and mustard that are used as models for studying plant biology. OPT3 function in plants was previously unknown.
Scientists sequence genome of eucalyptus--a global tree for fuel and fiberfrom antiseptic oils to the construction of didgeridoos the traditional Australian Aboriginal wind instrument the eucalyptus tree serves myriad purposes accounting for its status as one of the world's most widely planted hardwood trees.
and improve upon Eucalyptus'potential for enhancing sustainable biofuels and biomaterials production and provide a stable year-round source of biomass that doesn't compete with food crops.
Reported in the June 12 2014 edition of the journal Nature the international effort to sequence
and analyze the 640 million base pair genome of Eucalyptus grandis engaged more than 80 researchers from 30 institutions representing 18 countries The project was led by Zander Myburg of the University of Pretoria (South africa);
Gerald Tuskan of the Oak ridge National Laboratory and the Bioenergy Science Center and U s. Department of energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI;
Dan Rokhsar of the DOE JGI and Jeremy Schmutz of the DOE JGI and the Hudsonalpha Institute for Biotechnology.
and temperate zones and has over 700 species that are rich in genetic variation. Combing through the 36000-plus genes found in Eucalyptus (nearly twice as many as in the human genome) the researchers homed in on those that may influence the production of secondary cell wall material that can be processed for pulp paper biomaterials and bioenergy applications.
Approximately 80 percent of the woody biomass in a Eucalyptus is made of cellulose and hemicellulose both long chains of sugars with the remaining biomass primarily composed of lignin the tough glue that holds it all together.
A major challenge for achieving a sustainable energy future is our understanding of the molecular basis of superior growth
and adaptation in woody plants suitable for biomass production said Myburg. Our comparative analysis of the complex traits associated with the Eucalyptus genome
and other large perennials offers new opportunities for accelerating breeding cycles for sustainable biomass productivity and optimal wood quality noted Grattapaglia.
In addition insights into the trees'evolutionary history and adaptation are improving our understanding of their response to environmental change providing strategies to diminish the negative environmental impacts that threaten many species. We have a keen interest in how wood is formed said ORNL's Jerry Tuskan.
A major determinant of industrial processing efficiency lies in the composition and cross-linking of biopolymers in the thick secondary cell walls of woody fibers.
Our analysis provides a much more comprehensive understanding of the genetic control of carbon allocation towards cell wall biopolymers in woody plants--a crucial step toward the development of future biomass crops.
While native to Australia eucalyptus trees are planted worldwide mostly for the value of its wood; for the Department of energy their energy-rich cellulosic biomass makes them one of the principal candidate biomass energy crops.
Genome sequencing is an essential diagnostic tool for understanding the basis of its superior growth properties attributes that can be propagated to other candidate biofuel feedstock species. Because of its wide adaptability extremely fast growth rate
and excellent wood and fiber properties Eucalyptus trees are grown in 100 countries across six continents and account for over 40 million acres.
The eucalyptus team identified genes encoding 18 final enzymatic steps for the production of cellulose
and the hemicellulose xylan both cell wall carbohydrates that can be used for biofuel production. By tracing their evolutionary lineages
and expression in woody tissues we defined a core set of genes as well as novel lignin-building candidates that are expressed highly in the development of xylem--the woody tissue that helps channel water throughout the plant
The team's detailed analysis of the Eucalyptus genome revealed an ancient whole-genome duplication event estimated to have occurred about 110 million years ago as well as an unusually high proportion of genes in tandem duplicate arrays.
and suggest that Eucalyptus may have followed an evolutionary path that highlighted specific genes for woody biomass production.
By comparison Eucalyptus has three times the number of tandem repeat genes present in poplar the first tree sequenced (by the DOE JGI and published on the cover of the journal Science in 2006.
An additional finding by the team was sequenced that among plants to date Eucalyptus showed the highest diversity of genes for specialized metabolites such as terpenes.
By having a library of these genes that control the synthesis of terpenes we are able to dissect which genes produce specific terpenes;
then we can modify this biochemical pathway in the leaves so that we can develop the potential of Eucalyptus as an alternative source feedstock for jet fuel noted Tuskan.
The genetic architecture of inbreeding depression often referred to as the converse of hybrid vigor is largely unknown for trees
Our results in Eucalyptus suggest that cumulative effects of many small genetic variants throughout the genome are responsible for these fundamental genetic phenomena.
The extensive catalog of genes contributed by the team will allow breeders to adapt Eucalyptus trees for sustainable energy production in regions such as the U s. Southeast where it cannot currently be grown.
This along with its keystone ecological status and ability to adapt to marginal terrain make Eucalyptus an excellent focus for expanding our knowledge of the evolution and adaptive biology of perennial plants.
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Joint Genome Institute. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Plants can transfer their entire genetic material to a partner in an asexual manneroccasionally two different plant species interbreed with each other in nature.
This usually causes problems since the genetic information of both parents does not match. But sometimes nature uses a trick.
Instead of passing on only half of each parent's genetic material both plants transmit the complete information to the next generation.
This means that the chromosome sets are totted up. The chromosomes are then able to find their suitable partner during meiosis a type of cell division that produces an organism's reproductive cells.
This allows the plants to stay fertile and a new species is generated. Examples for such a combination of two genomes called allopolyploidy are found abundantly in both wild plants and crops like wheat rapeseed and cotton.
Now for the first time Ralph Bock's group at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology could show that new species can be generated in an asexual manner As well as in previous studies Bock's group at the Max Planck Institute
or recombination of genetic material--so-called horizontal gene transfer--between the grafted plants. In our previous work we were able to prove that
contrary to the generally accepted dogma there is horizontal gene transfer of chloroplast genes at the contact zone between grafted plants.
if there is a transfer of genetic information between the nuclei as well Ralph Bock says while explaining the recent study.
The researchers introduced resistance genes against two different antibiotics into nuclear genomes of the tobacco species Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana glauca
so that only cells containing both resistance genes and thus DNA from both species should survive.
To determine if the acquired double resistance is due to the transfer of single genes or the transfer of the entire genetic material the researchers counted the chromosomes in the nuclei of the resistant plants.
If complete genomes were transferred the new plants would contain the sum of the chromosome numbers of the two species. Indeed we found 72 chromosomes in the resistant plants Ralph Bock explains 72 is the sum of the 24 N. glauca
chromosomes and the 48 N. tabacum chromosomes. Thus plantlets generated from the graft junction contained the genetic information of both species. We managed to produce allopolyploid plants without sexual reproduction Sandra Stegemann joint first author of the study is pleased to say.
When the scientists grew their new plants in the greenhouse it became obvious that they combined characteristics of both progenitor species
. But there was one striking difference: the new plants grew remarkably faster than their parents. Such a fitness advantage is known also from allopolyploid plants in nature and from the superior growth properties of allopolyploid crops.
Thus grafting two species and selecting for horizontal genome transfer could become an interesting method for breeders who could use this approach to create new crop plants with higher yields
Current advances in forestry biotechnology in somatic embryogenesis in particular have opened up the possibility of increasing forest productivity and raising the quality of wood-based products.
Apart from being a highly productive method somatic embryogenesis is a very valuable tool in forestry biotechnology.
The countries that are advanced in the forestry sector like Canada use this technique to optimise genetic improvement programmes
and to preserve elite genotypes. For all these reasons somatic embryogenesis is contributing in a very positive way to the restoration and sustainable management of forests.
In Canada the National Network of Somatic Embryogenesis Laboratories (NNSEL) has been set up within the Canadian Forestry Service for the purpose of effectively transferring the advances in biotechnology to the forestry sector.
and with genetic disease susceptibility to find an answer to the question whether delaying the exposure to complex foreign proteins will decrease the risk of diabetes tells Professor Mikael Knip from the University of Helsinki the leader of the TRIGR Study.
By analysing the young Perch that had been born that year scientists were able to determine that at least 34%of the fish biomass comes from vegetation increasing to 66%in areas surrounded by rich forest.
We found fish that had almost 70%of their biomass made from carbon that came from trees
and have published findings ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Our studies have unraveled the metabolism of the rather unexplored acetic acid bacteria in the complex fermentation environment says corresponding author Christoph Wittmann of Saarland University Saarbruecken Germanyin the study Wittmann
The above story is provided based on materials by American Society for Microbiology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and Tissue Expression of IGFI Receptor will appear in the July issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.
There are similarities between the biological pathways that underlie all of these conditions and there is some evidence to suggest that over-activation of the insulin/insulin-like growth factor axis which increases the availability of IGF1 in the blood may relate to a poor prognosis among breast cancer survivors.
Since carbohydrates stimulate the biological pathway that can increase concentrations of IGF1 the researchers focused on carbohydrate intake.
It could happen with new plant-breeding toolsince the first plant genome sequence was obtained for the plant Arabidopsis in 2000 scientists have sequenced gene everything from cannabis to castor bean.
University of Florida scientists were part of a research team that this week unveiled a new tool that will help all plant scientists label (annotate in researcher parlance) genes far more quickly
Christopher Henry a computational biologist at the University of Chicago who had a leading role in creating the database called Plantseed said it is an important step toward the engineering of improved crops such as creating rice that grows more efficiently
and annotating genome sequences for plants at an amazing clip since breaking through with Arabidopsis the work has not been without challenges.
In documenting genome sequences scientists must sort through millions of bits of genetic code to identify what function each gene is responsible for (such as telling a plant how tall to grow
because with 20000 to 30000 genes in a typical plant scientists can't possibly conduct experiments to find out what each and every gene is responsible for.
Plantseed will help plant scientists begin to make better use of genome information by helping them create consistently accurate models for all plant genomes contained in the database.
You can't really make as much use of the genome information as we should be able to until you can do that kind of modeling for plants as well he said.
The team published articles presenting their findings in the journals Plant Biology and PLOS ONE.
just as bad as the spring and fall seasons said allergist Michael Foggs MD president of the American College of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).
The above story is provided based on materials by American College of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI.
In this study the team was able to piece together the biological process that leads to the production of new bone by studying the offspring of mice lacking the Gastric Intrinsic factor gene
and systemic factors play an important role in their function so it's important to unpick the multitude of biological factors that can affect their proliferation says Dr Pablo Roman-Garcia a first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger
The discovery of this unanticipated pathway between gut liver and bone would not have been possible without the use of mouse molecular genetics
The study found that genetic characteristics (genotype) as well as environmental conditions--such as soil properties and local climate--can affect the micronutrient content of grain legumes.
According to Warkentin In the case of selenium we found that environmental conditions are more important than genotype.
Our specific motivation is to learn where to best target agricultural efforts to slow global warming said Phil Robertson director of MSU's Kellogg Biological Station Long-term Ecological Research Program and senior
and microbiology program lead with NOAA's Centers for Coastal Ocean Science. Hopefully these data will benefit both shellfish mariculture operations
and West Nile virus. One approach to controlling mosquitoes is to apply pesticides by spraying from planes or trucks over a large area.
Her SDSU graduate research assistantship on ant biodiversity and natural history was funded through the Meierhenry Fellowship.
Sarah Nelson assistant research professor with the Senator George J. Mitchell Center and cooperating assistant research professor in Watershed Biogeochemistry in the UMAINE School of Forest Resources;
Jasmine Saros associate director of the Climate Change Institute at UMAINE and professor in UMAINE's School of Biology & Ecology;
Phaseolus genome lends insights into nitrogen fixationit doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people doesn't add up to a hill of beans in this crazy world Humphrey Bogart famously said in the movie Casablanca.
Moreover the U s. Department of energy Office of Science has targeted research into the common bean because of its importance in enhancing nitrogen use efficiency for sustainability of bioenergy crops and for increasing plant resilience and productivity with fewer inputs on marginal lands
To this end a team of researchers led by Scott Jackson of the University of Georgia Dan Rokhsar of the U s. Department of energy Joint Genome Institute Jeremy Schmutz of the DOE JGI
and the Hudsonalpha Institute for Biotechnology and Phil Mcclean of North dakota State university sequenced and analyzed the genome of the common bean Phaseolus vulgaris.
The project was supported by the U s. Department of energy and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture U s. Department of agriculture and the work was published online June 8 2014 in the journal Nature Genetics Unlocking the genetic make-up of the common bean is a tremendous achievement that will lead to future
advances in feeding the world's growing population through improved crop production said Sonny Ramaswamy director of USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
While we have much to learn about the application of genomics in agriculture this study is groundbreaking.
and assembled a 473-million basepair genome of the common bean. Though it is thought to have originated in Mexico the common bean was domesticated separately at two different geographic locations in Mesoamerica
The team then compared sequences from pooled populations representing these regions finding only a small fraction of shared genes.
They found dense clusters of genes related to disease resistance within the chromosomes. They also identified a handful of genes involved in moving nitrogen around.
This information could be beneficial for farmers practicing the intercropping system known as milpa wherein beans
The team then compared the high quality common bean genome against the sequence of its most economically important relative soybean.
They found evidence of synteny in which a gene in one species is present in another.
They also noted that the common bean's genome had evolved more rapidly than soybean's since they diverged from the last common ancestor nearly 20 million years ago.
Improvement of common bean will require a more fundamental understanding of the genetic basis of how it responds to biotic and abiotic stresses the team concluded.
These findings provide information on regions of the genome that have been selected intensely either during domestication or early improvement and thus provide targets for future crop improvement efforts.
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Joint Genome Institute. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
In a study published in the June 2014 edition of Nature Biotechnology an international consortium of researchers from the United states France Italy Spain
and compared the genome sequences of ten diverse citrus varieties including sweet and sour orange along with several important mandarin and pummelo cultivars.
The U s. Department of energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) contributed to the citrus pilot project Gmitter said harnessing their expertise in plant genomics
which seeks to build scientific communities around cornerstone species of relevance to DOE missions in bioenergy carbon cycling and biogeochemistry.
Surprisingly the small easily peeled mandarins were in contrast found to be genetic mixtures of a second species and pummelo.
Sweet orange the most widely grown citrus variety worldwide was found to be a complex genetic hybrid of mandarin
Now that we understand the genetic structure of sweet orange for example we can imagine reproducing the unknown early stages of citrus domestication using modern breeding techniques that could draw from a broader pool of natural variation
The genomes presented in the published study included pummelos oranges and mandarins. One of the sequences was the high-quality reference genome of Clementine mandarin sequenced by an international consortium including Genoscope in France the Institute for Genomic Applications in Italy the DOE JGI and the Hudsonalpha Institute for Biotechnology with contributions
from researchers in Spain and Brazil. Another was the sweet orange genome produced jointly by researchers at the DOE JGI the University of Florida and 454 Life sciences a Roche company.
By understanding the relationships between the various cultivated species with what they describe as very narrow genetic diversity the researchers hope to enable sequence-directed improvement
which could lead to crops that are more resistant to disease and stresses such as environmental changes.
and the Mediterranean cultivar Willowleaf with mandarins known to be developed hybrids indicated that all contain segments of the pummelo genome.
The wild Mangshan mandarin from China is an exception to the rule as its genome revealed it was in fact a separate species from other cultivated mandarins.
when he spoke at the DOE JGI's 7th Annual Genomics of Energy & Environment Meeting in March 2012.
Citrus has incestuous genes he told the audience. Nothing is pure. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Joint Genome Institute.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Vitamin d and the nursing mothereveryone seems to agree that Vitamin d is important throughout life. This is certainly as true in the first year of life as it is later on.
However an equivalent amount is lost through logging clearing of land for grazing and growing biofuel crops such as palm oil soya bean and sugar.
Their study published in Global Change Biology was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council. Professor John Grace of the University of Edinburgh's School of Geosciences who led the study said:
Genetic hierarchy in plant sperm cell formation undresseda team of biologists from the University of Leicester has solved a mystery surrounding how plants have sex.
This breakthrough study from the Twell Laboratory at the University of Leicester published in the academic journal The Plant Cell has found a pair of genes called DAZ1
'--so that DUO1 and the DAZ1/DAZ2 genes work in tandem to control a gene network that ensures a pair of fertile sperm is made inside each pollen grain.
Interestingly DAZ1 and DAZ2 perform their role by cooperating with a well-known'repressor'protein called TOPLESS that acts as a brake on unwanted gene activity that would otherwise halt sperm and seed production.
and DAZ2 has the potential to be applied in the development of new plant breeding techniques to prevent the unwanted passing of genes
--or'horizontal gene transfer'--between crops or from crops to wild species. This new knowledge also generates genetic tools
and Andrew Richardson associate professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology along with colleagues from 7 different institutions found that forests throughout the eastern US are showing signs of spring growth earlier than ever
The big surprise of this work was the realization that the impact of organisms surpassed climate as a control of decomposition across spatial scales said Joshua King a biologist at UCF
and biology of fungi and termites is a key to understanding how the rate of decomposition will vary from place to place.
#Gene study shows how sheep first separated from goatsscientists have cracked the genetic code of sheep to reveal how they became a distinct species from goats around four million years ago.
The study is the first to pinpoint the genetic differences that make sheep different from other animals.
The research identifies the genes that give sheep their fleece and uncovers features of their digestive system
It also builds the most complete picture yet of sheep's complex biology. Further studies using this resource could reveal new insights to diseases that affect sheep.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute which receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology
and Biological sciences Research Council were part of a global team that has decoded the genome sequence--the entire genetic make-up--of domestic sheep for the first time.
This team--the International Sheep Genomics Consortium--compared the sheep's genes with those of other animals--including humans cattle goats and pigs.
The analysis identifies several genes that are associated with wool production. It also reveals genes that underpin the evolution of the rumen--a specialised chamber of the stomach that breaks down plant material to make it ready for digestion.
This collaborative study involving 26 research institutions in eight different countries was led by researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Australia;
The BBSRC-funded ARK-Genomics facility--which is part of Edinburgh Genomics at the University of Edinburgh--provided a substantial body of sequence data including information on
which genes are expressed in a spectrum of 40 different tissues. The study is published today in the journal Science.
Professor Alan Archibald Head of Genetics and Genomics at The Roslin Institute said: Sheep were one of the first animals to be domesticated for farming
Understanding more about their genetic make-up will help us to breed healthier and more productive flocks.
Professor Julian Partridge from Bristol's School of Biological sciences and the School of Animal Biology at the University of Western australia with his Bristol-based colleagues investigated
experts arguedespite political proclamation of increased environmental focus experts argue that the European union's recent agricultural reforms are far too weak to have any positive impact on the continent's shrinking farmland biodiversity
and biodiversity will continue to decline across the continent. Under the new CAP almost a third of direct payments to farmers are now subject to conditions relating to'greening measures'.
Unless member states take serious steps beyond those required for the CAP the EU's own biodiversity targets for 2020 are very unlikely to be met.
The weak environmental reforms in the CAP put the fate of Europe's declining biodiversity at the hands of the individual member states said Dr Guy Pe'er lead author from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
Writtle College and several conservation organizations (the Society for Conservation Biology Royal Society for Protection of Birds Birdlife Europe Butterfly Conservation Europe and Friends of the Earth--Switzerland.
The authors conclude that the CAP reforms fail to fulfil Target 3a of the EU Biodiversity Strategy
which explicitly requires the EU to maximise areas â#covered by biodiversity-related measures under the CAP.
Many regions of the new member states and countries of southern Europe are still supporting very high biodiversity says Andrã¡
The EU Biodiversity target implicitly assumes that the biodiversity-related measures under the CAP are effective at protecting wildlife.
and the EU as a whole to move towards sustainable agriculture securing biodiversity and vital ecosystem services for current and future generations.
Forest fires can affect both plant and animal biodiversity. The team's finding of ancient ecological recovery from a forest fire will help broaden scientists'understanding of biodiversity immediately before the mass extinction of dinosaurs.
We won't be able to fully understand the extinction dynamics until we understand what normal ecological processes were going on in the background. says Larsson.
and grafts by host bodies is a huge hurdle for medical researchers said R. Michael Roberts Curators Professor of Animal Science and Biochemistry and a researcher in the Bond Life sciences Center.
Claudio Gonzalez and Graciela Lorca led the research team that examined three biochemical treatments: phloretin hexestrol and benzbromarone.
The team sprayed greenhouse tree shoots separately with one of the three biochemicals and were successful in stopping the bacteriaâ##s spread particularly with benzbromarone which halted the bacteria in 80 percent of the infected treesâ##shoots.
Gonzalez and Lorca are UF associate professors in the microbiology and cell science department part of UFÂ##s Institute of food and agricultural sciences.
The team also works under the auspices of the UF Genetics Institute. The researchers found that benzbromarone targets a specific protein known as Ldtr in the citrus greening bacterium.
which disrupts a cell wall remodeling process critical for the greening bacteriumâ##s survival inside a citrus tree. â#oeas a consequence of the chemical treatment several genes were expressed not
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011