scholarly journals Arabidopsis and relatives as models for the study of genetic and genomic incompatibilities

2010 ◽  
Vol 365 (1547) ◽  
pp. 1815-1823 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Bomblies ◽  
Detlef Weigel

The past few years have seen considerable advances in speciation research, but whether drift or adaptation is more likely to lead to genetic incompatibilities remains unknown. Some of the answers will probably come from not only studying incompatibilities between well-established species, but also from investigating incipient speciation events, to learn more about speciation as an evolutionary process. The genus Arabidopsis , which includes the widely used Arabidopsis thaliana , provides a useful set of model species for studying many aspects of population divergence. The genus contains both self-incompatible and incompatible species, providing a platform for studying the impact of mating system changes on genetic differentiation. Another important path to plant speciation is via formation of polyploids, and this can be investigated in the young allotetraploid species A. arenosa . Finally, there are many cases of intraspecific incompatibilities in A. thaliana , and recent progress has been made in discovering the genes underlying both F 1 and F 2 breakdown. In the near future, all these studies will be greatly empowered by complete genome sequences not only for all members of this relatively small genus, but also for many different individuals within each species.

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beat Keller ◽  
Thomas Wicker ◽  
Simon G. Krattinger

The gene pool of wheat and its wild and domesticated relatives contains a plethora of resistance genes that can be exploited to make wheat more resilient to pathogens. Only a few of these genes have been isolated and studied at the molecular level. In recent years, we have seen a shift from classical breeding to genomics-assisted breeding, which makes use of the enormous advancements in DNA sequencing and high-throughput molecular marker technologies for wheat improvement. These genomic advancements have the potential to transform wheat breeding in the near future and to significantly increase the speed and precision at which new cultivars can be bred. This review highlights the genomic improvements that have been made in wheat and its pathogens over the past years and discusses their implications for disease-resistance breeding.


Author(s):  
H.E.M. Cool

Glass came of age during the Roman period. Within the ancient world it had been used from the mid-second millennium bce onwards, but only for jewellery and luxury items like small perfume bottles. This started to change in the late 2nd century bce, when the Hellenistic industries started to produce simple glass drinking vessels. In the early Imperial period there was an explosion in the vessel forms available, in part made possible by the discovery of how to blow glass. The new types included both the luxurious, such as exquisite cameo vessels, and the utilitarian, such as disposable packaging for cosmetics. A similar expansion was seen in its role in buildings, where glass went from luxurious interior decoration to structurally important window glass. References in literary works and depictions in wall paintings at the time attest to the considerable attention this new phenomenon attracted in the early to mid-1st century ce. Vessels, windows and other items spread widely throughout the empire and beyond, and to all levels of society. Over the next 400 years, how the material was used changed with time and place as the various regional industries responded to the needs and preferences of their communities. This was a major high-temperature industry which would have made considerable demands on resources such as fuel, but there are still many things that are unknown about it. Where, for example, was the glass itself made? Waste from secondary workshops producing vessels is regularly encountered, but evidence for the primary production is extremely rare. This has led to considerable debate, with competing models being proposed. Glass is not a material where scientific techniques such as those used to provenance pottery have proved very helpful. The composition of Roman glass is extremely uniform throughout the empire, and again there has been much debate about why this might be. Of late, some useful advances have started to be made in approaching these questions, and this may eventually disentangle what was going on. The study of Roman glass provides a unique window into the past. Through it the impact of new technologies and materials can be seen, as well as the choices people made about what was useful in their lives—all against the background of some of the most beautiful and skilful vessels ever made.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (S349) ◽  
pp. 474-478
Author(s):  
Rosa M. Ros ◽  
Beatriz Garca

AbstractJust as in the past, the development of the natural sciences and in particular of astronomy has changed the history of humanity. If we think about the role of our discipline into the future, it shows its enormous power in the field of education, owing to the possibility of awakening interest in science in very varied audiences. Within the framework of the enormous progress made in the technologies related to astronomy, many of them of daily use, the role of the astronomer in the era of Communications acquires fundamental importance.In this presentation, we will try to make a journey through the different ways of presenting astronomical topics for different audiences over the last 100 years. In turn, we will show some specific achievements, associated with education programmes of the discipline. We discuss the impact produced by proposals that are both rigorous in terms of content, and also appeal to the development of the human being in an integral manner, within the framework of citizen science activities.For this research, we have taken into account the uninterrupted development of the NASE programme, which has performed 112 courses in 24 countries throughout the world and in different languages. NASE has involved 4966 secondary teachers in the last eight years.


2018 ◽  
Vol 175 ◽  
pp. 01022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zohreh Davoudi

Explorations of the properties of light nuclear systems beyond their lowestlying spectra have begun with Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics. While progress has been made in the past year in pursuing calculations with physical quark masses, studies of the simplest nuclear matrix elements and nuclear reactions at heavier quark masses have been conducted, and several interesting results have been obtained. A community effort has been devoted to investigate the impact of such Quantum Chromodynamics input on the nuclear many-body calculations. Systems involving hyperons and their interactions have been the focus of intense investigations in the field, with new results and deeper insights emerging. While the validity of some of the previous multi-nucleon studies has been questioned during the past year, controversy remains as whether such concerns are relevant to a given result. In an effort to summarize the newest developments in the field, this talk will touch on most of these topics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 125-135
Author(s):  
David Evans Bailey

Whilst online dating has been around for several years; immersive technologies are relatively new to this type of interaction. The first forays into immersive VR online dating have only just being made in the past year. To what degree this type of technology will change the way that we date is potentially quite different from the current way that online dates are conducted. The way the technology works could make virtual dates seem as real as a physical date. Understanding how immersive technology functions gives some insights into the future of online dating and also the impact on the digital economy.


2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZHONGWEI ZHAO

Thanks to the progress that has been made in the study of population history, it has been gradually accepted that fertility in historical China was only moderate in comparison with the recorded high fertility. However, scholars still disagree on whether the Chinese could have intentionally controlled their family size. This article first summarizes recent findings about fertility patterns in historical China. Then the author provides further evidence of people limiting their family size in the past, before discussing the impact of traditional beliefs on people's fertility behaviour and summarizing the antinatalist ideas and suggestions put forwarded by Chinese officials and intellectuals over China's long history. This evidence is then used to comment on a number of suggestions that have been made about China's traditional reproductive behaviour and culture. The article challenges the views that people's reproductive strategies aimed in the past to maximize the number of surviving offspring and that the demand for children (or sons) was always high in historical China.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
M. Kokkoris ◽  
H. Huber ◽  
S. Kossionides ◽  
T. Paradellis ◽  
Ch. Zarkadas ◽  
...  

Several experiments have been carried out in the past in order to examine the impact of medium and heavy ions in crystals in the MeV range, which is of particular interest in high energy implantations. In the present work, the gradual amorphisation of simple crystals such as Si (100), Ge (100) and W (100) when irradiated with 18 MeV 1 6 0 in a random direction is being studied using the progressive change of channeling parameters, up to a maximum dose of approximately 1Ί01 6 par tides/en*2. The results are compared to the ones present in literature and an attempt is made in order to explain the peculiarities of the experimental spectra.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1846 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taranto-Montemurro ◽  
Messineo ◽  
Wellman

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a highly prevalent condition with few therapeutic options. To date there is no approved pharmacotherapy for this disorder, but several attempts have been made in the past and are currently ongoing to find one. The recent identification of multiple endotypes underlying this disorder has oriented the pharmacological research towards tailored therapies targeting specific pathophysiological traits that contribute differently to cause OSA in each patient. In this review we retrospectively analyze the literature on OSA pharmacotherapy dividing the medications tested on the basis of the four main endotypes: anatomy, upper airway muscle activity, arousal threshold and ventilatory instability (loop gain). We show how recently introduced drugs for weight loss that modify upper airway anatomy may play an important role in the management of OSA in the near future, and promising results have been obtained with drugs that increase upper airway muscle activity during sleep and reduce loop gain. The lack of a medication that can effectively increase the arousal threshold makes this strategy less encouraging, although recent studies have shown that the use of certain sedatives do not worsen OSA severity and could actually improve patients’ sleep quality.


Blood ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank W.G. Leebeek ◽  
Wolfgang Miesbach

In the past decade enormous progress has been made in the development of gene therapy for hemophilia A and B. After the first encouraging results of intravenously administered AAV-based liver-directed gene therapy in patients with severe hemophilia B were reported in 2011, many gene therapy studies have been initiated. Most of these studies, using AAV vectors with various gene constructs, showed sufficient FVIII and FIX expression in patients to significantly reduce the number of bleeds and the need for prophylaxis in the fast majority of the severe hemophilia patients. This resulted in great clinical benefit for nearly all patients. In this review we will summarize the most recent findings of reported and ongoing gene therapy trials. We will highlight the successful outcome of trials with focus on the results of recently reported phase 1 trials and preliminary results of phase 2b/3 trials for hemophilia A and B. These new reports also reveal the impact of side effects and drawbacks associated with gene therapy. We will therefore also discuss the limitations and remaining issues of the current gene therapy approaches. These issues have to be resolved before gene therapy will be widely available for the hemophilia patient population.


2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (Supplement_3) ◽  
pp. 183-183
Author(s):  
Graham Plastow

Abstract Efficiency in swine production is made up of a number of traits including reproduction, health, and the conversion of feed into pork. Due to the large proportion of cost associated with feed (>70% of overall costs) there has been a focus on this aspect of efficiency. Indeed, significant progress has been made in reducing the amount of feed required to reach market weight. This has been achieved at the same time as increasing growth rate (and therefore decreasing age at slaughter) whilst maintaining carcass quality to meet market needs. A significant proportion of this improvement was delivered through genetics and the application of new measurement technologies. Examples, include the use of ultrasound to measure fat content on the live animal and individual feed intake recording. At a time when sustainable production is increasingly demanded then efficiency will continue to be important through its impact on the economics of farming – productivity and profit. However, sustainability takes into account other aspects such as the impact on the environment as well as social aspects such as animal welfare. Many of these components support each other, for example, more prolific sows producing more efficient full market value pigs contribute to a smaller environmental footprint (more product and less waste). Likewise pigs that stay healthy even when responding to infection continue to eat and require less medication. When antagonisms exist they can be addressed in a balanced selection program that addresses all aspects. We are now at a point where new technologies will make it feasible to address these additional factors providing the opportunity for even greater progress in these key traits in the near future. This presentation will provide examples of the progress made and the role of genomics in utilizing “big data” to continue to improve the efficiency of swine production.


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