Improvement of regeneration ability of androgenetic embryos by early anther transfer in maize

Six media compositions and different transfer times were compared in order to improve the quality of microspore derived structures and their regeneration capacity. The production of regenerated plantlets was increased by a factor of 10 by an early transfer of anthers to medium with low sugar concentration and the use of kinetin-like growth regulators. The best transfer date was 3 weeks after initial plating, onto medium containing 25 gl^–1 sucrose and 1 mg l^–1 kinetin. This study demonstrates that anther transfer at an early developmental stage, before macroscopic appearance of embryo-like structures, improves embryo quality and further regeneration. This production of androgenetic structures showing normal morphological features is the first step to obtain an improvement of androgenetic plant regeneration yield.     

Genetic stability (in vivo) of the attenuated oral rabies virus vaccine SAD B19

The distribution of oral rabies vaccine baits containing replication-competent live viruses poses certain environmental safety risks; among others, the possibility of reversion to or an increase in virulence. Hence, the genetic stability of the complete genome of the most widely used oral rabies vaccine virus, SAD B19, was examined after four and 10 serial i.c. passages in foxes and mice, respectively. It was shown that the consensus strain of SAD B19 was extremely stable in vivo . After 10 consecutive passages in mice not a single mutation was observed. In foxes, seven single nucleotide exchanges were found between the first and fourth passage, of which only one resulted in an amino acid exchange at position 9240 of the L-gene. This mutation was not observed during the first three passages and, furthermore, it was shown that this mutation was not linked to enhanced virulence.