A study on optimization of pat gene expression cassette for maize transformation.

Phosphinothricin acetyltransferase gene (pat) is an important selectable marker and also a key herbicide trait gene in several commercial products. In maize, the transformation frequency (TF) using pat as a selectable marker is the lowest among the commonly used marker options including epsps, pmi or ppo. Low pat transformation efficiency can become a major bottleneck in our ability to efficiently produce large numbers of events, especially for large molecular stack vectors with multiple trait gene cassettes.

MATRILINEAL, a sperm-specific phospholipase, triggers maize haploid induction.

Sexual reproduction in flowering plants involves double fertilization, the union of two sperm from pollen with two sex cells in the female embryo sac. Modern plant breeders increasingly seek to circumvent this process to produce doubled haploid individuals, which derive from the chromosome-doubled cells of the haploid gametophyte. Doubled haploid production fixes recombinant haploid genomes in inbred lines, shaving years off the breeding process.

[Evaluation and optimization of an image-subtraction method for the analysis of the repositioning accuracy of female patients with breast cancer].

To analyze the repositioning accuracy in female patients with breast carcinoma, two different setups of an image-subtraction system (Positioning System FIVE) were devised using different numbers and alignments of lasers. The applicability of the system was tested for repositioning of the breast in normal volunteers. Horizontal translations as well as breathing-related movements in the vertical direction were measured.

An application framework for computer-aided patient positioning in radiation therapy.

The importance of exact patient positioning in radiation therapy increases with the ongoing improvements in irradiation planning and treatment. Therefore, new ways to overcome precision limitations of current positioning methods in fractionated treatment have to be found. The Department of Medical Physics at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) follows different video-based approaches to increase repositioning precision.