Catalase (CAT) Gene Family in Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.): Genome-Wide Analysis,Identification, and Expression Pattern in Response to Multiple Hormones and Abiotic Stress Conditions

Catalase (CAT) is an antioxidant enzyme expressed by the CAT gene family and exists in almost all aerobic organisms. Environmental stresses induce the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that eventually hinder plant growth and development. The CAT enzyme translates the hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) to water (H₂O) and reduce the ROS levels to shelter the cells’ death. So far, the CAT gene family has not been reported in rapeseed (Brassica napus L.). Therefore, a genome-wide comprehensive analysis was conducted to classify the CAT genes in the rapeseed genome. The current study identified 14 BnCAT genes in the rapeseed genome. Based on phylogenetic and synteny analysis, the BnCATs belong to four groups (Groups I–IV). A gene structure and conserved motif analysis showed that Group I, Group II, and Group IV possess almost the same intron/exon pattern, and an equal number of motifs, while Group III contains diverse structures and contain 15 motifs. By analyzing the cis-elements in the promoters, we identified five hormone-correlated responsive elements and four stress-related responsive elements. Further, six putative bna-miRNAs were also identified, targeting three genes (BnCAT4, BnCAT6, and BnCAT8). Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis showed that the BnCAT genes were largely related to cellular organelles, ROS response, stimulus response, stress response, and antioxidant enzymes. Almost 10 BnCAT genes showed higher expression levels in different tissues, i.e., root, leaf, stem, and silique. The expression analysis showed that BnCAT1–BnCAT3 and BnCAT11–BnCAT13 were significantly upregulated by cold, salinity, abscisic acid (ABA), and gibberellic acid (GA) treatment, but not by drought and methyl jasmonate (MeJA). Notably, most of the genes were upregulated by waterlogging stress, except BnCAT6, BnCAT9, and BnCAT10. Our results opened new windows for future investigations and provided insights into the CAT family genes in rapeseed.     

A Novel DUF569 Gene Is a Positive Regulator of the Drought Stress Response in Arabidopsis

In the last two decades, global environmental change has increased abiotic stress on plants and severely affected crops. For example, drought stress is a serious abiotic stress that rapidly and substantially alters the morphological, physiological, and molecular responses of plants. In Arabidopsis, several drought-responsive genes have been identified; however, the underlying molecular mechanism of drought tolerance in plants remains largely unclear. Here, we report that the “domain of unknown function” novel gene DUF569 (AT1G69890) positively regulates drought stress in Arabidopsis. The Arabidopsis loss-of-function mutant atduf569 showed significant sensitivity to drought stress, i.e., severe wilting at the rosette-leaf stage after water was withheld for 3 days. Importantly, the mutant plant did not recover after rewatering, unlike wild-type (WT) plants. In addition, atduf569 plants showed significantly lower abscisic acid accumulation under optimal and drought-stress conditions, as well as significantly higher electrolyte leakage when compared with WT Col-0 plants. Spectrophotometric analyses also indicated a significantly lower accumulation of polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, and chlorophylls in atduf569 mutant plants. Overall, our results suggest that novel DUF569 is a positive regulator of the response to drought in Arabidopsis.     

PMSS: A programmable memory system and scheduler for complex memory patterns

HPC industry demands more computing units on FPGAs, to enhance the performance by using task/data parallelism. FPGAs can provide its ultimate performance on certain kernels by customizing the hardware for the applications. However, applications are getting more complex, with multiple kernels and complex data arrangements, generating overhead while scheduling/managing system resources. Due to this reason all classes of multi threaded machines–minicomputer to supercomputer–require to have efficient hardware scheduler and memory manager that improves the effective bandwidth and latency of the DRAM main memory. This architecture could be a very competitive choice for supercomputing systems that meets the demand of parallelism for HPC benchmarks. In this article, we proposed a Programmable Memory System and Scheduler (PMSS), which provides high speed complex data access pattern to the multi threaded architecture. This proposed PMSS system is implemented and tested on a Xilinx ML505 evaluation FPGA board. The performance of the system is compared with a microprocessor based system that has been integrated with the Xilkernel operating system. Results show that the modified PMSS based multi-accelerator system consumes 50% less hardware resources, 32% less on-chip power and achieves approximately a 19x speedup compared to the MicroBlaze based system.     

Effect of particle dimension on biocompatibility of carbon nanomaterials

With various emerging applications ranging from medicine to materials and electronics, the risk of exposure to nanomaterials is rapidly increasing. Several routes of exposure to nanomaterials exist; the most important being dermal contact and inhalation. In this dermal toxicity study, the cellular effects of carbon-based materials with diameters ranging from micro- to nano-dimension were investigated using mouse keratinocytes (HEL-30). The carbon materials tested included carbon fibers (CF; 10 μm diameter), carbon nanofibers (CNF; 100 nm diameter), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT; 10 nm diameter), and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT; 1 nm diameter). CF and CNF did not significantly affect cell viability; however, MWCNT and SWCNT reduced cell viability in a time-dependent manner up to 48 h, with full recovery of mitochondrial function by the 72 h time point. After a 24 h exposure, cells exposed to MWCNT produced up to 3-fold higher increase in reactive oxygen species than those exposed to SWCNT. The results of this study suggest that high-aspect ratio carbon material toxicity is dependent on dimension and composition.     

Uptake of Pb(II) and Cd(II) by a new phenolformaldehyde polymer resin derived by the insertion of sulfur ligands in the form of xanthate

A new phenolformaldehyde polymer resin containing potential soft‐type donor atoms (sulfur atoms) was synthesized by the reaction of sodium salt of 2,4‐dihydroxyacetophenone formaldehyde resin with carbon disulfide. The resin was characterized by elemental analysis, IR, and ¹H‐NMR spectral studies. Because of its insolubility in aqueous media, the resin was successfully used in the removal of Pb(II) and Cd(II). Parameters such as the effect of pH, the effect of time, competitive studies, the effect of initial metal‐ion concentration, and the recyclability of the polymer resin were studied. The amount of metal removed by the resin was determined with atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The retention properties were strongly dependent on pH. The elution of metal ions was investigated in acid media. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91: 1932–1936, 2004     

Morphological and mechanical studies of surface treated mica reinforced high density polyethylene

Morphological studies of high density polyethylene (HDPE) reinforced by mica flakes has been investigated. The mica flakes were surface treated by silane and titanate coupling agents. Effects of these treatments on the polymer-mica interface is discussed. It is found that surface treatment, particularly silane treated composites, have better adhesion between the reinforcing agent and the polymer matrix. This effect can only be detected when the mica concentration is higher than 20 weight percent. This interfacial adhesion could not be seen across the surface of the sample but only when the measurements were made parallel to the surface.     

Sodium alginate–poly(hydroxyethylmethacrylate) interpenetrating polymeric network membranes for the pervaporation dehydration of ethanol and tetrahydrofuran

Interpenetrating polymeric network (IPN) membranes of sodium alginate (NaAlg) and various amounts of poly(hydroxyethylmethacrylate) (PHEMA) have been prepared and tested for the pervaporation dehydration of ethanol and tetrahydrofuran (THF). The presence of hydrophilic PHEMA in the IPN matrix was found to be responsible for increase in membrane selectivity to water. NaAlg–PHEMA IPN membrane containing 20 wt % of PHEMA exhibited a selectivity of 571 to water for the water–ethanol mixture and 857 for water–THF mixture. These data are much better than those observed for the pristine NaAlg membrane. However, flux of the IPN membranes was smaller than that of pristine NaAlg membrane. Comparatively higher flux values were observed for water–THF mixture than for water–ethanol mixture. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 3324–3329, 2006     

PROCESS CONTROL PERSPECTIVE FOR PROCESS ANALYTICAL TECHNOLOGY: INTEGRATION OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING PRACTICE INTO SEMICONDUCTOR AND PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES

FDA's Process Analytical Technology (PAT) initiative provides an unprecedented opportunity for chemical engineers to play significant roles in the pharmaceutical industry. In this article, the authors provide their perspectives on (1) the need for chemical engineering principles in pharmaceutical development for a thorough process understanding; (2) applications of chemical engineering principles to meet the challenges from the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries; and (3) the integration of chemical engineering practice into the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries to achieve process understanding and the desired state of quality-by-design. A real-world case study from the semiconductor industry is presented to demonstrate how a classic chemical engineering concept, mixing homogeneity, can be implemented by inducing forced flow to ensure an excellent copper electrochemical plating process performance and to improve product quality substantially. Further, a case study of brake system design is discussed with the concept of Dr. Taguchi's robust engineering design to illustrate how quality-by-design can be achieved through appropriate experimental design, in conjunction with the discussion on the concept of quality-by-design in pharmaceuticals. Third, a case study of freeze-dried sodium ethacrynate is presented to demonstrate the vital importance of controlling the processing factors to achieve the desired product stability. Finally, the problems of the current pharmaceutical manufacturing mode, the opportunities and engineering challenges during implementation of PAT in the pharmaceutical industry, and the role of chemical engineering in implementation of PAT is discussed in detail.     

Light weight model for intra mode selection in HEVC

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) efficiently reduces the size of the multimedia contents, but at the cost of high computation complexity. In order to make...     

Modeling and Analysis of Temperature Compensation for Multi-temperature Zone Sintering Furnace Temperature Sensing

International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems - The surface temperature of workpieces in a multi-temperature zone sintering furnace is an important parameter to characterize the...