CHANGED ORIENTATION OF THE MITOTIC SPINDLE OF STOMATAL GUARD CELL DIVISIONS IN HORDEUM VULGARE

Three-day-old seedlings of ‘Atlas’ barley were treated for 1 hr with an aqueous solution of 2-mercaptoethanol at various concentrations. This caused a general delay of mitosis, suppression of subsidiary cell formation in manystomatal complexes, and complete inhibition of the formation of some stomatal complexes. In a small proportion of stomatal complexes the orientation of the division of the guard cell mother cell was changed so that its mitotic spindle was no longer transverse but parallel to the long axis of the leaf and produced daughter cells proximally and distally to each other. The highest frequency of such proximal-distal orientations, a mean of 2.23 per stomatal row, was produced by concentrations of 0.175–0.2 m. Proximal-distal reorientations were concentrated in a region of the leaf distal to that in which the greatest inhibition of stomatal complexes occurred. Susceptible complexes were those at early stages of subsidiary formation when exposed to mercaptoethanol; this is long before prophase of GCMC division. The mean length/width ratio of cells at this stage was significantly greater in treated than in control material. Gibberellic acid at 550 ppm significantly increased both the 1/w ratio and the frequency of proximal-distal divisions. A much higher proportion of proximal-distal divisions was obtained in upper leaf sheaths excised and placed for 24 hr in a moist atmosphere. This effect was associated with a period of quiescence following excision, after which mitoses were resumed, many of them with proximal-distal reorientation.     

Part of the fluorescence of chlorophyll a may originate in excited triplet states

Absorption and fluorescence spectra of chlorophyll a have been analyzed on the basis of an extended version of Kennard–Stepanov (KS) theory. It is proposed that at least one new electronic state lies just below the normal S₁ – S₀ transition (Q_y), borrowing approximately 2–4% of its strength and contributing to the fluorescence in the tail. The KS anomalies leading to this hypothesis occur in a wide variety of cases, including chlorophyll a in solution and protein-bound chlorophyll a, suggesting that the phenomenon is an intrinsic property of the molecule. Natural candidates for the new state(s) are the second and third triplet states. The relationship of the fluorescence excitation spectrum to KS theory is investigated and applied to explain a red drop in yield.     

Pattern of the evolution of HIV-1 enν gene in C?te d?Ivoire

Cête d׳Ivoire continues to have the highest HIV-1 prevalence rate in West Africa, although the infection number is in constant decline. The external envelope protein of the viruses is a likely site of selection, and responsible for receptor binding and entry into host cells, and therefore constitutes an ideal region with which to investigate the evolutionary processes acting on HIV-1. In this study, we analyse 189 envelope glycoprotein V3 loop region sequences of viruse isolates from 1995 to 2009, from HIV-1 untreated patients living in Cête d׳Ivoire, to decipher the temporal relationship between disease diversity, divergence and selection. Our analyses show that the nonsynonymous and synonymous ratio (dN/dS) was lower than 1 for viral populations analysed within 15 years, which showed the sequences did not undergo adequate immune pressure. The phylogenetic tree of the sequences analysed demonstrated distinctly long internal branches and short external branches, suggesting that only a small number of viruses infected the new host cell at each transmission. In addition to identifying sites under purifying selection, we also identified neutral sites that can cause false positive inference of selection. These sites presented form a resource for future studies of selection pressures acting on HIV-1 enν gene in Cête d׳Ivoire and other West African countries.     

Evidence for a possible extinction debt in Swiss wetland specialist plants

1. Habitat loss leading to smaller patch sizes and decreasing connectivity is a major threat to global biodiversity. While some species vanish immediately after a change in habitat conditions, others show delayed extinction, that is, an extinction debt. In case of an extinction debt, the current species richness is higher than expected under present habitat conditions.
2. We investigated wetlands of the canton of Zürich in the lowlands of Eastern Switzerland where a wetland loss of 90% over the last 150 years occurred. We related current species richness to current and past patch area and connectivity (in 1850, 1900, 1950, and 2000). We compared current with predicted species richness in wetlands with a substantial loss in patch area based on the species‐area relationship of wetlands without substantial loss in patch area and studied relationships between the richness of different species groups and current and historical area and connectivity of wetland patches.
3. We found evidence of a possible extinction debt for long‐lived wetland specialist vascular plants: in wetlands, which substantially lost patch area, current species richness of long‐lived specialist vascular plants was higher than would have been expected based on current patch area. Additionally and besides current wetland area, historical area also explained current species richness of these species in a substantial and significant way. No evidence for an extinction debt in bryophytes was found.
4. The possible unpaid extinction debt in the wetlands of the canton of Zürich is an appeal to nature conservation, which has the possibility to prevent likely future extinctions of species through specific conservation measures. In particular, a further reduction in wetlands must be prevented and restoration measures must be taken to increase the number of wetlands.

     

Effects of chorda tympani nerve anesthesia on taste responses in the NST

Human clinical and psychophysical observations suggest that the taste system is able to compensate for losses in peripheral nerve input, since patients do not commonly report decrements in whole mouth taste following chorda tympani nerve damage or anesthesia. Indeed, neurophysiological data from the rat nucleus of the solitary tract (NST) suggests that a release of inhibition (disinhibition) may occur centrally following chorda tympani nerve anesthesia. Our purpose was to study this possibility further. We recorded from 59 multi- and single- unit taste-responsive sites in the rat NST before, during and after recovery from chorda tympani nerve anesthesia. During anesthesia, average anterior tongue responses were eliminated but no compensatory increases in palatal or posterior tongue responses were observed. However, six individual sites displayed increased taste responsiveness during anesthesia. The average increase was 32.9%. Therefore, disinhibition of taste responses was observed, but infrequently and to a small degree in the NST At a subset of sites, chorda tympani-mediated responses decreased while greater superficial petrosal-mediated responses remained the same during anesthesia. Since this effect was accompanied by a decrease in spontaneous activity, we propose that taste compensation may result in part by a change in signal-to-noise ratio at a subset of sites.