Table of Content

15 August 2007, Volume 9 Issue 4

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Plant Biology Research Comes of Age in China

CHEN Hao-dong, Valerie J. Karplus, MA Hong,DENG Xing-wang

2007, 9(4):  1-11. 

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Recently, plant biology research in Mainland China has achieved an amazing advancement, which was indicated by the publications in the major plant-specific and general scientific journals during the last 15 years. This achievement was benefited from the China＇s program of reform and opening as well as the early roots of plant biology in China. By describing the progress of China＇s representative institutions, and summarizing the breakthroughs in rice and Arabidopsis research ,we clearly see a brighter future for plant biology research in China,although many challenges ahead.

Role of Modern Agricultural Supplying Chain （Supermarket） on Prevention of Pollution in Agriculture

ZHANG Li-jian| HU Ding-huan,YANG Wei-min

2007, 9(4):  12-16. 

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As fundamental restriction for agriculture sustainable development, the agricuhural pollution in certain regions of China has shown a very complicated tendency with stereoscopic and multi-directions nature. Preventing and controlling pollution in agriculture needs support not only in technology and economic environment, but also system perfection. Utilization of modem supplying chain which links to the production, purchasing, marketing and consuming of agricuhural products may reduce the usage of chemical fertilizer and pesticide in agTicuhural production. Therefore, it can also reduce the environmental pollution, and effectively adjust agricultural production structure and urge the transformation of agriculture production from extensive to the intensive model, so as to serve the construction of modern agriculture.

Outlook on Establishing of a New Food System

REN Ji-zhou, NAN Zhi-biao, LIN Hui-long, HOU Fu-jiang

2007, 9(4):  17-21. 

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Food production and consumption constitute the core of agro-ecosystem, and decisively affect its structure and function and also the living environment of the mankind. The main agricultural activity is to establish and utilize a food system. A sound food system can improve agricultural productivity significantly, and balance the benefit between production and ecology, so as to maintain the sustainable development of ecosystem and to achieve food security. Increasing consumption of animal products and reducing consumption of plant products, especially grains, in people＇s daily diet will be the main direction for adjusting food system both in China and abroad. The ways for improving food system are considered herein. They include utilization of rangeland rationally, establishment of more sown pasture and implementation of cereal-pasture rotation systems, increase of herbivore livestock production,and use of arable land more efficiently.

Development Strategy and Counter Measures for Agricultural Microorganism Industry in China

LU Jian-zhong, LIN Min, QIU De-wen

2007, 9(4):  22-25. 

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Agricultural microorganism industry can transfer the traditional type agriculture with ＂ two dimensional space＂ to a new type agriculture with ＂three dimensional space＂-which lays equal stress on animal, plant and micro-organic resources. It also possesses the traits of expanding agriculture functtion and cultivating new industry, etc. It can effectively relax the pressure in grain demand and resources shortage, and reduce the pollution of ecological environment. The paper also suggests the government to list the agricultural microorganism industry into the important strategy for science, technology development and industry development, to strengthen the collection and appraisal of agricultural micro-organic resources, to innovate the technology for agricultural microorganism industry and to establish a scientific and technological system for agricultural microorganism industry.

Current Status and Tendency of Improving Livestock by Transgenic Technology

TONG Jia| LI Ning

2007, 9(4):  26-31. 

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The first authorized medicine-ATryn produced by transgenic goat mammary gland bioreactor has been authorized into global market in Aug. 2006. This symbolizes that the transgenic technology has entered into a new golden-era in animal husbandry and biomedical industry. This paper summarizes the history of adopting transgenic technology in improving livestock abroad and at home and the current status of transgenic animal research and the progress of commercialization. The development of animal cloning technology has not only boosted the transgenic efficiency, but also provided a new way to knockout livestock gene and to fix targeted integration. The transgenic animal research is accelerating the progress of medicine production, disease model, stem cell therapy, and xenotranso plantation. In the area of livestock transgenic breeding, many breakthroughs have been achieved, especially in the improvementof certain important production traits such as meat quality and growth rate, etc. Additionally, the evaluation for the research on transgenic animal and on the biosafety assessment are perfecting daily. Apparently, the industrialization of transgenic animal just begins to display its brilliant future, which will definitely exert a profound impact on the mankind and social development.

Retrospect and Prospect of Research on Chinese Transgenic Insecticidal Cotton

ZHANG Rui, WANG Yuan, MENG Zhi-gang, SUN Guo-qing, GUO San-dui

2007, 9(4):  32-42. 

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Cotton is one of the most important cash crops in China. Successful research on transgenic insecticidal cotton and its large scale commercialization have ensured the steady development of cotton growing and rapid increase of textile industry in China. They have also protected environment, increased farmers＇ income and made important contribution in promoting the sustainable development of agriculture. The authors recall the key steps of research on Chinese transgenic insecticidal cotton, from one gene, double genes to fusion gene, introduce the excellent achievement of their industrialization, and look forward to further study and breeding technology for insecticidal cotton in the future.

Research Progress on Plant Phosphoproteomics

LIU Jin-yuan, WU Xue-ping

2007, 9(4):  43-48. 

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Protein phosphorylation is the most important mode of post-translational modifications. Protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation play a critical regulation function in the whole process of vital movement. The major objectives of the present phosphoproteomics include the isolation of global phosphorylation protein in the cell, the generation of global phosphorylation protein map, and the identification of phosphorylated site on phosphorylation protein, and then regulation functional analysis of phosphorylation and dephosphorylation in the life process. On the basis of introducing the research approaches and the latest progress on plant phosphoproteomics, this paper also looks into the prospects of phosphoproteomics.

Research Progress on DNA Repair Mechanisms of Deinococcus Radiodurans

HUANG Li-fen, LU Hui-ming| HUA Xiao-ting| HUA Yue-jin

2007, 9(4):  49-54. 

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Deinococcus radiodurans, as a model organism in DNA damage and repair, is the most resistant bacterium to ionizing radiation. In this paper, recent research progresses on DNA repair mechanism, including the structure characteristic, molecular defense mechanism, important repair genes, genomics, and proteomics of D. radiodurans are summarized. Further research based on alternative genetic and biochemical approaches should help to gain a better understanding of the special mechanism involved in DNA repair.

Strategy for Development of Technologies for Oil-contaminated Soil Bioremediation

YU Su-lin, ZHAO Gui-fang, LIU Fang| LV Nan-xi| GUO Bin| WU Xiao-lei

2007, 9(4):  55-60. 

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Oil pollution in soil caused by the oil extraction wastewater and oil-contained solid wastes is becoming serious. Bioremediation by microorganisms characterized by being environmental-friendly and low cost is widely applied all over the woad. Bioremediation is an application of microbial functions of the oil-polluted soil microbial community. By analyzing and manipulating the oil polluted soil microbial community structure purposely, its functions of egrading petroleum hydrocarbon could be strengthened for effective microbial oil-polluted soil bioremediation.

Health Care Function of Anti-nutritional Factors in Legumes

ZHOU Wei, FAN Zhi-hong, CAO Zhan, LIU Fang

2007, 9(4):  61-65. 

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The anti-nutritional factors in legumes such as tannins, phytic acid, protease inhibitors, were traditionally considered as dis-advantageous food components. However, recent researches on nutrition and epidemiology have indicated that intake of legumes may have negative association with chronic diseases, and this may be partly related to the anti-nutritional factors. Some factors were proved to be health-promoting substances at appropriate intake levels. Their health care functions include anti-oxidative activity, anti-tumor effect and blood sugar control, which may contribute to chronic diseases prevention. This paper summarizes major health care functions of several anti-nutritional factors of legumes, and their safeness in daily food, as well as their significance in preventing chronic diseases and cancer.

Progress and Application on Soyasaponin Research

MENG Fan-gang| FU Jian| WANG Xin-feng| YU Zhi-jing, MA Wei

2007, 9(4):  66-72. 

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Soybean is a traditional food in China. It contains rich nutrition and multiple biological active matters. Soyasaponins have been known to contain an aglycone,linked to one or more sugar or oligosaccharide moieties. As the aglycone and the oligosaccharide moieties are different, soyasaponins show different biosiological and pharmacological properties, such as goitrogenic, antitumor, antioxidative and HIV resistance. This paper summarizes the recent research advances on soyasponins, including soyasaponin composition, content, character and effect mechanism and the analytical testing methods, etc. It also look into the prospect for the development and utilization of soyasaponins.

 

Practice of Regional Drought Inspection by Remote Sensing System in Huang-Huai-Hai Region

WANG Li-min, LIU Jia, DENG Hui, ZHANG Li, LI Dan-dan

2007, 9(4):  73-78. 

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This paper takes China＇s major winter wheat production area  —— Huang-Huai-Hai region as research target and uses the EOS-MODIS data as the main data pool. According to different crop growing periods and combing with surface observation data, it adopts both vegetation water supply index and soil thermal inertia methods to establish a remote sensing and monitoring target system for drought situation based on soil moisture content, and has carried out monitoring on drought situation for winter wheat growing periods from 2006 to 2007. The result indicates that the changing tendency of drought situation gained by remote sensing was consistent with that by ground monitoring. This further indicates that the vegetation water supply index and the thermal inertia methods possess great potential in remote sensing and monitoring for regional drought situation.

Design of Device for Fast Propagation of Plant Sugar-free Tissue and its Environmental Control System

YANG Qi-chang,LIU Wen-ke, GUAN Dao-ping

2007, 9(4):  79-84. 

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A 180 L culture vessel for sugar-free tissue culture with new type CO2 releasing pipe and its environment control system were designed, aiming at solving the problems existing in conventional plant tissue culture and from the view point of practicing plant sugar-free micropropagation. By combining thethree techniques of small-flow control, three-way-valve adjustment and PWM control pattern, the CO2 concentration in side of culture vessel was controlled within ±50 μmol · mol^-1 around the target value. The technology of combining membrane tectoria with gas-cycle adsorption was used to realize the auto-control of inner relative humility and the control precision has reached ± 2%. The result of experiment on culturing crabapple plant sugar-free tissue indicates that this system has the function of promoting the growth of tissue culture plantlets and improving their physiological quality.

16S rRNA is Exchangeable in Escherichia coli

LI Xiao-dan, YANG Jin, CAO Hui, CUI Zhong-li

2007, 9(4):  85-94. 

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16S rRNA plays an important role in the functional construction of ribosomes and is considered to be a conserved phylogenic marker of prokaryotic evolution.To elucidate the evolution of 16S rRNA, we succeeded in replacing the 16S rRNA gene of an E.coli strain with all rrn operons deleted with the 16S rRNA gene of Bacillus subtilis.We found that manipulated strain SQ110BSX showed similar characteristics with the starting E.coli strain SQ110 in terms of generation time.Strain SQ110BSX was cold sensitive, and the rRNA/protein ratio of it increased to 148% of the starting strain.These results indicate that ribosome efficiency has decreased.In view of the phylogenic distance between E.coli and B.subtilis, 16S rRNA was demonstrated to have a highly exchangeable property between these two species of different evolution status.

Molecular Cloning and Characterization of a cDNA Encoding Isopentenyl Diphosphate Isomerase from Hazel （Corylus avellana L. Gasaway）

WANG Ye-chun, TANG Ke-xuan

2007, 9(4):  95-100. 

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Here we report for the first time the cloning and characterization of a ftdl-length eDNA encoding isopentenyl diphosphate isomerase （IPP isomerase, EC 5. 3. 3. 2 ） （designated as CglPI, GenBank accession number EF553533 ） from hazel （ Corylus avellana L. Gasaway）, a taxol-producing plant speciess by RACE technique. The full-length eDNA of CglPI was 1 196 bp containing a 891 bp ORF encoding 296 amino acids. Bioinformatic analyses revealed that the deduced CglPI had extensive homology with other plant IPIs. Southern blot analysis indicated that CglPI belonged to a small multi-gene family. Expression analysis revealed that CglPI expression could be detected in roots, stems and leaves, but expressed higher in roots. The cloning and characterization analysis of CglPI gene will enable us to further understand the role of CglPI involved in taxol biosynthetic pathway in hazel at molecular level.

Coupling Multiplex PCR with DNA Chips to Rapidly Detect and Identify Genetically Modified Events

XIAO Yi-zheng| TANG Yong| WAN Yu-song, JIN Wu-jun

2007, 9(4):  101-107. 

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A multiplex PCR system was designed and optimized with 35S and Nos primer and other 6 special primers which are designed according to inserted genes, plasmid constructions and inserted sites to detect 6 transgenic maize events which are permitted to import as product material by China, A primarily designed DNA chip coupled with the multiplex PCR system was also used to detect mixed GM maize samples, We attempted to construct a rapid GM maize events detection and confirmation method.

Expression of a Bacterial Organophosphorus Hydrolase in Transgenic Tobacco Plants

WANG Xiao-xue, GUO Jun, TIAN Jian|WU Ning-feng, FAN Yun-liu

2007, 9(4):  108-110. 

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Organophosphorus （OP） compounds which widely used as pesticides in agriculture caused broad-area pollution to environment. In this study, we expressed a bacterial organophosphorus hydrolase （OPH） gene in tobacco plants in order to degrade pesticide residue in the environment by root secreted OPH. The expression vector was constructed. The final expression cassette, containing CaMV 35S promoter, the extensin sequence, ophc2 and nos termination sequence, was designated pBI-E-ophc2. The signal sequence from carrot extensin facilitated OPHC2 extracellular expression. The ophc2 gene then was transformed into tobacco （Nicotiana tabacum cv. Xanthi ） leaf disks by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Of 101 transgenie lines, 80 were shown to have the transgene by PCR analysis. 24 of the randomly selected 60 transgenic plants were positive in western blot analysis. The assay of enzyme activity showed that the transgenic plants could secrete OPH into the growth medium and held the bydrolase activity. The degradation of pesticide in the culture medium and the transgenic plants tissue will be reported in the future.

A Simple and Inexpensive Total RNA Extraction Method from the Rice Immature Seeds Rich in Polysaccharides

SONG Gui-sheng,ZHAI Hong-li, WEI Gang,ZHU Zhen

2007, 9(4):  111-115. 

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Polysaccharides contamination is the major limitative factor for high-quality RNA extraction from the high level polysaccharides tissues in field-grown rice leaves and immature seeds. Here we introduce a simple and inexpensive method for total RNA extraction. It is suitable for extracting total RNA from rice leaves and immature seeds rich in polysaccharides . This method overcame the shortcoming of low yield and low quality . After extraction, the RNA was analyzed by spectrophotometric readings and electrophoresis in denaturing agarose gels. The result indicates that total RNA yield is ranging from 520 μg to 800 μg per gram of tissue with an averaged purity measured as OD260/230 of more than 2.00 and OD260/280 more than 1.900. The extracted RNA can be used in exclusive amplification to cDNA template RT-PCR, mRNA isolation and SAGE （serial analysis of gene expression） library construction.

Effects of Passage Numbers of Donor Cell and Different Treatment on Interspecies Nuclear Transfer

WANG Xiao-ling| MA Yu-zhen, LIU Dong-jun| BOU Shorgan

2007, 9(4):  116-119. 

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The effects of donor cell cycle and different passage on interspecies nuclear transfer were discussed in this research. Bovine oocytes stained by hochest33342 were enucleated as receptor and human fibroblast in different cell cycle and passage were used as donor for nuclear transfer. After electric fusion, these reconstructed embryos were activated by 6-DAMP ＋ ethanol and cultured in SOFaa medium. The fusion and development rates of the treatment inn the 20th passaage cell without starvation （ P 〈 0.01 ） were significantly lower than that in the 20th passage with starvation （ P 〈 0.05 ）, and were significantly lower than that in the 8th passage with starvation and without starvation （P 〈0.01）. There were no significant differences in 8-ccell embryo rates and morula-blastocyst rates in four treatments. The result indicates that starvation treatment may not be the essential factor for lowpassage donor cell and when donor cell is in high passage, starvation treatment can be the important way to improve the efficiency of interspecies nuclear transfer by increasing fusion rate and development rate significantly.