Agricultural Activities of a Meadow Eliminated Plant Litter from the Periphery of a Farmland in Inner Mongolia,China

The purpose of our investigation was to clarify the effects of agriculture on the process of loss of litter at the periphery of a farmland. This study revealed the generation process of an ecologically unusual phenomenon that is observed around cropland in semi-arid regions. We hypothesized that the vegetation around a farmland cannot supply plant litter to the ground surface because the ecological structure has been changed by agricultural activities. The study was conducted at Xilingol steppe, Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. Four study lines were established from the edge of an arable field to the surrounding meadow and parallel to the wind direction during the strong wind season. Key measurement for each line was set at the border between the farmland and steppe. Four study sites were set at intervals along each line. Plant litter, soil particle size distribution, plant species composition, plant volume, and species diversity were investigated. Despite using the same mowing method at the meadows of all study sites, the litter at the only periphery of the farmland completely disappeared. Soil particle size distribution in steppe, which was adjacent to the farmland, was similar to that of the farmland. Plant community structure at the periphery of the farmland was different from that of the far side from the farmland. This implies that soil scattered from the farmland affected the species composition of the steppe. Consequently, the change in plant community structure induced litter loss because of mowing. We concluded that plant litter was lost near the farmland because of the combined effects of farming and mowing. The results support our hypothesis that the vegetation around a farmland cannot supply plant litter because the ecological structure has been changed by agricultural activities.     

Isolation and Chemical Structure of New Oxidation Product of 5-Ketogluconic Acid,and a Hypothetical Pathway from Glucose to Tartaric Acid through this New Compound

In the course of study on the mechanism of the tartaric acid formation from 5-ketogluconic acid, a new intermediary substance with mauve color to Abdel-Akhel and Smith’s reagent was isolated from intact cell culture liquid. The chemical structure of this substance was determined as 1,2-dihydroxyethyl hydrogen L(+) tartrate from the results of hydrolysis experiments and from the identifications of the constituents of the molecule, and named “pretaric acid.” Tartaric acid was evidently produced from pretaric acid by intact cell culture. Clearly, then, pretaric acid appears to be an intermediate in the formation of tartaric acid from 5-ketogluconic acid. The authors assumed that in the formation of pretaric acid from 5-ketogluconic acid, a Baeyer-Villiger type oxidation occurred.     

Activation of human C1: analysis with Western blotting reveals slow self-activation

The first component of human complement was separated from C1-INH by sucrose linear gradient ultracentrifugation. Activation of C1 was studied in the absence and presence of immune complexes; activation was monitored by SDS-PAGE and Western blot. When the partially purified native C1 preparation was incubated at 37 degrees C without immune complexes, activated C1s appeared after 30 min in the case of eightfold dilution with respect to the original serum, and after 45 min with 32-fold dilution. Kinetics of appearance of activated C1r was the same as that of activated C1s. From the following results, we concluded that spontaneous activation may be partially due to proteolytic enzymes contaminating the preparation: 1) a nonspecific protease inhibitor, PMSF, completely inhibited spontaneous activation but did not inhibit the activation of C1 by immune complexes; 2) alpha 2-macroglobulin partially inhibited spontaneous activation, and 3) although spontaneous activation in the absence of PMSF was relatively slow, activated C1 accelerated spontaneous activation that was completely blocked by C1-INH. In contrast to spontaneous activation, the partially purified native C1 was rapidly activated by immune complexes: within 5 min almost all C1 was activated by rabbit IgG anti-human IgM-human IgM complexes. These results support conclusions derived from activation studies when using native C1 and hemolytic assays, and do not support those derived from the activation studies with reconstituted C1 and SDS-PAGE analysis. We suggest that the contradictions can be resolved if one assumes that C1 activation can be both an intra- and intermolecular process; which process dominates is determined by the state of C1 and by experimental conditions.     

Methylation strongly enhances DNA bending in the replication origin region of the Escherichia coli chromosome

Summary Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, at high and low temperatures, and gel mobilities of circularly permuted DNA segments showed a large bending locus about 50 bp downstream from the right border of the 245 by oriC box, a minimal essential region of autonomous replication on the Escherichia coli chromosome. Bending was strongly enhanced by Dam methylation. In DNA from a Dam^– strain, the mobility anomaly arising from altered conformation was much reduced, but was raised to the original level by methylation in vivo or in vitro. Enhancement of the mobility anomaly was also observed by hybrid formation of the Dam^– strand with the Dam⁺ strand. Near the bending center, GATC, the target of Dam methylase, occurs seven times arranged essentially on the same face of the helix with 10.5 by per turn. We concluded that small bends at each Dam site added up to the large bending detectable by gel electrophoresis.     

Salt tolerance of the reed plant Phragmites communis

Reed plants ( Phragmites communis Trinius) were grown at NaCl concentrations up to 500 m M and their growth, mineral contents and leaf blade osmotic potential were determined. Addition of NaCl up to 300 m M did not affect growth significantly. Sucrose, Cl^-and Na⁺ concentrations in the shoots increased with the salinity of the medium and the shoot water content decreased. K⁺ always contributed most to the leaf osmotic potential. Even in the presence of 250 m M NaCl in the rooting medium, the leaf blade contained only 50 mM Na⁺, suggesting that the plants have an efficient mechanism for Na⁺ exclusion. ²²Na⁺ uptake experiments suggested that the retranslo-cation of absorbed Na⁺ from shoots to the rooting medium lowered the uptake of Na⁺.     

Immuno-Gold Localization of Nitrogenase in Root Nodules of Elaeagnus pungens Thunb

The molybdenum-iron component of nitrogenase (Mo-Fe component)was purified from soybean nodule bacteroids and antibody wasraised against it in rabbits. Antibody raised against the 53kDa polypeptide which was the major protein in the Mo-Fe componentfraction of soybean nitrogenase was confirmed to be specificto the nitrogenase by immunodiffusion and immunotitration. Thenitrogenase from root nodules of Elaeagnus pungens cross-reactedwith the antibody and appeared from the results of the immunodiffusionto be partially identical to soybean nitrogenase. Using the antibody, we examined intracellular localization ofnitrogenase in root nodules of Elaeagnus pungens, in which Frankiais present as a symbiont, by immuno-gold labelling. Thin sectionsof nodules of Elaeagnus pungens were first treated with anti-nitrogenasespecific antibody and then with colloidal gold-protein A asa marker. The gold particles were observed to be concentratedin the vesicles of the endophyte Frankia. This provides strongsupport for the existence E of nitrogenase in the vesicles.Furthermore, our results suggested that nitrogenase localizesin the hyphae of the endophyte Frankia in Elaeagnus pungensnodules. ¹Present address: Iwata Experiment Station, Japan Tobacco Inc.,Iwata-gun, Shizuoka 438, Japan. (Received March 9, 1988; Accepted July 28, 1988)     

Induction of LAK cells by high density dialyzing culture device and its cytotoxicity

Lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells are generated by culture of lymphocytes with interleukin 2 (IL-2) in short term culture (3 to 5 days) and are used for adoptive immunotherapy for advanced cancer patients. The culture condition hitherto reported are essentially based on the rotating culture system, in which the maximum cell density was at 2 X 10(6) cell/ml and the cell recovery was usually less than 100%. The inability to induce LAK cells efficiently in vitro made the culturing of cells for therapy rather difficult and costly work because the mean infusion dose of LAK cells of one patient requires more than 1 X 10(10)/ml. We have therefore attempted to culture lymphocytes in 10 times higher concentration comparing with conventional methods. By using a new dialyzing culture system under continuous regulation of the amount of infused IL-2, nutrition medium, and pO2 and pCO2, we could culture cells at 2 X 10(7)/ml for more than 21 days and the resulted LAK cells showed a 100 times increase of activity on a per cell basis. By limiting dilution procedure, these killer cells mostly express T cell markers such as CD3 and CD8 but dose not express CD16.