SCA8 RAN polySer protein preferentially accumulates in white matter regions and is regulated by eIF3F

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 8 (SCA8) is caused by a bidirectionally transcribed CTG·CAG expansion that results in the in vivo accumulation of CUG RNA foci, an ATG‐initiated polyGln and a polyAla protein expressed by repeat‐associated non‐ATG (RAN) translation. Although RAN proteins have been reported in a growing number of diseases, the mechanisms and role of RAN translation in disease are poorly understood. We report a novel toxic SCA8 polySer protein which accumulates in white matter (WM) regions as aggregates that increase with age and disease severity. WM regions with polySer aggregates show demyelination and axonal degeneration in SCA8 human and mouse brains. Additionally, knockdown of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF3F in cells reduces steady‐state levels of SCA8 polySer and other RAN proteins. Taken together, these data show polySer and WM abnormalities contribute to SCA8 and identify eIF3F as a novel modulator of RAN protein accumulation.     

Plants Replacing Plants: The Future of Community Modeling and Research

Over the past few decades, several conceptual and mathematical models of plant community organization and dynamics have been put forward. While each of these models has attempted to explain important plant community patterns by attributing them to some aspect of plant niches, or to a higher-level process, their predictive success has been very limited. Here I explore why this has happened by reviewing and summarizing each model individually by highlighting the plant community pattern each is trying to explain and predict, by identifying the mechanisms, tolerances, and/or processes authors propose are producing those patterns and describing how they work within the model, and by examining the assumptions of each model. I then discuss common misconceptions and shortcomings among the models, and finally propose a unifying synthesis and comprehensive framework that can serve as a basis for future plant community modeling and research. This synthesis is composed of three key ideas (1) that plant-plant replacements are the “fundamental process” of plant communities which produce every community-level terrestrial plant pattern, (2) that plants respond to mechanisms and tolerances which work both in spaces inside plants and in those spaces outside plants that influence them and/or they may be able to influence, and (3) that those responses make up plant niches which may be able to predict how plants replace themselves over time and space. Consequently I suggest to future field researchers that the best way to understand plant community patterns is to study plant-plant replacements, first by sampling long-term vegetation plots in order to map them, and then by manipulating mechanisms and tolerances in field experiments in order to understand what causes them.     

Temperature alternations and the influence of gibberellins and indoleacetic acid on elongation growth and flowering of Begonia x hiemalis Fotsch

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of plant hormones, particularly the gibberellins (GAs), in the thermoperiodic regulation of stem elongation in the short day plant (SDP) Begonia x hiemalis. Effects of GAs and some GA precursors were tested on plants grown under alternating day/night temperatures (DT/NT; 12/12 h), and the effects of these temperature regimes on endogenous plant hormones were analyzed using combined gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS).Compared with constant temperatures (19/19 °C; 21/21 °C), stem elongation was significantly inhibited by low DT/high NT (14/24 °C; 18/24 °C) and enhanced by the opposite treatments (24/14 °C; 26/17 °C). GA1 stimulated elongation of internodes and petioles while ent-kaurene, kaurenoic acid, GA12, GA19, GA20 had no significant effect. The effect of GA1 was enhanced by a simultaneous application of calcium 3,5-dioxo-4-propionylcyclohexanecarboxylate (BX-112). BX-112 inhibited internode elongation at high DT/low NT (24/14 °C) but not at the reverse temperature regime.Gibberellins A53, A19, A20, A1, A4, A9, and indoleacetic acid (IAA), were identified by GC-MS from both leaves, including the petioles, and stems of B. x hiemalis. There were no apparent relationships between elongation of internodes and petioles and endogenous contents of gibberellins A53, A19, A20, and A1. Recoveries of deuterated GA4 and GA9 were generally too low for estimation of endogenous levels of these GAs.Constant temperature resulted in more open flowers and flower buds compared to alternating DT and NT. BX-112 decreased the time to anthesis.