<Emphasis Type="Italic">Xerophyta viscosa</Emphasis> Aldose Reductase,XvAld1, Enhances Drought Tolerance in Transgenic Sweetpotato

Sweetpotato is a significant crop which is widely cultivated particularly in the developing countries with high and stable yield. However, drought stress is a major limiting factor that antagonistically influences the crop’s productivity. Dehydration stress caused by drought causes aggregation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in plants, and aldose reductases are first-line safeguards against ROS caused by oxidative stress. In the present study, we generated transgenic sweetpotato plants expressing aldose reductase, XvAld1 isolated from Xerophyta viscosa under the control of a stress-inducible promoter via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Our results demonstrated that the transgenic sweetpotato lines displayed significant enhanced tolerance to simulated drought stress and enhanced recuperation after rehydration contrasted with wild-type plants. In addition, the transgenic plants exhibited improved photosynthetic efficiency, higher water content and more proline accumulation under dehydration stress conditions compared with wild-type plants. These results demonstrate that exploiting the XvAld1 gene is not only a compelling and attainable way to improve sweetpotato tolerance to drought stresses without causing any phenotypic imperfections but also a promising gene candidate for more extensive crop improvement.     

Platelet proteomics: from discovery to diagnosis

Introduction: Platelets are the smallest cells within the circulating blood with key roles in physiological hemostasis and pathological thrombosis regulated by the onset of activating/inhibiting processes via receptor responses and signaling cascades.

Areas covered: Proteomics as well as genomic approaches have been fundamental in identifying and quantifying potential targets for future diagnostic strategies in the prevention of bleeding and thrombosis, and uncovering the complexity of platelet functions in health and disease. In this article, we provide a critical overview on current functional tests used in diagnostics and the future perspectives for platelet proteomics in clinical applications.

Expert commentary: Proteomics represents a valuable tool for the identification of patients with diverse platelet associated defects. In-depth validation of identified biomarkers, e.g. receptors, signaling proteins, post-translational modifications, in large cohorts is decisive for translation into routine clinical diagnostics.     

NIST lipidomics workflow questionnaire: an assessment of community-wide methodologies and perspectives

Introduction

Efforts to harmonize lipidomic methodologies have been limited within the community. Here, we aimed to capitalize on the recent National Institute of Standards and Technology lipidomics interlaboratory comparison exercise by implementing a questionnaire that assessed current methodologies, quantitation strategies, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and quality control activities employed by the lipidomics community.

Objectives

Lipidomics is a rapidly developing field with diverse applications. At present, there are no community-vetted methods to assess measurement comparability or data quality. Thus, a major impetus of this questionnaire was to profile current efforts, highlight areas of need, and establish future objectives in an effort to harmonize lipidomics workflows.

Methods

The 54-question survey inquired about laboratory demographics, lipidomic methodologies and SOPs, analytical platforms, quantitation, reference materials, quality control procedures, and opinions regarding challenges existing within the community.

Results

A total of 125 laboratories participated in the questionnaire. A broad overview of results highlighted a wide methodological diversity within current lipidomic workflows. The impact of this diversity on lipid measurement and quantitation is currently unknown and needs to be explored further. While some laboratories do incorporate SOPs and quality control activities, these concepts have not been fully embraced by the community. The top five perceived challenges within the lipidomics community were a lack of standardization amongst methods/protocols, lack of lipid standards, software/data handling and quantification, and over-reporting/false positives.

Conclusion

The questionnaire provided an overview of current lipidomics methodologies and further promoted the need for community-accepted guidelines and protocols. The questionnaire also served as a platform to help determine and prioritize metrological issues to be investigated.

     

Female clustering in cockroach aggregations—A case of social niche construction?

Individuals in groups can suffer costs through interactions with adversarial or unknown conspecifics. Social niche construction allows individuals to buffer such potential costs by only engaging in preferred associations. This may be particularly beneficial in insect aggregations, which are often large and highly fluid. However, little is known regarding the structuring of such aggregations. Here we use social network analyses to test for fine‐scale social structure in resting aggregations of the sub‐social cockroach Diploptera punctata and to explore the social pressures that contribute towards such structure. We showed that females were significantly more gregarious than males and formed the core of the proximity network, thus demonstrating a higher level of social integration. This fine‐scale structure is likely to result from females displacing males; females initiated most displacements whilst males received the majority. We explain this behaviour in terms of social niche construction by showing that females received significantly fewer approaches and investigations at more female‐biased local sex ratios. We therefore suggest that female social clustering occurs in this, and presumably other, species to reduce potential costs associated with male harassment. This demonstrates how social niche construction can lead to higher level social structure; we suggest this approach could be used across a range of species in order to improve our understanding of the evolution of sociality.     

The perceptual and chemical bases of egg discrimination in communally nesting greater anis Crotophaga major

The eggshells of communally breeding greater anis Crotophaga major consist of a blue‐green pigmented calcite matrix overlaid by a chalky white layer of vaterite, both of which are polymorphs of calcium carbonate. The white vaterite layer is intact in freshly laid eggs and may function in protecting the eggs from mechanical damage, but it also abrades during incubation to reveal the blue calcite shell underneath. Previous research has shown that this color change serves a visual signaling function: nesting greater anis can discriminate between eggs that are freshly laid and those that have already been incubated, which allows them to reject asynchronous eggs laid by extra‐group parasites. Here we use avian visual modeling and pigment extraction to assess the perceptual and chemical bases of such egg recognition. We found that there was no overlap between the avian perceptual space occupied by ani eggshells with and without vaterite, and that vaterite lacked both of the pigments found in the eggshell's calcite matrix, bililverdin and protoporphyrin. The visual contrast between the unpigmented vaterite and the blue‐pigmented calcite appears to pre‐date the evolution of the signaling function, since the related guira cuckoo Guira guira, also a communal breeder, lays similarly structured and pigmented eggs but does not use the visual contrast as a signal to detect parasitism.