In Arabidopsis, the basic leucine zipper transcription factor ABI5 activates several late embryogenesis-abundant genes, including AtEm1 and AtEm6. However, the expression of many other seed maturation genes is independent of ABI5. We investigated the possibility that ABI5 homologs also participate in the regulation of gene expression during seed maturation. We identified 13 ABI5-related genes i...

The intracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) is a muscular artery and lacks external elastic lamina (EEL). Stenosis of the intracranial ICA is relatively uncommon, but the most common site is the cavernous portion. The characteristics of the arterial wall structures were examined using serial 3-mm sections of 32 intracranial ICAs obtained from 50 cadavers to identify where the EEL disappeared...

Antibodies were raised against a synthetic peptide corresponding to residues 927-938 of the eel electroplax sodium channel primary sequence. This segment, lying between putative internal repeat domains II and III, is postulated to be exposed on the cytoplasmic surface of the membrane in several recent models of channel tertiary structure and on the external surface in another. The antiserum and...

Background: The immunomodulatory effects of Korean mistletoe (Viscum album Coloratum) on the innate immune responses of eel (Anguilla japonica) were studied. Methods: Mistletoe, Freund’s complete adjuvant (FCA), or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) as a control was injected into eel peritoneal cavities. Results: Nitroblue tetrazolium (NBT)-positive cells in the head kidney of eel were significant...

Diseases are an important cause of losses and decreased production rates in freshwater eel farming, and have been suggested to play a contributory role in the worldwide decline in wild freshwater eel stocks. Three commonly detected pathogenic viruses of European eel Anguilla anguilla are the aquabirnavirus eel virus European (EVE), the rhabdovirus eel virus European X (EVEX), and the alloherpes...

The European Council Regulation (18 September 2007) for the recovery of eel stocks required European states to report on eel stocks and anthropic mortalities. The data sources for France reveal gaps in our knowledge about angling in the public domain, and catches from privately-owned rivers. We tested a simple method, using a survey, for estimating the strategy employed and the catches landed b...

We demonstrate here for the first time an original and facile approach to synthesizing a novel TiO(2) tube with a spiny mesoporous wall. The photocatalytic activity of the spiny mesoporous tube was greatly enhanced owing to the superior light reflecting ability of the tubular structure as well as the crosslinked spiny nanosheets.

We have investigated the dendritic and axonal morphology of connected pairs of L4 spiny neurons and L2/3 pyramidal cells in rat barrel cortex. The 'projection' field of the axons of L4 spiny neurons in layers 2/3, 4 and 5 has a width of 400-500 microm thereby defining an anatomical barrel-column. In layer 2/3, the averaged axonal 'projection' field of L4 spiny neurons together with the dendriti...

European eels are an economically important and threatened species that are prone to rapid collapse in farm conditions. Using metagenomics, we show that the eel mucosal microbiota has specific features distinguishing it from the surrounding aquatic community. This is a first step in dissecting the resident microbiota of this critical barrier that may have implications for maintenance of healthy...