Some Effects of Chlorsulfuron on the Ultrastructure of Root and Leaf Cells in Pea Plants

Roots of intact pea plants were treated with 2.8 × 10⁻⁴ m Chlorsulfuron (CS). Meristematic root cells and leaf mesophyll cells were studied. Mitochondria, nucleoli, and chloroplasts were the first cell compartments to show ultrastructural disturbances. Mitochondria in treated plants had a visibly translucent matrix. The nucleoli were in the process of segregation of their fibrillar and granular components and reduction of their volume. The structural disturbances of the chloroplasts were similar to those observed during senescence. The results support the hypothesis that CS inhibits cell growth through the accumulation of toxic intermediates. Received March 28, 1996; accepted November 1, 1996     

Screening for genes that wire the cerebral cortex

Thalamocortical projections convey visual, somatosensory and auditory information to the cerebral cortex. A recent report in Neural Development shows how a forward genetic screen has enabled the identification of novel mutations affecting specific decision points of thalamocortical axon pathfinding.     

Structural and functional alterations in radish plants induced by the phenylurea cytokinin 4-PU-30

Single treatment of expanding radish leaves with N₁-(2-chloro-4-pyridyl)-N₂-phenylurea (4-PU-30) lead to the stimulation of root cambial tissue activity and root growth. Leaf thickness, the volume of chlorophyll (Chl) containing cells per unit leaf area, starch content in the chloroplasts, and the Chl content increased simultaneously. These alterations were associated with increased leaf net photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance in treated plants. This study was supported by the Bulgarian National Foundation for Scientific Researches (Contract B-413). 4-PU-30 was kindily provided by Prof. K. Shudo, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan. We wish also to thank Dr. T. Tsonev for valuable advises.     

Lability Landscape and Protease Resistance of Human Insulin Amyloid: A New Insight into Its Molecular Properties

Amyloid formation is a universal behavior of proteins central to many important human pathologies and industrial processes. The extreme stability of amyloids towards chemical and proteolytic degradation is an acquired property compared to the precursor proteins and is a major prerequisite for their accumulation. Here, we report a study on the lability of human insulin amyloid as a function of pH and amyloid ageing. Using a range of methods such as atomic force microscopy, thioflavin T fluorescence, circular dichroism, and gas-phase electrophoretic mobility macromolecule analysis, we probed the propensity of human insulin amyloid to propagate or dissociate in a wide span of pH values and ageing in a low concentration regime. We generated a three-dimensional amyloid lability landscape in coordinates of pH and amyloid ageing, which displays three distinctive features: (i) a maximum propensity to grow near pH 3.8 and an age corresponding to the inflection point of the growth phase, (ii) an abrupt cutoff between growth and disaggregation at pH 8-10, and (iii) isoclines shifted towards older age during the amyloid growth phase at pH 4-9, reflecting the greater stability of aged amyloid. Thus, lability of amyloid strongly depends on the ionization state of insulin and on the structure and maturity of amyloid fibrils. The stability of insulin amyloid towards protease K was assessed by using real-time atomic force microscopy and thioflavin T fluorescence. We estimated that amyloid fibrils can be digested both from the free ends and within the length of the fibril with a rate of ca 4 nm/min. Our results highlight that amyloid structures, depending on solution conditions, can be less stable than commonly perceived. These results have wide implications for understanding the propagation of amyloids via a seeding mechanism as well as for understanding their natural clearance and dissociation under solution conditions unfavorable for amyloid formation in biological systems and industrial applications.     

Carcass Persistence and Detectability: Reducing the Uncertainty Surrounding Wildlife-Vehicle Collision Surveys

Carcass persistence time and detectability are two main sources of uncertainty on roadkill surveys. In this study, we evaluate the influence of these uncertainties on roadkill surveys and estimates. To estimate carcass persistence time, three observers (including the driver) surveyed 114km by car on a monthly basis for two years, searching for wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC). Each survey consisted of five consecutive days. To estimate carcass detectability, we randomly selected stretches of 500m to be also surveyed on foot by two other observers (total 292 walked stretches, 146 km walked). We expected that body size of the carcass, road type, presence of scavengers and weather conditions to be the main drivers influencing the carcass persistence times, but their relative importance was unknown. We also expected detectability to be highly dependent on body size. Overall, we recorded low median persistence times (one day) and low detectability (<10%) for all vertebrates. The results indicate that body size and landscape cover (as a surrogate of scavengers’ presence) are the major drivers of carcass persistence. Detectability was lower for animals with body mass less than 100g when compared to carcass with higher body mass. We estimated that our recorded mortality rates underestimated actual values of mortality by 2–10 fold. Although persistence times were similar to previous studies, the detectability rates here described are very different from previous studies. The results suggest that detectability is the main source of bias across WVC studies. Therefore, more than persistence times, studies should carefully account for differing detectability when comparing WVC studies.