Ultraviolet penetration of pine trees and insect virus survival

Solar UV light entering Lodgepole pine,Pinus contorta (Loud.) canopy was measured by radiometer and polysulphone film. It was found to be much attenuated among lower branches and nuclear polyhedrosis virus exposed there was significantly more infective to Pine beauty moth,Panolis flammea (D.+S.) than virus from upper branches. S. J. Warden died April 1989     

COHCAP: an integrative genomic pipeline for single-nucleotide resolution DNA methylation analysis

COHCAP (City of Hope CpG Island Analysis Pipeline) is an algorithm to analyze single-nucleotide resolution DNA methylation data produced by either an Illumina methylation array or targeted bisulfite sequencing. The goal of the COHCAP algorithm is to identify CpG islands that show a consistent pattern of methylation among CpG sites. COHCAP is currently the only DNA methylation package that provides integration with gene expression data to identify a subset of CpG islands that are most likely to regulate downstream gene expression, and it can generate lists of differentially methylated CpG islands with ∼50% concordance with gene expression from both cell line data and heterogeneous patient data. For example, this article describes known breast cancer biomarkers (such as estrogen receptor) with a negative correlation between DNA methylation and gene expression. COHCAP also provides visualization for quality control metrics, regions of differential methylation and correlation between methylation and gene expression. This software is freely available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/cohcap/.     

Fungicide control of Stenocarpella Maydis in the Nigerian Savanna

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.     

Evaluation of neem seed powder for Fusarium wilt and Meloidogyne control on tomato

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.     

Engineering and optimization of an allosteric biosensor protein for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ ligands

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ or PPARG) belongs to the nuclear receptor superfamily, and is a potential drug target for a variety of diseases. In this work, we constructed a series of bacterial biosensors for the identification of functional PPARγ ligands. These sensors entail modified Escherichia coli cells carrying a four-domain fusion protein, comprised of the PPARγ ligand binding domain (LBD), an engineered mini-intein domain, the E. coli maltose binding protein (MBD), and a thymidylate synthase (TS) reporter enzyme. E. coli cells expressing this protein exhibit hormone ligand-dependent growth phenotypes. Unlike our published estrogen (ER) and thyroid receptor (TR) biosensors, the canonical PPARγ biosensor cells displayed pronounced growth in the absence of ligand. They were able to distinguish agonists and antagonists, however, even in the absence of agonist. To improve ligand sensitivity of this sensor, we attempted to engineer and optimize linker peptides flanking the PPARγ LBD insertion point. Truncation of the original linkers led to decreased basal growth and significantly enhanced ligand sensitivity of the PPARγ sensor, while substitution of the native linkers with optimized G(4)S (Gly-Gly-Gly-Gly-Ser) linkers further increased the sensitivity. Our studies demonstrate that the properties of linkers, especially the C-terminal linker, greatly influence the efficiency and fidelity of the allosteric signal induced by ligand binding. Our work also suggests an approach to increase allosteric behavior in this multidomain sensor protein, without modification of the functional LBD.