The Cf-9 gene encodes an extracytoplasmic leucine-rich repeat protein that confers resistance in tomato to races of the fungus Cladosporium fulvum that express the corresponding avirulence gene Avr 9. We investigated whether the genomic Cf-9 gene functions in potato and tobacco. Transgenic tobacco and potato plants carrying Cf-9 exhibit a rapid hypersensitive cell death response (HR) to Avr 9 p...

Pathways and densities of descending vasa recta (DVR) and ascending vasa recta (AVR) in the outer zone of the inner medulla (IM) were evaluated to better understand medullary countercurrent exchange. Nearly all urea transporter B (UT-B)-positive DVR, those vessels exhibiting a continuous endothelium, descend with little or no branching exclusively through the intercluster region. All DVR have a...

Mechanical stimulation induces opposite behavioral responses in the adult and dauer pharynx. Tail tap of adults inhibits pharyngeal pumping via a pathway involving the innexin gene unc-7 and components of the glutamatergic pathway encoded by the genes avr-14 and avr-15. Tail tap of dauers stimulates pumping through a mechanism involving G alpha o and G alpha q. The nematocidal drug ivermectin i...

In this paper, a Problem of simultaneous and coordinated tuning of the PID type Power System Stabilizer (PSS) and Automatic Voltage Regulators (AVR) gains in a Single-Machine connected to InfiniteBus (SMIB) power system is invastigated. The problem of robustly stabilizer parameters and AVR gain tunning is formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem according to the time domain-based objectiv...

BACKGROUND Calcific aortic stenosis (AS) is a disease of the elderly. However, there is reluctance to offer aortic valve replacement (AVR) for elderly patients with severe AS. We investigated if AVR confers a survival benefit in elderly patients with severe AS. METHODS We screened our echocardiographic database from 1993 to 2003 for patients with severe AS (AV area < or = 0.8 cm2) and age > o...

Patients with symptomatic aortic stenosis have a poor prognosis, and medical therapy has little, if any, effect on their natural history. Surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR) is risky, yet it appears to be effective in extending life expectancy and reducing symptoms due to aortic stenosis. In this setting, the development of transcatheter AVR appears to be a breakthrough technology, potentia...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have shown that black race is an independent predictor of increased operative mortality after coronary artery bypass surgery. Given the higher incidence of hypertension and hypertension-associated left ventricular hypertrophy in blacks, we hypothesized that black race might be associated with increased risk of mortality and morbidity after aortic valve replacement (A...

BACKGROUND In our country, the biological valvular prostheses predominate, considering the difficulties related to anticoagulation, even in young patients, in spite of the need for repeated operations due to the degeneration of the bioprostheses. OBJECTIVES To report our consecutive series of recipients of isolated St Jude Medical mechanical valve prosthesis in the mitral (MVR) or aortic (AVR...

Magnaporthe oryzae is the causal agent of rice blast disease, a devastating problem worldwide. This fungus has caused breakdown of resistance conferred by newly developed commercial cultivars. To address how the rice blast fungus adapts itself to new resistance genes so quickly, we examined chromosomal locations of AVR-Pita, a subtelomeric gene family corresponding to the Pita resistance gene, ...

Background Coronary ostial stenosis is a life-threatening complication of aortic valve replacement (AVR). Clinical symptoms usually appear within the first 6 months after AVR (Funada and Mizuno et al., Circ J 70:1312-7, 2006), and perioperative onset is very rare. Case presentation An 80-year-old woman with severe aortic stenosis was scheduled to undergo AVR. AVR using cardiopulmonary bypass ...