Drought stress activates several defense responses in plants, such as stomatal closure, maintenance of root water uptake, and synthesis of osmoprotectants. Accumulating evidence suggests that deposition of cuticular waxes is also associated with plant responses to cellular dehydration. Yet, how cuticular wax biosynthesis is regulated in response to drought is unknown. We have recently reported ...

The effect of active hand exercise and warm wax treatment was evaluated in 52 rheumatoid arthritis patients randomized into four groups: (1) both exercise and wax bath, (2) exercise only, (3) wax bath only, and (4) controls. Treatment was given three times a week for 4 weeks. Deficits in flexion and extension in digits II-V bilaterally, grip function, grip strength, pain, and stiffness were mea...

This paper reports a novel technique for fabricating three-dimensional (3D) microfluidic channels in a single sheet of paper, which greatly simplifies the fabrication process of 3D microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (3D-μPADs). This technique, derived from the popular wax printing technique for paper channel patterning, is capable of controlling the penetration depth of wax upon heatin...

Taking the axial heat conduction of wax deposition layer into account, a two-dimensional heat transfer model of calculating the temperature profile inside wax deposition layer was deduced and established based on the energy balance equation, the finite difference method was used to solve this model, and the influence of axial heat conduction on the distribution law of temperature profile inside...

Gao and Sonin (1994) have proposed a method for rapid prototyping and microfabrication by precise deposition and solidification of molten microdrops. Objects can be fabricated by a drop-on-demand, computer-controlled droplet generator. To understand the fundamentals of droplet deposition and solidification, experiments have been conducted using microcrystalline wax droplets (Schiaffino and Soni...

Wax esters are major constituents of the surface lipids in many terrestrial arthropods, but their study is complicated by their diversity. We developed a procedure for quantifying isomers in mixtures of straight-chain saturated and unsaturated wax esters having the same molecular weights, using single-ion monitoring of the total ion current data from gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. We exa...

In the cuticular wax mixtures from leaves of pea (Pisum sativum) cv Avanta, cv Lincoln, and cv Maiperle, more than 70 individual compounds were identified. The adaxial wax was characterized by very high amounts of primary alcohols (71%), while the abaxial wax consisted mainly of alkanes (73%). An aqueous adhesive of gum arabic was employed to selectively sample the epicuticular wax layer on pea...

The cuticle is a protective layer that coats the primary aerial surfaces of land plants and mediates plant interactions with the environment. It is synthesized by epidermal cells and is composed of a cutin polyester matrix that is embedded and covered with cuticular waxes. Recently, we have discovered a novel regulatory mechanism of cuticular wax biosynthesis that involves the ECERIFERUM7 (CER7...

In the analysis of the purified wax (1) isolated from the human tubercle bacillus it was found that the principal ether-soluble constituent was a hydroxy acid of very high molecular weight which was designated by the term “unsaponifiable wax” (2). This substance has been the subject of further studies, the results of which are reported in this paper. The so called waxes of the human tubercle ba...

Cuticular wax, the first protective layer of above ground tissues of many plant species, is a key evolutionary innovation in plants. Cuticular wax safeguards the evolution from certain green algae to flowering plants and the diversification of plant taxa during the eras of dry and adverse terrestrial living conditions and global climate changes. Cuticular wax plays significant roles in plant ab...