Although the Compositae harbours only two major food crops, sunflower and lettuce, many other species in this family are utilized by humans and have experienced various levels of domestication. Here, we have used next-generation sequencing technology to develop 15 reference transcriptome assemblies for Compositae crops or their wild relatives. These data allow us to gain insight into the evolut...

The Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) xenobiotic inducible cytochrome P450, CYP76B1, catalyzes rapid oxidative dealkylation of various phenylurea herbicides to yield nonphytotoxic metabolites. We have found that increased herbicide metabolism and tolerance can be achieved by ectopic constitutive expression of CYP76B1 in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and Arabidopsis. Transformation with C...

Plasma membranes were isolated from both unfrozen and frozen tissues of Jerusalem artichoke tubers (Helianthus tuberosus L.) in high purity utilizing an aqueous two-polymer phase partition system. Although the recovery of the plasma membranes was decreased significantly by freezing of tissues even at the nonlethal temperature (-5 degrees C), the isolated plasma membrane samples were considered ...

A new anamorphic species from a Philippine tropical forest occurs as reddish-orange to orange, tuberculate stromata on unidentified homopteran larvae, and produces both Aschersonia and Hirsutella-like synanamorphs. A molecular phylogenetic analysis was conducted to determine the most appropriate generic placement for this fungus. Based on its phylogenetic relationships, a comparison of the comp...

Jerusalem artichoke (JA, Helianthus tuberosus L.) is a promising functional food material. JA consists of inulin and fructo-oligosaccharide which are indigestible carbohydrates in human. Previous research has develop various products supplemented with JA, however no studies have involved yakju (Korean traditional rice wine) using because Saccharomyces cerevisiae cannot utilize inulin. We isolat...

A rapid, green phytosynthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using the aqueous extract of Helianthus tuberosus (sunroot tuber) was reported in this study. The morphology of the AgNPs was determined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Scanning electron microscopy-energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) analysis confirmed the presence of AgNPs. Fourier ...

The effect of electrostatic screening of fixed negative charges on uncoupled mitochondrial electron transport was investigated with substrates with different charge and different sites of donation of electrons to the electron-transport chain of Jerusalem-artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.) mitochondria. Duroquinol (neutral substrate) was oxidized with a pH optimum of 7.6-7.8. The addition of ca...