scientists led by
David
Spector
in the October 21, 2005 issue of
Cell (123:249-63). They have reported
that viral infection or similar cellular stresses
convert a normally non protein-coding RNA to a
protein-coding mRNA. K. Prasanth, a postdoctoral
at
Spector's lab identified for the first time a mouse
gene called mCAT2 that
encodes a cell surface receptor protein. Further
studies in that lab revealed that mCAT2 gene
encodes two different kinds of RNAs: a typical mRNA
that is ferried across the nuclear membrane and an
atypical one that stays in the nucleus. Results
reported elsewhere gave this group a clue that the
mCAT2 receptor activates nitric oxide production and
that a number of stress conditions such as wound
healing and viral infection stimulates the receptor
synthesis.
In order
to verify that synthesis of the receptor is
stimulated by stress conditions Spector's group
treated cells with interferon in order to
artificially create stress conditions similar to the
symptoms caused by viral infection. They observed
that the interferon treatment activated mCAT2 gene
expression. Later, the atypical non-protein-coding
mCAT2 mRNA was cleaved post- transcriptionally to
produce protein-coding mRNA that was subsequently
ferried across the nuclear membrane to the cytoplasm
and translated into protein like its typical
counterpart. Spector views this discovery to be a
new type of gene regulation and predicts that in
the future a large family of similar regulatory
genes may come to light in humans and other
organisms
Austin Nov. 07, '05.
In a prize
winning* article, “A Drosophila OBP Required for Pheromone
Signaling” published in Science, Vol. 310: 798-799 , 4 November
2005, Pingxi Xu at the Department of Basic Neuroscience and
Pharmacology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center,
Dallas, TX demonstrated that in addition to pheromone-responsive
receptor, a protein belonging to OBP
(Odorant Binding Protein) family plays an important role
in olfactory neuron response induced by the pheromone,
VA (cis-vaccenyl acetate). In
a fruit fly, Drosophila VA is secreted to
elicit
aggregation behavior (to attract
both sexes, male and female together). Using a recessive
Drosophila mutant. lush, the author showed that the mutants, lose
their VA sensitivity and fail
to be attracted by VA revealing that the
binding protein is required for pheromone
perception. By expressing a wild-type lush transgene in
the mutants, he was able to restore VA sensitivity,
thereby providing further proof of the unequivocal role
of OBP in pheromone signaling. The author concluded that it is
an important finding in that the method can be applied to manipulate
insect behavior to control pests that spread human
diseases and cause agriculture losses in a species-specific manner.
______________________
*The 2005 international Prize in Neurobiology by the
journal Science and Eppendorf.
Genetic
diversity of Indian rice varieties, landraces and 3 spp.
of Oryza
Austin May 05, 05.
In a research article, “Use of anchored (AG)n and (GA)n
primers to assess genetic diversity of Indian landraces, and
varieties of rice published in Current Science (Vol.
89, 1371-81, 2005), N. Sarla, C. N. Neeraja and E. A. Siddiq at the
Directorate of Rice Research, Hyderabad, India report the results of
their study on the phylogenetic relationships between land races,
cultivars and three Oryza species including O. sativa.
Using fingerprinting and GA repeats the authors came to
the conclusion that heterozygosity between rice varieties was less
marked than between the latter and landraces. A comparison
between four wild accessions of two Oryza species, namely, O.
nivara and O. rufipogon revealed that they
collectively were phylogenetically more related to the
varieties than to landraces. The authors recommend that adoption of
adequate measures to conserve landraces is essential in order to
broaden the narrow genetic base of modern rice varieties.
Their results further indicate that for determination of
genetic diversity, (AG)n
and (GA)n based primers are both informative and cost
effective.
_______
Rice
Chromosomes 11 and 12 Rich in Disease Resistance
Genes
Austin Oct. 10, '05. An article
entitled, “The sequence of rice chromosomes 11 and
12 , rich in disease resistance genes and recent
gene duplications” has just been published in BMC
Biology 2005, 3:20 by the Rice Chromosomes 11 and 12
Consortia. The complete base sequences of rice
chromosomes 11 and 12 have been determined and
characterized. These two chromosomes form about
one-seventh of the whole genome. The Consortia
identified 6000 genes (5% of the total) which confer
resistance to various diseases attacking rice. The
number of disease resistant genes resident in the
above two chromosomes are greater in proportion than
those on the remaining 10 chromosomes. The rice
sequencing material was Oryza sativa ss japonica cv.
Nipponbare. Contact Dr. Joachim Messing: messing@waksman.rutgers.edu
for further information.
Recent Updates in RNA - A
Special Issue of Science devoted to
this Topic
In the
“Introduction to Special Issue” of Science,
vol. 309, published on the 2nd of
September, Riddihough
Guy updates the readers with the
latest development that has taken place in the realm
of RNA. In an article, “Forests of RNA Dark
Matter”, he gives an overview of 17 articles
dealing with different aspects of RNA
appearing in the same issue of Science. In
the article he chooses the theme of these
articles and explains what they are about. Whatever
information is attributed to the author, they are
taken from different articles that have appeared in
the above issue; only at two places the names of the
authors have been given.
The author begins the article revealing that until
recently, knowledge about RNA particularly of the
noncoding type was limited. He draws a parallel
between RNA and protein in that an RNA group I
self-splicing intron uses two metal ions for
phosphoryl transfer similar to that reported
in many protein enzymes. He talks of an unusual loop
like-mRNA at the 5’ end. That unusual piece of mRNA
seems to protect the mRNA from degradation. Quoting
Moore’s work, he mentions about the teams of
proteins that participate in regulating mRNA
activity in various developmental stages from their
birth to death. He discusses the role of cytoplasmic
P–bodies, which serve as temporary storage space
for many mRNAs after they perish; about
non-translating mRNAs that are also housed in
these temporary storehouse. He also describes
the contribution made by Zamore and Haley who
elucidated the role of two more RNA components:
microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs)
that take part in RNA silencing. Recent
reports have shown that not only can miRNAs
repress the initiation of translation but also
contribute to enhance mRNA production. Click
here
to read the
remainder of the summary and the titles of
different articles (in September 2 issue
of
Science) based on which
the summary has been written.
________________________
Recreation of A
Deadly Flu Virus – A Sensational Achievement
Austin Oct. 6, 2005.
The 1918
Spanish flu virus, which may have killed nearly 50
million people in the USA, has been recreated
by a team of scientists led by Jeffery Taubenberger
of the armed Forces Institute of Pathology in
Rockville, Maryland. The paper which has just been
published online in Nature on October 5, 2005
gives details of the hitherto unknown base sequences
of the three genes of this deadly virus. This
completed the entire genomic sequence of this
virus. When the researchers infected mice with the
reconstituted virus, it turned out to be extremely
virulent. Compared to a modern flu strain, it
produced 39,000 times more virus particles showing
its degree of lethality. The infected
mice did not die when researchers replaced the
haemagglutinin gene which helps virus enter
cells. The virulence was considerably abated when
three polymerase genes that help the virus replicate
were substituted. Further research in this deadly
virus will be of great help to produce vaccine
and design drug to contain this virus.
________________
First Report of Gibberellin Receptor in A Rice
Mutant
October
3, '05.
In the
Sep 29 issue of Nature
(vol. 437:693-8),
Ueguchi-Tanaka
and associates at the Department of Bioscience and
Biotechnology, Nagoya University, Japan have
reported in rice a hitherto unknown receptor for
gibberellin in the gibberellin insensitive dwarf1
mutant, gid1. They have further reported that its
normal allele, GID1 encodes an unknown
protein matching the hormone-sensitive
lipases and that there is a preferential
localization of a GID1-green fluorescent fusion
protein (GFP) signal in nuclei. Furthermore, they
have shown that over-_expression of GID1
produces a GA-hypersensitive phenotype. Based
on their data they concluded that GID1
functions to give rise to a soluble receptor
regulating GA signaling in rice.
Incorporation of prokaryotic genes into New World
Cotton resulting in better fiber quality
In Plant Cell Reports (22:691–697,
2004), X. Li and associates at the
College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, China have
reported that using Agrobacterium, they
have successfully transferred genes, acsA
and
acsB from a cellulose producing bacterium,
Acetobacter xylinum to brown cotton
(Gossypium hirsutum L.) pollen by means of
vacuum infiltration. Crosses of normal cotton
plants with transformed pollen yielded eight
transgenic plants out of over 1000 seeds.
Seeds were germinated and grown in a nutrient medium
containing 50 mg/ml hygromycin. The authors
have further reported that the fibers of
transgenic cotton plants were stronger by 15% with a
higher cellulose content than the control.
According to the authors the future holds a great
promise for improving the quality of cotton fibers
by expressing the bacterial acsA and acsB
genes in standard cotton varieties.
[GNOBB
congratulate the Chinese scientists for their
extraordinary accomplishment. If the results
reported by them, can be repeated elsewhere, it will
revolutionize cotton industry through production of
high quality stronger cotton fibers.]
Continued to page 2
|
