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Soluble solids content (SSC) is one of most important quality indicators of the navel orange. In order to explore the feasibility of SSC prediction for the navel orange from different origins using near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, we collected seven groups Newhall navel orange (Citrus sinensis(L) Osb.) samples from seven origins (i.e. Beibei, Fengjie, Leibo, Linhai, Wusheng, Xinfeng, and Yizhang) in China, and all the samples were combined as the eighth group. The difference of the growing environments caused the variation of SSC of oranges from different origins. The partial least squares regression (PLS) models were applied to predict the SSC of its origin samples and other origin samples. The results predicted by origin-model were the best compared to cross-origin-prediction results. So it was necessary to recognize origin as the first steps of SSC prediction. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) model with the top 18 principle components could recognize the origins of samples with 100% accuracy. The overall results demonstrated that it was feasible that SSC prediction for navel orange based on origin recognition using NIR spectroscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus contains three active origins of replication and three eukaryote-like Cdc6/Orc1 proteins known as SsoCdc6 proteins. It has the potential to become a powerful model system in understanding the central mechanism of the eukaryotic DNA replication. In this research, we designed a group of duplex DNA substrates containing specific origin recognition boxes (ORBs) of the archaeon and identified the DNA-binding activities of different SsoCdc6 proteins. Furthermore, we showed that the DNA–protein interaction between the DNA substrate and the SsoCdc6-1 or SsoCdc6-3 strikingly regulated their DNA-binding activities of each other on the origin. On the other hand, the protein–protein interactions between SsoCdc6-1 and SsoCdc6-2 were observed to mutually modulate the stimulating or inhibitive effects on the DNA-binding activities of each other. Thus, two different mechanisms were demonstrated to be involved in the regulations of the functions of the SsoCdc6 proteins on the replication origins. The results of this study imply that the interactions between multiple SsoCdc6 proteins and origin DNA collectively contribute to the positive or negative regulation of DNA replication initiation in the archaeon species. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Current farmers’ breeding goes beyond the gradual selection in landraces, and includes development and maintenance of major new farmers’ varieties that are increasingly uniform, in particular in South-East Asia. Modern varieties developed in the formal sector have simply replaced landraces as the source of diversity, but have not abolished farmers’ breeding practices. Interpretations of the new international agreements on plant genetic resources should protect the development of modern farmers’ varieties. However, ensuring recognition of collective innovation, allowing access to relevant germplasm sources for farmers’ breeding activites, keeping materials freely available, and arranging for effective benefit sharing, all form major challenges. This paper proposes a new protective measure: namely “origin recognition rights.” [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Before DNA replication can be initiated a definite number of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) containing pre-replication protein complexes (pre-RCs) must be assembled and bound to DNA like in a super-critical mass. A chemically driven dynamics of the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) type is derived, using the non-equilibrium equation for binding of pre-RCs to DNA and a probabilistic conformational distribution of these protein complexes. This dynamics, in which the DNA-protein system behaves like a nonlinear elastically braced string (NEBS), can control the cell cycle via conformational transitions such that G 2 cells contain exactly twice as much DNA as G 1 cells. After adjustment of previously-made derivations, the model is compared with cell growth data from the T lymphocyte MLA-144. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]