A truncated variant of the ribosome-associated trigger factor specifically contributes to plant chloroplast ribosome biogenesis.

Molecular chaperones are essential throughout a protein's life and act already during protein synthesis. Bacteria and chloroplasts of plant cells share the ribosome-associated chaperone trigger factor (Tig1 in plastids), facilitating maturation of emerging nascent polypeptides. While typical trigger factor chaperones employ three domains for their task, the here described truncated form, Tig2, contains just the ribosome binding domain.

Uracil phosphoribosyltransferase is required to establish a functional cytochrome bf complex.

Arabidopsis uracil phosphoribosyltransferase (UPP) is an essential enzyme and plants lacking this enzyme are strongly compromised in chloroplast function. Our analysis of UPP amiRNA mutants has confirmed that this vital function is crucial to establish a fully functional photosynthesis as the RIESKE iron sulfur protein (PetC) is almost absent, leading to a block in photosynthetic electron transport. Interestingly, this function appears to be unrelated to nucleotide homeostasis since nucleotide levels were not altered in the studied mutants.

A Novel Plenoptic Camera-Based Measurement System for the Investigation into Flight and Combustion Behavior of Refuse-Derived Fuel Particles.

In the past several decades, refuse-derived fuels (RDFs) have been widely applied in industrial combustion processes, for instance, in cement production. Since RDF is composed of various waste fractions with complex shapes, its flight and combustion behaviors can be relatively complicated. In this paper, we present a novel plenoptic camera-based spatial measurement system that uses image processing approaches to determine the dwell time, the space-sliced velocity in the depth direction, and the ignition time of various applied RDF fractions based on the obtained images.

Nucleotide Imbalance, Provoked by Downregulation of Aspartate Transcarbamoylase Impairs Cold Acclimation in Arabidopsis.

Aspartate transcarbamoylase () catalyzes the first committed step in pyrimidine de novo synthesis. As shown before, mutants with 80% reduced transcript and protein levels exhibit reduced levels of pyrimidine metabolites and thus nucleotide limitation and imbalance. Consequently, reduced photosynthetic capacity and growth, accompanied by massive transcriptional changes, were observed.

Occurrence of Rare Deletional Yus and Gerbich Alleles in Syria and Neighbouring Countries.

Background: Gerbich-negative phenotypes of the Gerbich Blood Group System (ISBT 020) are very rare (with the exception of Papua New Guinea). The Gerbich-negative phenotypes Yus and Gerbich are negative for the antigens Ge2, and Ge2 and Ge3, respectively. In antigen-negative individuals, anti-Ge2 and anti-Ge3 antibodies can be naturally occurring, or are triggered during pregnancies and after transfusions.