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Background: The benefits of leaf stay-green for maintaining grain filling in sorghum under drought was largely demonstrated. However, its role in the stability of a dual production (grain, stem sugar) in tall sweet sorghum remains to be elucidated. This study aimed to analyze the impact of a post-anthesis drought on sugar accumulation along stem internodes in sweet and tall West-African so:rghum with variable leaf stay-green and grain yield abilities. Methods Four accessions with similar phenology were studied in two consecutive years in the field at the National Agronomic Research Centre (CNRA) of Bambey (Senegal, West Africa) under two post-anthesis water treatments (irrigated, non-irrigated). Plant morphology, stem sugar related traits, grain production, and plant leaf area (PLA) variation were assessed. Carbohydrate contents (sucrose, hexoses, starch) were determined during grain filling in the whole stem juice and at three internode levels: bottom, median, top. Analysis of variance was performed to test post-anthesis water treatment, accession, organ, year effects and their interactions on the studied traits. Results: Panicle dry weight (PDW) was not affected by drought, but strongly varied among years and accessions. The PDW/PLA ratio was negatively correlated with the variation of sucrose and hexoses at the three internodes levels. This carbohydrates reduction was mainly influenced by the PDW. The bigger the panicle the higher the carbohydrates remobilization from the stem to panicle for grain filling. This was mainly shown on accessions G3 and G11 which exhibited low stay green ability. However, G10 with low PDW/PLA ratio and showing higher stay green ability, exhibited a low reduction of total soluble sugars and sucrose and inversely higher increase of hexoses mainly at the median internode. Conclusions: This ability to better maintain green leaf area and high hexoses in the stem under post-flowering drought could be an osmoregulation mechanism to adapt to

© 2013 Du et al. Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis strain YF11 is a food preservative bacterium with a high capacity to produce nisin. Here, we announce the draft genome sequence of Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis YF11 (2,527,433 bp with a G+C content of 34.81%).

Phloem osmolality and its components are involved in basic cell metabolism, cell growth, and in various physiological processes including the ability of living cells to withstand drought and frost. Osmolality and sugar composition responses to environmental stresses have been extensively studied for leaves, but less for the secondary phloem of plant stems and branches. Leaf osmotic concentration and the share of pinitol and raffinose among soluble sugars increase with increasing drought or cold stress, and osmotic concentration is adjusted with osmoregulation. We hypothesize that similar responses occur in the secondary phloem of branches. We collected living bark samples from branches of adult Pinus sylvestris, Picea abies, Betula pendula and Populus tremula trees across Europe, from boreal Northern Finland to Mediterranean Portugal. In all studied species, the observed variation in phloem osmolality was mainly driven by variation in phloem water content, while tissue solute content was rather constant across regions. Osmoregulation, in which osmolality is controlled by variable tissue solute content, was stronger for Betula and Populus in comparison to the evergreen conifers. Osmolality was lowest in mid-latitude region, and from there increased by 37% toward northern Europe and 38% toward southern Europe due to low phloem water content in these regions. The ratio of raffinose to all soluble sugars was negligible at mid-latitudes and increased toward north and south, reflecting its role in cold and drought tolerance. For pinitol, another sugar known for contributing to stress tolerance, no such latitudinal pattern was observed. The proportion of sucrose was remarkably low and that of hexoses (i.e., glucose and fructose) high at mid-latitudes. The ratio of starch to all non-structural carbohydrates increased toward the northern latitudes in agreement with the build-up of osmotically inactive C reservoir that can be converted into soluble sugars during winter acclim

Agp2 is a plasma membrane protein of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae amino acid transporter family, involved in high-affinity uptake of various substrates including L-carnitine and polyamines. The discovery of two high affinity polyamine permeases, Dur3 and Sam3, prompted us to investigate whether Agp2 directly transports polyamines or acts instead as a regulator. Herein, we show that neither dur3? nor sam3? single mutant is defective in polyamine transport, while the dur3? sam3? double mutant exhibits a sharp decrease in polyamine uptake and an increased resistance to polyamine toxicity similar to the agp2? mutant. Studies of Agp2 localization indicate that in the double mutant dur3? sam3?, Agp2-GFP remains plasma membrane-localized, even though transport of polyamines is strongly reduced. We further demonstrate that Agp2 controls the expression of several transporter genes including DUR3 and SAM3, the carnitine transporter HNM1 and several hexose, nucleoside and vitamin permease genes, in addition to SKY1 encoding a SR kinase that positively regulates low-affinity polyamine uptake. Furthermore, gene expression analysis clearly suggests that Agp2 is a strong positive regulator of additional biological processes. Collectively, our data suggest that Agp2 might respond to environmental cues and thus regulate the expression of several genes including those involved in polyamine transport. © 2013 Aouida et al.

Dilute sulfuric acid pretreatment of the Jatropha curcas fruit hull at high temperatures (140°C to 180°C) performed in a 110-mL stainless steel reactor was investigated to enhance the enzymatic digestibility of its lignocellulosic components. Carbohydrates accounted for 43% of the dry matter of the J. curcas fruit hull biomass. The goal of the study was to optimize the pretreatment conditions (acid concentration, time, and temperature) in order to obtain the highest sugar yield after subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis. A Box-Behnken design was applied to the experimental setup in order to reduce the number of experiments. The optimal pretreatment conditions are 30-min incubations at a temperature of 178°C with a sulfuric acid concentration of 0.9% (w/v). Using these pretreatment conditions for a fruit solid loading of 9.52% followed by a 24-h enzymatic hydrolysis resulted in a liberation of 100% of all pentoses present (71% yield and 29% degradation to furfural) and 83% of the hexoses (78% yield and 5% degradation to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural). The simultaneous saccharification and fermentation experiment showed that acid-pretreated fruit hull can be used as a substrate for Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce ethanol.

Non-axenic operation of a 400 L trickle bed reactor inoculated with the thermophile Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus, yielded 2.8 molH 2mol hexose converted. The reactor was fed with a complex medium with sucrose as the main substrate, continuously flushed with nitrogen gas, and operated at 73°C. The volumetric productivity was 22 mmolH2(L filterbed h). Acetic acid and lactic acid were the main by-products in the liquid phase. Production of lactic acid occurred when hydrogen partial pressure was elevated above 2% and during suboptimal fermentation conditions that also resulted in the presence of monoand disaccharides in the effluent. Methane production was negligible. The microbial community was analyzed at two different time points during operation. Initially, other species related to members of the genera Thermoanaerobacterium and Caldicellulosiruptor were present in the reactor. However, these were out-competed by C. saccharolyticus during a period when sucrose was completely used and no saccharides were discharged with the effluent. In general, the use of pure cultures in non-sterile industrial applications is known to be less useful because of contamination. However, our results show that the applied fermentation conditions resulted in a culture of a single dominant organism with excellent hydrogen production characteristics. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

To the Editor: We thank Drs. Kemp et al. (3) for the opportunity to once again comment on the biochemistry of metabolic acidosis. However, we remain convinced that this continued interchange is not sufficiently based on science to contribute to an increased understanding of the biochemistry of metabolic acidosis. In addition, we are concerned that the letter by Kemp et al. (3) may further confuse the purpose and accomplishments of our original manuscript (5)...