SolRgene: an online database to explore disease resistance genes in tuber-bearing Solanum species

Background The cultivated potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is an important food crop, but highly susceptible to many pathogens. The major threat to potato production is the Irish famine pathogen Phytophthora infestans, which causes the devastating late blight disease. Potato breeding makes use of germplasm from wild relatives (wild germplasm) to introduce resistances into cultivated potato. The Solanum section Petota comprises tuber-bearing species that are potential donors of new disease resistance genes. The aim of this study was to explore Solanum section Petota for resistance genes and generate a widely accessible resource that is useful for studying and implementing disease resistance in potato. Description The SolRgene database contains data on resistance to P. infestans and presence of R genes and R gene homologues in Solanum section Petota. We have explored Solanum section Petota for resistance to late blight in high throughput disease tests under various laboratory conditions and in field trials. From resistant wild germplasm, segregating populations were generated and assessed for the presence of resistance genes. All these data have been entered into the SolRgene database. To facilitate genetic and resistance gene evolution studies, phylogenetic data of the entire SolRgene collection are included, as well as a tool for generating phylogenetic trees of selected groups of germplasm. Data from resistance gene allele-mining studies are incorporated, which enables detection of R gene homologs in related germplasm. Using these resources, various resistance genes have been detected and some of these have been cloned, whereas others are in the cloning pipeline. All this information is stored in the online SolRgene database, which allows users to query resistance data, sequences, passport data of the accessions, and phylogenic classifications. Conclusion Solanum section Petota forms the basis of the SolRgene database, which contains a collection of resistance data of an unprecedented size and precision. Complemented with R gene sequence data and phylogenetic tools, SolRgene can be considered the primary resource for information on R genes from potato and wild tuber-bearing relatives

Life Events and Treatment Outcomes Among Individuals with Substance use Disorders: A Narrative Review

Substance use disorders are characterized by a variable course, in which multiple treatment attempts and relapses are typical. Consistent with conceptualizations of substance use and relapse, life events have been implicated in contributing to poor substance use disorders treatment outcomes. However, inconsistencies in empirical findings regarding the life events-substance use disorders outcome literature have been previously observed. This review provides an updated critique of the literature since the previous review published in 1987 (O\u27Doherty & Davies, 1987), examining the relationship between life events and substance use disorders treatment outcome among clinical samples of individuals. Review of 18 peer-reviewed articles suggested that data on the life events-outcome relationship continue to be inconclusive. Inconsistencies across studies in the operationalization of life events and substance use treatment outcomes and lack of theoretically driven designs may be contributing to differences in findings. Recommendations for future research that will increase the clinical utility of the life events construct are provided

The First Provenance Challenge

The first Provenance Challenge was set up in order to provide a forum for the community to help understand the capabilities of different provenance systems and the expressiveness of their provenance representations. To this end, a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging workflow was defined, which participants had to either simulate or run in order to produce some provenance representation, from which a set of identified queries had to be implemented and executed. Sixteen teams responded to the challenge, and submitted their inputs. In this paper, we present the challenge workflow and queries, and summarise the participants contributions

HPLC AND Mass Spectroscopic Characterization of Mango (Mangifera Indica L.) Gallotannins Following Enzymatic Hydrolysis

Mangos contain numerous compounds that have been shown to exhibit antioxidant properties. These compounds, most of which are polyphenolics, are linked to anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activities in the body. Mangos more specifically boast a large number of high molecular weight compounds called gallotannins, composed of gallic acid units attached to glucose via a glycosidic linkage. It is unknown if these compounds are broken down into smaller molecules through the normal course of human digestion, or if food processing operations, such as the addition of a gallotannin-active hydrolyases, could be more effective in lowering the size of these molecules to increase the absorption and potential bioactivity. This research focused on understanding the chemical changes that occur to gallotannins derived from mangos following enzymatic hydrolysis and attempted to draw inferences relating to overall human health. Polyphenolics in mangos, cv. Ataulfo were extracted using a 1:1:1 acetone:ethanol:methanol mixture and further concentrated and clarified using a reverseiv phase C18 Sep-Pak cartridge. Mango extracts were treated with 20,000 U/ml and 13,000U/ml B-glucosidase with a time course of 2, 4, 6, and 8 hours in an optimal pH 5.0 citric acid buffer, and at a constant temperature of 35 C. Changes in mango polyphenolics following enzyme hydrolysis were monitored using a Thermo Finnigan LCQ Deca XP Max MSn ion trap mass spectrometer equipped with an ESI ion source. B-glucosidase proved to be effective in the hydrolysis of some gallotannins but was incapable of hydrolyzing all gallotannins into free gallic acid. This was illustrated by the observance of an increase in penta, hexa, hepta-O- and a subsequent decrease in higher molecular weight compounds. The limitations for complete hydrolysis explains by the inability of B-glucosidase to cleave the glycosidic linkage due to steric hindrance created from having up to five gallic acid moieties attached to glucose, or from the inability of the enzyme to break m-dipside linkages between two or more galloyl groups. Incubating mango extract with both 20,000 U/mL and 13,000 U/mL resulted in an equivalent eightfold increase in free gallic acid. Enzyme concentration was not the limiting factor in the hydrolytic reaction. Additionally, reaction time did not have a significant role in the hydrolytic rate, as the amount of free gallic remained relatively constant from 2 to 8 hours. These findings indicated that it was possible to increase low molecular weight gallotannin species following enzyme hydrolysis and will aid in future studies to understand the digestion and bioavailability mango phenolics

Complex circular subsidence structures in tephra deposited on large blocks of ice: Varða tuff cone, Öræfajökull, Iceland

Several broadly circular structures up to 16 m in diameter, into which higher strata have sagged and locally collapsed, are present in a tephra outcrop on southwest Öræfajökull, southern Iceland. The tephra was sourced in a nearby basaltic tuff cone at Varða. The structures have not previously been described in tuff cones, and they probably formed by the melting out of large buried blocks of ice emplaced during a preceding jökulhlaup that may have been triggered by a subglacial eruption within the Öræfajökull ice cap. They are named ice-melt subsidence structures, and they are analogous to kettle holes that are commonly found in proglacial sandurs and some lahars sourced in ice-clad volcanoes. The internal structure is better exposed in the Varða examples because of an absence of fluvial infilling and reworking, and erosion of the outcrop to reveal the deeper geometry. The ice-melt subsidence structures at Varða are a proxy for buried ice. They are the only known evidence for a subglacial eruption and associated jökulhlaup that created the ice blocks. The recognition of such structures elsewhere will be useful in reconstructing more complete regional volcanic histories as well as for identifying ice-proximal settings during palaeoenvironmental investigations

Assessing the congruence of thermal niche estimations derived from distribution and physiological data. A test using diving beetles.

A basic aim of ecology is to understand the determinants of organismal distribution, the niche concept and species distribution models providing key frameworks to approach the problem. As temperature is one of the most important factors affecting species distribution, the estimation of thermal limits is crucially important for inferring range constraints. It is expectable that thermal physiology data derived from laboratory experiments and species' occurrences may express different aspects of the species' niche. However, there is no study systematically testing this prediction in a given taxonomic group while controlling by potential phylogenetic inertia. We estimate the thermal niches of twelve Palaearctic diving beetles species using physiological data derived from experimental analyses in order to examine the extent to which these coincided with those estimated from distribution models based on observed occurrences. We found that thermal niche estimates derived from both approaches lack general congruence, and these results were similar before and after controlling by phylogeny. The congruence between potential distributions obtained from the two different procedures was also explored, and we found again that the percentage of agreement were not very high (~60%). We confirm that both thermal niche estimates derived from geographical and physiological data are likely to misrepresent the true range of climatic variation that these diving beetles are able to tolerate, and so these procedures could be considered as incomplete but complementary estimations of an inaccessible reality