Oats Lower Age-Related Systemic Chronic Inflammation (iAge) in Adults at Risk for Cardiovascular Disease.

Despite being largely preventable, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is still the leading cause of death globally. Recent studies suggest that the immune system, particularly a form of systemic chronic inflammation (SCI), is involved in the mechanisms leading to CVD; thus, targeting SCI may help prevent or delay the onset of CVD. In a recent placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial, an oat product providing 3 g of β-Glucan improved cholesterol low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels and lowered cardiovascular risk in adults with borderline high cholesterol.

Improved maize reference genome with single-molecule technologies.

Complete and accurate reference genomes and annotations provide fundamental tools for characterization of genetic and functional variation. These resources facilitate the determination of biological processes and support translation of research findings into improved and sustainable agricultural technologies. Many reference genomes for crop plants have been generated over the past decade, but these genomes are often fragmented and missing complex repeat regions.

High Quality Maize Centromere 10 Sequence Reveals Evidence of Frequent Recombination Events.

The ancestral centromeres of maize contain long stretches of the tandemly arranged CentC repeat. The abundance of tandem DNA repeats and centromeric retrotransposons (CR) has presented a significant challenge to completely assembling centromeres using traditional sequencing methods. Here, we report a nearly complete assembly of the 1.

Inbreeding drives maize centromere evolution.

Functional centromeres, the chromosomal sites of spindle attachment during cell division, are marked epigenetically by the centromere-specific histone H3 variant cenH3 and typically contain long stretches of centromere-specific tandem DNA repeats (∼1.8 Mb in maize). In 23 inbreds of domesticated maize chosen to represent the genetic diversity of maize germplasm, partial or nearly complete loss of the tandem DNA repeat CentC precedes 57 independent cenH3 relocation events that result in neocentromere formation.

Phylogeny and classification of Dickeya based on multilocus sequence analysis.

Bacterial heart rot of pineapple reported in Hawaii in 2003 and reoccurring in 2006 was caused by an undetermined species of Dickeya. Classification of the bacterial strains isolated from infected pineapple to one of the recognized Dickeya species and their phylogenetic relationships with Dickeya were determined by a multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA), based on the partial gene sequences of dnaA, dnaJ, dnaX, gyrB and recN. Individual and concatenated gene phylogenies revealed that the strains form a clade with reference Dickeya sp.

Classification of plant associated bacteria using RIF, a computationally derived DNA marker.

A DNA marker that distinguishes plant associated bacteria at the species level and below was derived by comparing six sequenced genomes of Xanthomonas, a genus that contains many important phytopathogens. This DNA marker comprises a portion of the dnaA replication initiation factor (RIF). Unlike the rRNA genes, dnaA is a single copy gene in the vast majority of sequenced bacterial genomes, and amplification of RIF requires genus-specific primers.

Distinct influences of tandem repeats and retrotransposons on CENH3 nucleosome positioning.

Background: Unique structural characteristics of centromere chromatin enable it to support assembly of the kinetochore and its associated tensions. The histone H3 variant CENH3 (centromeric histone H3) is viewed as the key element of centromere chromatin and its interaction with centromere DNA is epigenetic in that its localization to centromeres is not sequence-dependent.

Results: In order to investigate what influence the DNA sequence exerts on CENH3 chromatin structure, we examined CENH3 nucleosome footprints on maize centromere DNA.

Maize centromere structure and evolution: sequence analysis of centromeres 2 and 5 reveals dynamic Loci shaped primarily by retrotransposons.

We describe a comprehensive and general approach for mapping centromeres and present a detailed characterization of two maize centromeres. Centromeres are difficult to map and analyze because they consist primarily of repetitive DNA sequences, which in maize are the tandem satellite repeat CentC and interspersed centromeric retrotransposons of maize (CRM). Centromeres are defined epigenetically by the centromeric histone H3 variant, CENH3.

Sustained retrotransposition is mediated by nucleotide deletions and interelement recombinations.

The term "C-value paradox" was coined by C. A. Thomas, Jr.

The UCSC Archaeal Genome Browser.

As more archaeal genomes are sequenced, effective research and analysis tools are needed to integrate the diverse information available for any given locus. The feature-rich UCSC Genome Browser, created originally to annotate the human genome, can be applied to any sequenced organism. We have created a UCSC Archaeal Genome Browser, available at http://archaea.