Publications by authors named "R Schweiger"
Article Synopsis
- Flavonoids are important metabolites in plants, affected by enzyme modifications like glycosylation with various sugars.
- The study focused on three specific glycoside hydrolase enzymes (BGLU1, BGLU3, BGLU4) in Arabidopsis thaliana to explore their roles using genetic and metabolic analysis.
- Findings showed that these enzymes are involved in modifying flavonoids, with BGLU1 linked to leaves and BGLU3/BGLU4 to seeds, revealing BGLU3's multifunctional capability in various metabolic reactions.
Article Synopsis
- Different herbivorous species can either compete or help each other when they share a host plant, depending on their interactions.
- Sap-sucking insects like aphids can change the shared plant's sap composition, which can influence their performance and the dynamics between co-existing aphid species.
- The study focused on the English grain aphid and the bird cherry-oat aphid, finding that pre-infestation by one species affected their populations differently on ears and leaves of wheat plants, contributing to knowledge about how these interactions play out in agriculture.
The niche of aphids is largely defined by their consumption of plant phloem sap and its composition, including nutrients and specialized metabolites. Niche construction is the change of the environment by organisms, which may influence the fitness of these organisms and their offspring. To better understand interactions between plants and aphids, it is necessary to investigate whether aphids modify the chemical composition of the phloem sap of their host plants and whether conspecifics are affected by previous infestation.
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- Meiotic recombination is crucial for genetic diversity, involving both crossovers and non-crossover events that lead to gene conversion.
- Researchers used long sequencing reads from sperm samples to analyze recombination events, highlighting variability between and within male donors.
- The study found non-crossover gene conversions often occur near PRDM9 binding sites, suggesting two distinct mechanisms: one common, linked to PRDM9, and another rarer, associated with complex genetic events.
The risk of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is influenced by genetic background. In 2016, the International AMD Genomics Consortium (IAMDGC) identified 52 risk variants in 34 loci, and a polygenic risk score (PRS) from these variants was associated with AMD. The Israeli population has a unique genetic composition: Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ), Jewish non-Ashkenazi, and Arab sub-populations.
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