Alfalfa forage digestibility, quality and yield under future climate change scenarios vary with Sinorhizobium meliloti strain

Elevated CO(2) may decrease alfalfa forage quality and in vitro digestibility through a drop in crude protein and an enhancement of fibre content. The aim of the present study was to analyse the effect of elevated CO(2), elevated temperature and Sinorhizobium meliloti strains (102F78, 102F34 and 1032 GMI) on alfalfa yield, forage quality and in vitro dry matter digestibility. This objective is in line with the selection of S. meliloti strains in order to maintain high forage yield and quality under future climate conditions. Plants inoculated with the 102F34 strain showed more DM production than those inoculated with 1032GMI; however, these strains did not show significant differences with 102F78 plants. Neutral or acid detergent fibres were not enhanced in plants inoculated with the 102F34 strain under elevated CO(2) or temperature and hence, in vitro dry matter digestibility was unaffected. Crude protein content, an indicator of forage quality, was negatively related to shoot yield. Plants inoculated with 102F78 showed a similar shoot yield to those inoculated with 102F34, but had higher crude protein content at elevated CO(2) and temperature. Under these climate change conditions, 102F78 inoculated plants produced higher quality forage. However, the higher digestibility of plants inoculated with the 102F34 strain under any CO(2) or temperature conditions makes them more suitable for growing under climate change conditions. In general, elevated CO(2) in combination with high temperature (Climate Change scenario) reduced IVDMD and CP content and enhanced fibre content, which means that animal production will be negatively affected.     

Molecular and morphological evidence on the phylogeny of the Elephantidae

The African and Asian elephants and the mammoth diverged ca. 4-6 million years ago and their phylogenetic relationship has been controversial. Morphological studies have suggested a mammoth Asian elephant relationship, while molecular studies have produced conflicting results. We obtained cytochrome b sequences of up to 545 base pairs from five mammoths, 14 Asian and eight African elephants. A high degree of polymorphism is detected within species. With a dugong sequence used as the outgroup, parsimony and maximum-likelihood analyses support a mammoth African elephant clade. As the dugong is a very distant outgroup, we employ likelihood analysis to root the tree with a molecular clock, and use bootstrap and Bayesian analyses to quantify the relative support for different topologies. The analyses support the mammoth African elephant relationship, although other trees cannot be rejected. Ancestral polymorphisms may have resulted in gene trees differing from the species phylogeny Examination of morphological data, especially from primitive fossil members, indicates that some supposed synapomorphies between the mammoth and Asian elephant are variable, others convergent or autapomorphous. A mammoth African elephant relationship is not excluded. Our results highlight the need, in both morphological and molecular phylogenetics, for multiple markers and close attention to within-taxon variation and outgroup selection.     

Sensitization of amino acid derivatives obtained from Edman degradation with radioactively-labeled iodohistamine

The minimum amount of proteins and peptides required for sequencing is constantly decreasing as more sensitive microsequencing methods are developed. The sensitization of and Edman degradation product is one such method. We took the 2-anilino 5-thiazolinone amino acid intermediates obtained from Edman degradation by conventional sequencing procedures, and quantitatively reacted them with a primary amine. The amine used was radioactive [125I]iodohistamine, which affords highly sensitive detection. The labeled amino acid derivatives were separated by thin layer chromatography. Ten femtomoles of a labeled derivative can be detected by autoradiography.     

Effectiveness of three Glomus species in protecting pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) against verticillium wilt

The objective of this work was to study the influence of three Glomus species—Glomus mosseae (Nicol. and Gerd.) Gerd. and Trappe, Glomus intraradices (Schenck and Smith) and Glomus deserticola (Trappe, Bloss, and Menge)—on the development of Verticillium-induced wilt in Capsicum annuum cv. Piquillo. Results showed that the effectiveness of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) as biocontrol agents varied among different Glomus species. In pepper colonized by G. intraradices the severity of the disease was even higher than that observed in non-mycorrhizal plants in terms of plant growth and pepper yield. On the other hand, the high effectiveness exhibited by G. mosseae in improving plant growth and the early beginning of the reproductive stage in these plants was not associated with great plant protection and high pepper yield in diseased plants. Only plants associated with G. deserticola had greater yield than non-mycorrhizal ones despite the lower P fertilization applied to the mycorrhizal treatment and this fact was observed in both healthy and diseased plants. It is suggested that the higher specific phosphorus uptake in Verticillium-inoculated plants associated with G. deserticola could contribute to diminish the deleterious effect of pathogen on yield. On the other hand, the possible influence of endogenous phenolics in roots on the tolerance or resistance of pepper against wilt induced by Verticillium dahliae remains unclear.     

Enhanced cancer cell invasion caused by fibroblasts when fluid flow is present

Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology - It has been demonstrated that interstitial fluid (IF) flow can play a crucial role in tumor cell progression. Swartz and collaborators (Cancer Cell 11:...     

Is vegetative area,photosynthesis, or grape C uploading involved in the climate change-related grape sugar/anthocyanin decoupling in Tempranillo?

Foreseen climate change is expected to impact on grape composition, both sugar and pigment content. We tested the hypothesis that interactions between main factors associated with climate change (elevated CO₂, elevated temperature, and water deficit) decouple sugars and anthocyanins, and explored the possible involvement of vegetative area, photosynthesis, and grape C uploading on the decoupling. Tempranillo grapevine fruit-bearing cuttings were exposed to CO₂ (700 vs. 400 ppm), temperature (ambient vs. +?4 °C), and irrigation levels (partial vs. full) in temperature-gradient greenhouses. In a search for mechanistic insights into the underlying processes, experiments 1 and 2 were designed to maximize photosynthesis and enlarge leaf area range among treatments, whereas plant growth was manipulated in order to deliberately down-regulate photosynthesis and control vegetative area in experiments 3 and 4. Towards this aim, treatments were applied either from fruit set to maturity with free vegetation and fully irrigated or at 5–8% of pot capacity (experiments 1 and 2), or from veraison to maturity with controlled vegetation and fully irrigated or at 40% of pot capacity (experiments 3 and 4). Modification of air ¹³C isotopic composition under elevated CO₂ enabled the further characterization of whole C fixation period and C partitioning to grapes. Increases of the grape sugars-to-anthocyanins ratio were highly and positively correlated with photosynthesis and grape ¹³C labeling, but not with vegetative area. Evidence is presented for photosynthesis, from fruit set to veraison, and grape C uploading, from veraison to maturity, as key processes involved in the establishment and development, respectively, of the grape sugars to anthocyanins decoupling.     

Lactic acid bacteria isolated from dairy products inhibit genotoxic effect of 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide in SOS-chromotest

Antigenotoxic activity against 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4-NQO) of lactic acid bacteria isolated from commercial dairy products was studied using SOS-Chromotest. The supernatants from bacteria-genotoxin co-incubations in general exhibited a strong suppression on SOS-induction produced by 4-NQO on the tester organism Escherichia coli PQ37 (sfiA::lacZ). High genotoxicity inhibition (>75%) was found for 31/67 of the examined bacteria and the maximum values of some strains within the species were as follows: Lactobacillus casei, 99.1%; L. plantarum, 93.3%; L. rhamnosus, 93.4%; L. acidophilus, 90.9%; L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, 85.7% and Bifidobacterium bifidum, 89.6%; Strains with low antigenotoxicity (5-60%) were evidenced in both L. acidophilus and L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, whereas some inactive strains were found only in L. casei and L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus. Cell exposure to 100 degrees C for 15 min prevented antigenotoxicity and no effect was evidenced for cell-free spent media. The active strains survived at 0.1 mM 4-NQO exposure and generally presented some relevant functional properties, such as tolerance to bile (0.5%) or acid environment (pH 2.0) and adherence to Caco-2 enterocytes. Antigenotoxicity was always associated with modification of the 4-NQO absorbance profile.     

Effect of cholesterol epoxides on the inhibition of intercellular communication and on mutation induction in Chinese hamster V79 cells

Cholesterol, cholesterol-5 alpha, 6 alpha-epoxide, cholesterol-5 beta, 6 beta-epoxide and cholestane-3 beta,5 alpha,6 beta-triol were tested for their ability to induce mutations at the Na+/K+-ATPase loci of the Chinese hamster V79 cells. None of these compounds induced ouabain-resistant mutations compared to the background mutation frequency in the control cells. These compounds were further tested for their ability to inhibit intercellular communication, using the Chinese hamster V79 cell metabolic cooperation assay. The diastereomeric epoxides and cholestane-triol, but not cholesterol, were found to be inhibitors of intercellular communication in a manner similar to other known tumor promoters.     

Iodination of zeta protein by lactoperoxidase. Chloroperoxidase and chloramine T.

Normal and Rous sarcoma virus transformed chicken embryo fibroblasts cultured on petri dishes were labeled with ¹²⁵I by two enzymic methods and one chemical method. The enzymic labeling systems employed chloroperoxidase and lactoperoxidase. Hydrogen peroxide was generated by glucose oxidase and glucose. The chemical method used chloramine T as the oxidant for iodide ion. After solubilization of cells, SDS disc gel electrophoresis and gamma counting, it was found that only one cell protein was predominantly labeled in all three reactions. This protein, a major cell surface protein, has been previously identified and termed Zeta protein. Zeta protein disappears from transformed cells and is susceptible to trypsin digestion.