Search

Coix lachrymal-jobi L. var. ma-yuen Stapf of Gramineae are annual or perennial herbs and an important food-medicine homologous plants of high value in nutrition, health protection, and comprehensive utilization. In recent years, the revival of researches on its roles in food and medicinal applications of this underutilized grass for food security and economic empowerment of rural communities has been seen. In this research, Coix kernel endophytic fungi were isolated and identified by fungal colony morphology observation combined with the PCR-amplified fungal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analyses. All together six isolates to five species of Coix endophytic fungi and two isolates to the genus level were identified from the kernels of six Coix cultivars: Penicillium expansum, Penicillium polonicum, Cladosporium cladosporioides, Alternaria alternata, Aspergillus flavus, and two genera of Aspergillus and Fusarium. Potential benefits and harms analyses showed that Penicillium expansum, Aspergillus oryzae, and Cladosporium cladosporioides can produce a variety of beneficial composite enzymes and have an extensive application in microbial chemistry, food science, and fermentation, whereas Penicillium, Aspergillus flavus, Alternaria alternate, and Fusarium can produce corresponding toxins harmful to plants, animals, and humans. These results not only provided a basis for the targeted prevention of contamination in the tissue culture of Coix kernels by the addition of specific antibiotics, but also enriched the endophytic fungi resource pool of Gramineae crops and suggested new ideas for the improvement, cultivation, post-harvest seeds/kernels storage, and the development of new natural drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a scheme for transferring quantum state between atom and cavity field in Jaynes-Cummings model (JC) in the aid of spin-echo-like technique. It is based on the facts that the atom in a cavity can induce the generation of modified coherent states (MCSs), which can be shown to be macroscopically distinguishable, and the anti-commutation relation between the Hamiltonian and the z-component Pauli matrix. We show that this scheme is applicable for a class of cavity field states. The application on two-cavity system provides an alternative scheme for preparation of non-local superpositions of quasi-classical light states. Numerical simulation shows that the proposed schemes are efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to develop a simultaneous and specific molecular detection of the three quarantine Phytophthora pathogens, Phytophthora hibernalis, Phytophthora cambivora and Phytophthora syringae that infect Malus Miller, three pairs of real-time PCR primers (PH-F/PH-R, PC-F/PC-R and PS-F/PS-R) and three probes (PH-Pr, PC-Pr and PS-Pr) labeled with HEX, FAM and ROX, respectively, were designed for P. hibernalis, P. cambivora and P. syringae by alignment analyses of enolase (Enol), ras-like protein Ypt1 and HSP90 gene sequences with other Phytophthora spp. Black Hole Quencher 1 (BHQ1) was used for P. hibernalis and P. cambivora and BHQ2 for P. syringae. Through the optimization of the reaction conditions, a triplex real-time PCR simultaneous detection for the three Phytophthora species infecting Malus Miller was developed. It could achieve simultaneous and specific detection with a sensitivity of 2 × 10−4, 2 × 10−4 and 2 × 10−2 ng/μL genomic DNA, respectively, for P. hibernalis, P. cambivora and P. syringae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Recent understanding of ClpX had been summarized in this review. • A single molecular system had been designed to study the mechanical changes of ClpX. • ClpX mutants could be constructed to mimick their state of ATP-binding and ATP-free. • Experimental results would elucidate the mechanism of power stroke of ClpX. ClpXP in Escherichia coli is a proteasome degrading protein substrates. It consists of one hexamer of ATPase (ClpX) and two heptamers of peptidase (ClpP). The ClpX binds ATP and translocates the substrate protein into the ClpP chamber by binding and hydrolysis of ATP. At single molecular level, ClpX harnesses cycles of power stroke (dwell and burst) to unfold the substrates, then releases the ADP and Pi. Based on the construction and function of ClpXP, especially the recent progress on how ClpX unfold protein substrates, in this mini-review, a currently proposed single ClpX molecular model system detected by optical tweezers, and its prospective for the elucidation of the mechanism of force generation of ClpX in its power stroke and the subunit interaction with each other, were discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]