Knowledge of the reproducibility of striatal [¹¹C]raclopride (RAC) binding is important for studies that use RAC PET paradigms to estimate changes in striatal dopamine (DA) during pharmacological and cognitive challenges. To our knowledge, no baseline test-retest data exist for nontreatment-seeking alcoholics (NTS). We determined the test-retest reproducibility of baseline RAC binding potential...

Artificial microRNAs (amiRNAs) are the expression products of engineered microRNA (miRNA) genes that efficiently and specifically downregulate RNAs that contain complementary sequences. Transgenic plants expressing high levels of one or more amiRNAs targeting particular sequences in the genomes of some RNA viruses have shown specific resistance to the corresponding virus. This is the case of th...

Geminiviruses, like all viruses, rely on the host cell machinery to establish a successful infection, but the identity and function of these required host proteins remain largely unknown. Tomato yellow leaf curl Sardinia virus (TYLCSV), a monopartite geminivirus, is one of the causal agents of the devastating Tomato yellow leaf curl disease (TYLCD). The transgenic 2IRGFP N. benthamiana plants, ...

The potential health risks due to inorganic substances, mainly metals, was evaluated for the two resident marine mammals in Hong Kong, the Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin (Sousa chinensis) and the Finless Porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides). The stomachs from the carcasses of twelve stranded dolphins and fifteen stranded porpoises were collected and the contents examined. Concentrations of thirte...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the occurrence of peony ring spot disease in the collections of foreign and Lithuanian origin peony cultivars and hybrids and to identify a causal agent of this viral disease. During surveys of ornamental plant collections grown in Lithuania, solitary instances of affected by peony ring spot disease plants have been detected in all collections surveyed. Dis...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary hypertension (PHT) is a significant cause of mortality in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). Few studies on PHT in SCD have been carried out in children. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of PHT in children with sickle cell anaemia (SCA) and determine its clinical and laboratory correlates. METHODS In this cross sectional study, evaluation involved obtaini...

Canopy characteristics and their variation at all growth stages, together with the spatial distribution of plants in the field need to be considered in determining the application volume rate in fruit crops. Spray volume calculation in a vineyard needs to take into account concepts such as tree row volume (TRV), leaf wall area (LWA) and leaf area index (LAI). The objective of this work was to d...

The sequence of the 3'-terminal 2077 nucleotides of genomic RNA 1 and the complete sequence of genomic RNA 2 of tobacco rattle virus (TRV, strain PSG) has been deduced. RNA 2 (1905 nucleotides) contains a single open reading frame for the viral coat protein (209 amino acids), flanked by 5'- and 3'-noncoding regions of 570 and 708 nucleotides, respectively. A subgenomic RNA (RNA 4) was found to ...

Tobacco rattle virus (TRV)-mediated virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) has been frequently used in dicots. Here we show that it can also be used in monocots, by presenting a system involving use of a novel infiltration solution (containing acetosyringone, cysteine, and Tween 20) that enables whole-plant level VIGS of (germinated) seeds in wheat and maize. Using the established system, phytoene...