Comparative studies on the applicability of a new surface conditioning system (Airsonic Mini Sandblaster) in adhesive bridging technic]

The object of this work was to investigate a new surface conditioning system for hydrolysis-stable metal-polymer bonds in dental prosthetics. The application of the adhesive SiO2-interface layer was achieved tribochemically by the use of a miniaturised sand blasting instrument (Airsonic Mini Sandblaster, Co. Hager and Werken, Duisburg, Germany) using the SiO2 coated Rocatec blasting medium. An advantage of this instrument is the possibility of decreasing costs for dentist and patient and also the time of treatment by connecting the device to the dental chair. Evaluation of applicability was based on the composition and morphology of the coatings applied to different dental alloys (titanium, NiCr, CoCr). In addition, the strength of metal-polymer bonds prior to and after physiological ageing was determined by tensile shear testing. In all cases the Airsonic Mini Sandblaster coatings proved to be equivalent to the original Rocatec system in terms of the parameters tested, such as structure and composition of the coating, and adhesivity. Irrespective of the adhesive alloy-dependent adhesive strengths in the region of 24-30 MPa were achieved; no significant decrease in strength caused by degrading of the bonds occurred. Bonding strengths are within the range reported in the literature for the Rocatec system, and are appreciably above clinically required minimum strength of 10 MPa as enamel strength. The results demonstrate the applicability of the Airsonic Mini Sandblaster in practice. By employing the procedure at the dental chair the process of silicating and subsequent silanising can be transferred from the dental laboratory to the dentist's practice. In this way, a reduction in treatment time and costs is achieved, and the reliable handling of the coating system is also improved.     

Long-term acclimatization of hydraulic properties, xylem conduit size, wall strength and cavitation resistance in Phaseolus vulgaris in response to different environmental effects

Phaseolus vulgaris grown under various environmental conditions was used to assess long-term acclimatization of xylem structural characteristics and hydraulic properties. Conduit diameter tended to be reduced and 'wood' density (of 'woody' stems) increased under low moisture ('dry'), increased soil porosity ('porous soil') and low phosphorus ('low P') treatments. Dry and low P had the largest percentage of small vessels. Dry, low light ('shade') and porous soil treatments decreased P50 (50% loss in conductivity) by 0.15-0.25 MPa (greater cavitation resistance) compared with 'controls'. By contrast, low P increased P50 by 0.30 MPa (less cavitation resistance) compared with porous soil (the control for low P). Changes in cavitation resistance were independent of conduit diameter. By contrast, changes in cavitation resistance were correlated with wood density for the control, dry and porous soil treatments, but did not appear to be a function of wood density for the shade and low P treatments. In a separate experiment comparing control and porous soil plants, stem hydraulic conductivity (kh), specific conductivity (ks), leaf specific conductivity (LSC), total pot water loss, plant biomass and leaf area were all greater for control plants compared to porous soil plants. Porous soil plants, however, demonstrated higher midday stomatal conductance to water vapour (gs), apparently because they experienced proportionally less midday xylem cavitation.     

Towards a reporter system to identify regulators of cross-talk between salicylate and jasmonate signaling pathways in Arabidopsis

The plant signaling hormones salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA) are regulators of inducible defenses that are activated upon pathogen or insect attack. Cross-talk between SA- and JA-dependent signaling pathways allows a plant to finely tune its response to the attacker encountered. In Arabidopsis, pharmacological experiments revealed that SA exerts a strong antagonistic effect on JA-responsive genes, such as PDF1.2, indicating that the SA pathway can be prioritized over the JA pathway. SA-mediated suppression of the JA-responsive PDF1.2 promoter was exploited for setting up a genetic screen aiming at the isolation of signal transduction mutants that are impaired in this cross-talk mechanism. The PDF1.2 promoter was fused to the herbicide resistance gene BAR to allow for life/death screening of a population of mutagenized transgenic plants. Non-mutant plants should survive herbicide treatment when methyl jasmonate (MeJA) is applied, but suppression of the JA response by SA should be lethal in combination with the herbicide. Conversely, crucial SA/JA cross-talk mutants should survive the combination treatment. SA effectively suppressed the expression of the PDF1.2::BAR transgene. However, suppression of the BAR gene did not result in suppression of herbicide resistance. Hence, a screening method based on quantitative differences in the expression of a reporter gene may be better suited to identify SA/JA cross-talk mutants. Here, we demonstrate that the PDF1.2::GUS reporter will be excellently suited in this respect.Key words: plant defense, salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, cross-talk, mutant screen, Arabidopsis     

Variation in alternative splicing across human tissues

Background  

Alternative pre-mRNA splicing (AS) is widely used by higher eukaryotes to generate different protein isoforms in specific cell or tissue types. To compare AS events across human tissues, we analyzed the splicing patterns of genomically aligned expressed sequence tags (ESTs) derived from libraries of cDNAs from different tissues.