A catalogue of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Triticum monococcum</Emphasis> genes encoding toxic and immunogenic peptides for celiac disease patients

The celiac disease (CD) is an inflammatory condition characterized by injury to the lining of the small-intestine on exposure to the gluten of wheat, barley and rye. The involvement of gluten in the CD syndrome has been studied in detail in bread wheat, where a set of “toxic” and “immunogenic” peptides has been defined. For wheat diploid species, information on CD epitopes is poor. In the present paper, we have adopted a genomic approach in order to understand the potential CD danger represented by storage proteins in diploid wheat and sequenced a sufficiently large number of cDNA clones related to storage protein genes of Triticum monococcum. Four bona fide toxic peptides and 13 immunogenic peptides were found. All the classes of storage proteins were shown to contain harmful sequences. The major conclusion is that einkorn has the full potential to induce the CD syndrome, as already evident for polyploid wheats. In addition, a complete overview of the storage protein gene arsenal in T. monococcum is provided, including a full-length HMW x-type sequence and two partial HMW y-type sequences. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Retinal Changes Precede Visual Dysfunction in the Complement Factor H Knockout Mouse

We previously reported that aged mice lacking complement factor H (CFH) exhibit visual defects and structural changes in the retina. However, it is not known whether this phenotype is age-related or is the consequence of disturbed development. To address this question we investigated the effect of Cfh gene deletion on the retinal phenotype of young and mid-age mice. Cfh ^−/− mouse eyes exhibited thickening of the retina and reduced nuclear density, but relatively normal scotopic and photopic electroretinograms. At 12 months there was evidence of subtle astroglial activation in the Cfh ^−/− eyes, and significant elevation of the complement regulator, decay-accelerating factor (DAF) in Müller cells. In the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) of young control and Cfh ^−/− animals mitochondria and melanosomes were oriented basally and apically respectively, whereas the apical positioning of melanosomes was significantly perturbed in the mid-age Cfh ^−/− RPE. We conclude that deletion of Cfh in the mouse leads to defects in the retina that precede any marked loss of visual function, but which become progressively more marked as the animals age. These observations are consistent with a lifelong role for CFH in retinal homeostasis.     

Rapid chromosome territory relocation by nuclear motor activity in response to serum removal in primary human fibroblasts

Background  

Radial chromosome positioning in interphase nuclei is nonrandom and can alter according to developmental, differentiation, proliferation, or disease status. However, it is not yet clear when and how chromosome repositioning is elicited.     

Sex-biased dispersal promotes adaptive parental effects

Background  

In heterogeneous environments, sex-biased dispersal could lead to environmental adaptive parental effects, with offspring selected to perform in the same way as the parent dispersing least, because this parent is more likely to be locally adapted. We investigate this hypothesis by simulating varying levels of sex-biased dispersal in a patchy environment. The relative advantage of a strategy involving pure maternal (or paternal) inheritance is then compared with a strategy involving classical biparental inheritance in plants and in animals.     

Clinical effectiveness of biologics in clinical practice

TNF inhibitors are currently considered both effective and cost-effective in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA), particularly in patients who have not responded fully to methotrexate. There is substantial doubt about the cost-effectiveness of TNF inhibitors as initial treatment for active RA. New data from the National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases now question the current consensus in methotrexate failures. The data suggest that in routine clinical practice TNF inhibitors provide only modest incremental benefits over best conventional therapy. If confirmed, these observational studies suggest that the economic argument underpinning the widespread use of TNF inhibitors in established RA is unsustainable.     

Mayday - integrative analytics for expression data

Background  

DNA Microarrays have become the standard method for large scale analyses of gene expression and epigenomics. The increasing complexity and inherent noisiness of the generated data makes visual data exploration ever more important. Fast deployment of new methods as well as a combination of predefined, easy to apply methods with programmer's access to the data are important requirements for any analysis framework. Mayday is an open source platform with emphasis on visual data exploration and analysis. Many built-in methods for clustering, machine learning and classification are provided for dissecting complex datasets. Plugins can easily be written to extend Mayday's functionality in a large number of ways. As Java program, Mayday is platform-independent and can be used as Java WebStart application without any installation. Mayday can import data from several file formats, database connectivity is included for efficient data organization. Numerous interactive visualization tools, including box plots, profile plots, principal component plots and a heatmap are available, can be enhanced with metadata and exported as publication quality vector files.     

Cross-pathogenicity of Rhizoctonia solani strains on pasture legumes in pasture-crop rotations

In Australia, in the past, pasture legumes were rotated mainly with cereals, but increasingly these rotations now involve pasture legumes with a wider range of crops, including legumes. This increasing frequency of the leguminous host in the rotation system may be associated with increased root rots in legumes in the current pasture-crop rotations. The primary aim of this study was to see whether the pathogenicity on pasture legumes of strains of Rhizoctonia solani sourced from lupins and cereals (common crops in rotation with pastures) is associated with increased incidence of root rots in pasture legumes in the disease conducive sandy soils of the Mediterranean regions of southern Australia. The second aim was to determine sources of resistance among newly introduced pasture legumes to R. solani strains originating from rotational crops as this would reduce the impact of disease in the pasture phase. Fifteen pasture legume genotypes were assessed for their resistance/susceptibility to five different zymogram groups (ZG) of the root rot pathogen R. solani under glasshouse conditions. Of the R. solani groups tested, ZG1–5 and ZG1–4 (both known to be pathogenic on cereals and legumes) overall, caused the most severe root disease across the genotypes tested, significantly more than ZG6 (known to be pathogenic on legumes), in turn significantly >ZG4 (known to be pathogenic on legumes) which in turn was >ZG11 (known to be pathogenic on legumes including tropical species). Overall, Ornithopus sativus Brot. cvs Cadiz and Margurita, Trifolium michelianum Savi. cvs Paradana and Frontier and T. purpureum Loisel. cv. Electro showed a significant level of resistance to root rot caused by R. solani ZG11 (root disease scores ≤1.2 on a 1–3 scale where 3 = maximum disease severity) while O. sativus cvs Cadiz and Erica showed a significant level of resistance to root rot caused by R. solani ZG4 (scores ≤1.2). O. compressus L. cvs Charano and Frontier, O. sativus cv. Erica, and T. purpureum cv. Electro showed some useful resistance to root rot caused by R. solani ZG6 (scores ≤1.8). This is the first time that cvs Cadiz, Electro, Frontier, Margurita and Paradana have been recognised for their levels of resistance to root rot caused by R. solani ZG11; and similarly for cvs Cadiz and Erica against ZG4; and for cvs Charano, Erica, and Electro against ZG6. These genotypes with resistance may also serve as useful sources of resistance in pasture legume breeding programs and also could potentially be exploited directly into areas where other rotation crops are affected by these R. solani strains. None of the tested genotypes showed useful resistance to R. solani ZG1–4 (scores ≥2.0) or ZG1–5 (scores ≥2.5). This study demonstrates the relative potential of the various R. solani ZG strains, and particularly ZG1–4, ZG1–5, ZG4 and ZG6 to attack legume pastures and pose a significant threat to non-pasture crop species susceptible to these strains grown in rotation with these pasture legumes. Significantly, the cross-pathogenicity of these strains could result in the continuous build-up of inoculum of these strains that may seriously affect the productivity eventually of legumes in all rotations. In particular, when choosing pasture legumes as rotation crops, caution needs to be exercised so that the cultivars deployed are those with the best resistance to the R. solani ZGs most likely to be prevalent at the location.