A survey of farmers' fields in the Savanna zone of Nigeria in 1999 indicated the presence of stalk and cob rots of maize at incidence rates of 15?–?43% and disease severity of 2.0?–?6.7. The causal organism was identified as Stenocarpella maydis (?=?Diplodia maydis). S. maydis was found to reduce seed germination by up to 29.2%. Laboratory and screen house experiments were used to evaluate the efficacy of six seed treatment fungicides indicated that Luxan (a local fungicide of unknown composition), benomyl (Benlate) and mancozeb (Dithane M-45) were more effective than metalaxyl?+?carboxin?+?furathiocarp (Apron-plus), carbendazin?+?maneb (Delsene M) and tetramethylthiuram disulphide?+?hexachlorobenzene (thiram?+?HCB) in controlling S. maydis. Stalk rot severity increased with increasing fertilization rates. 相似文献
Fusarium wilt and root-knot are important diseases of tomato. The use of chemical is becoming less appealing because of the health implications. Also, the chemicals required are often not within the reach of farmers in most of the developing part of the world. This research is aimed at finding an alternative mode of control. Tomato variety Roma VF inoculated with Meloidogyne and Fusarium were treated with 2 g/kg soil neem seed powder in the screenhouse and 2 Mg ha ? 1 in the field. An untreated and Furadan treated plot in the field served as control. Neem seed powder significantly reduced the disease severity of Fusarium and root-knot in both screenhouse and field. Results suggest the possible use of neem seed powder for control of the root-knot nematodes - Fusarium wilt disease complex. 相似文献
Context: Genotoxicity assays are widely employed in human biomonitoring studies to assess genetic damage inflicted by genotoxic agents.
Objective: Evaluation of micronuclei (MN) as a screening marker of occupational ionizing radiation (IR) exposure.
Materials and methods: Using micronucleus test, peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of 402 control and exposed subjects were screened for genetic damage.
Results: The mean frequencies of micronucleus test parameters were significantly higher in exposed persons. Increase of micronucleus yield with duration of exposure (DOE) by 0.303MN/year was revealed.
Discussion and conclusion: The obtained data encourage us to consider MN as valuable markers for preventive medical screening of occupationally exposed groups. 相似文献
18S ribosomal RNA genes are the most widely used nuclear sequences for
phylogeny reconstruction at higher taxonomic levels in plants. However, due
to a conservative rate of evolution, 18S rDNA alone sometimes provides too
few phylogenetically informative characters to resolve relationships
adequately. Previous studies using partial sequences have suggested the
potential of 26S or large-subunit (LSU) rDNA for phylogeny retrieval at
taxonomic levels comparable to those investigated with 18S rDNA. Here we
explore the patterns of molecular evolution of entire 26S rDNA sequences
and their impact on phylogeny retrieval. We present a protocol for PCR
amplification and sequencing of entire (approximately 3.4 kb) 26S rDNA
sequences as single amplicons, as well as primers that can be used for
amplification and sequencing. These primers proved useful in angiosperms
and Gnetales and likely have broader applicability. With these protocols
and primers, entire 26S rDNA sequences were generated for a diverse array
of 15 seed plants, including basal eudicots, monocots, and higher eudicots,
plus two representatives of Gnetales. Comparisons of sequence dissimilarity
indicate that expansion segments (or divergence domains) evolve 6.4 to 10.2
times as fast as conserved core regions of 26S rDNA sequences in plants.
Additional comparisons indicate that 26S rDNA evolves 1.6 to 2.2 times as
fast as and provides 3.3 times as many phylogenetically informative
characters as 18S rDNA; compared to the chloroplast gene rbcL, 26S rDNA
evolves at 0.44 to 1.0 times its rate and provides 2.0 times as many
phylogenetically informative characters. Expansion segment sequences
analyzed here evolve 1.2 to 3.0 times faster than rbcL, providing 1.5 times
the number of informative characters. Plant expansion segments have a
pattern of evolution distinct from that found in animals, exhibiting less
cryptic sequence simplicity, a lower frequency of insertion and deletion,
and greater phylogenetic potential.
相似文献
Miniature endplate currents (MEPCs) recorded from mouse diaphragms with a point voltage clamp, without inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and in the absence of any drug, showed in their decay phase consistent deviations from an exponential time course, consisting of (a) "curvature," a progressive increase of decay rate during most of the decay phase, followed by (b) "late" tails. Both phenomena persisted when MEPCs (and channel lifetime) were prolonged by ethanol. Curvature was increased by muscle fiber depolarization and decreased by hyperpolarization. Receptor blockade by (+)-tubocurarine, alpha-bungarotoxin, hexamethonium, or myasthenic IgG accelerated the decay of the main part of MEPCs and eliminated curvature; the time constant of MEPCs became close to the channel time constant. We conclude that curvature arises from repeated action of ACh with cooperativity in ACh-receptor interaction; the voltage sensitivity of curvature follows from the voltage sensitivity of channel closing. Ethanol, in addition to its effect to prolong channel lifetime, enhances the tendency of ACh to act more than once to open channels before being lost to the system. Analysis of the rising phase of the MEPC, in terms of driving functions, also indicated that ethanol promotes channel opening by ACh; this action can account for a substantial increase of MEPC height by ethanol when MEPCs are made small by receptor blockade. Driving functions were also voltage sensitive, in a manner indicating acceleration of channel opening, but reduction of channel conductance, with hyperpolarization. Poisoning or inhibition of AChE prolonged MEPCs without altering the duration of ionic channels. Since ethanol caused further prolongation of MEPCs after poisoning of AChE, with little change in MEPC height, we conclude that the extension of mean channel lifetime by ethanol is accompanied by a similar extension of ACh binding to receptors. After poisoning of AChE, MEPCs became very variable in time course and the decay rate (tau-1) was correlated with MEPC height with a slope of log tau vs. log height of 0.77 for MEPCs of greater than 60% mean size. This slope is larger than expected from cooperativity in ACh-receptor interaction. Correlation of tau and height of MEPCs also exists when AChE is intact; the slope of log tau vs. log height was 0.12 with or without prolongation of MEPCs by ethanol. 相似文献
A voltage-gated K+ conductance resembling that of the human ether-à-go-go-related gene product (HERG) was studied using whole-cell voltage-clamp recording, and found to be the predominant conductance at hyperpolarized potentials in a cell line (MLS-9) derived from primary cultures of rat microglia. Its behavior differed markedly from the classical inward rectifier K+ currents described previously in microglia, but closely resembled HERG currents in cardiac muscle and neuronal tissue. The HERG-like channels opened rapidly on hyperpolarization from 0 mV, and then decayed slowly into an absorbing closed state. The peak K+ conductance–voltage relation was half maximal at −59 mV with a slope factor of 18.6 mV. Availability, assessed by a hyperpolarizing test pulse from different holding potentials, was more steeply voltage dependent, and the midpoint was more positive (−14 vs. −39 mV) when determined by making the holding potential progressively more positive than more negative. The origin of this hysteresis is explored in a companion paper (Pennefather, P.S., W. Zhou, and T.E. DeCoursey. 1998. J. Gen. Physiol. 111:795–805). The pharmacological profile of the current differed from classical inward rectifier but closely resembled HERG. Block by Cs+ or Ba2+ occurred only at millimolar concentrations, La3+ blocked with Ki = ∼40 μM, and the HERG-selective blocker, E-4031, blocked with Ki = 37 nM. Implications of the presence of HERG-like K+ channels for the ontogeny of microglia are discussed. 相似文献
Lipobeads are hydrogel beads surrounded by a lipid bilayer membrane and have been developed to act as a cell analogue. The FLAG-tagged M(2) muscarinic receptor was incorporated onto the surface of the Lipobead by incubating pre-Lipobeads with proteoliposomes containing the receptor. Receptors reconstituted onto the surface of the Lipobeads were functional in that they bound the antagonists quinuclidinylbenzilate and scopolamine with characteristic muscarinic affinities. This demonstrates the feasibility of using Lipobeads to study the binding properties of the M(2) muscarinic receptor and offers a promising approach to the study of transmembrane protein biology in general. 相似文献