A zebrafish model of granulin deficiency reveals essential roles in myeloid cell differentiation.

Granulin is a pleiotropic protein involved in inflammation, wound healing, neurodegenerative disease, and tumorigenesis. These roles in human health have prompted research efforts to use granulin to treat rheumatoid arthritis and frontotemporal dementia and to enhance wound healing. But how granulin contributes to each of these diverse biological functions remains largely unknown.

Search for Partner Proteins of Immunophilins Involved in the Control of Plant Immunity.

The involvement of plant immunophilins in multiple essential processes such as development, various ways of adapting to biotic and abiotic stresses, and photosynthesis has already been established. Previously, research has demonstrated the involvement of three immunophilin genes (, , and ) in the control of plant response to invasion by various pathogens. Current research attempts to identify host target proteins for each of the selected immunophilins.

Bacterial community in ancient permafrost alluvium at the Mammoth Mountain (Eastern Siberia).

Permanently frozen (approx. 3.5Ma) alluvial Neogene sediments exposed in the Aldan river valley at the Mammoth Mountain (Eastern Siberia) are unique, ancient, and poorly studied permafrost environments.

Characterization of three Arabidopsis thaliana immunophilin genes involved in the plant defense response against Pseudomonas syringae.

Plant immunophilins are a broadly conserved family of proteins, which carry out a variety of cellular functions. In this study, we investigated three immunophilin genes involved in the Arabidopsis thaliana response to Pseudomonas syringae infection: a cytoplasmic localized AtCYP19, a cytoplasmic and nuclear localized AtCYP57, and one nucleus directed FKBP known as AtFKBP65. Arabidopsis knock-out mutations in these immunophilins result in an increased susceptibility to P.

Arabidopsis and Brachypodium distachyon transgenic plants expressing Aspergillus nidulans acetylesterases have decreased degree of polysaccharide acetylation and increased resistance to pathogens.

The plant cell wall has many significant structural and physiological roles, but the contributions of the various components to these roles remain unclear. Modification of cell wall properties can affect key agronomic traits such as disease resistance and plant growth. The plant cell wall is composed of diverse polysaccharides often decorated with methyl, acetyl, and feruloyl groups linked to the sugar subunits.

An efficient method for transient gene expression in monocots applied to modify the Brachypodium distachyon cell wall.

Background: Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is widely used to produce insertions into plant genomes. There are a number of well-developed Agrobacterium-mediated transformation methods for dicotyledonous plants, but there are few for monocotyledonous plants.

Methods: Three hydrolase genes were transiently expressed in Brachypodium distachyon plants using specially designed vectors that express the gene product of interest and target it to the plant cell wall.

Post-synthetic modification of plant cell walls by expression of microbial hydrolases in the apoplast.

The systematic creation of defined cell wall modifications in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana by expression of microbial hydrolases with known specific activities is a promising approach to examine the impacts of cell wall composition and structure on both plant fitness and cell wall recalcitrance. Moreover, this approach allows the direct evaluation in living plants of hydrolase specificity, which can differ from in vitro specificity. To express genes encoding microbial hydrolases in A.

IDentification and Analysis of the Arabidopsis Thaliana Atfas4 Gene Whose Overexpression Results in the Development of A Fasciated Stem.

Using a new pEnLox vector employed to generate gain-of-function mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana, the AtFAS4 mutant has been obtained and analyzed. The mutant is characterized by super-expression of the At1g33390 gene, which leads to the occurrence of a mutant phenotype - stem fasciation. The level of expression of the AtFAS4 gene in normally developing A.

Identification of ICE2, a gene involved in cold acclimation which determines freezing tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Several transcription factors are presently known to regulate the response to cold stress. Here we describe a new positive regulator, ICE2, which is a transcription factor of the bHLH family that participates in the response to deep freezing through the cold acclimation-dependent pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana plants. An overexpression of ICE2 (as we named the At1g12860 locus) in transgenic Arabidopsis plants results in increased tolerance to deep freezing stress after cold acclimation.

A highly efficient miPCR method for isolating FSTs from transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants.

The exact localization of an insertion in the genome of transgenic plants obtained by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is an integral part of most experiments aimed at studying these types of mutants. There are several methods for isolating unknown nucleotide sequences of genomic DNA which flank the borders of T-DNA integrated in the genome of plants. However, all the methods based on PCR have limitations which in some cases do not permit the desired objective to be achieved.

A new technique for activation tagging in Arabidopsis.

We have created and applied to Arabidopsis thaliana a new system of two vectors. The first vector (pEnLox) is intended for activation tagging and contains a multimerized transcriptional enhancer from the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S gene in T-DNA flanked by two loxP-sites and the second vector (pCre) contains the cre gene. Using pEnLox we have generated more than a hundred mutants resistant to the herbicide ammonium glufosinate, and about ten helper-lines resistant to the antibiotic hygromycin obtained with the use of pCre vector and also more than ten double mutants resistant to both selective markers.