In interspecific hybrids or allopolyploids, often one parental set of ribosomal RNA genes is transcribed and the other is silent, an epigenetic phenomenon known as nucleolar dominance. Silencing is enforced by cytosine methylation and histone deacetylation, but the initial discrimination mechanism is unknown. One hypothesis is that a species-specific transcription factor is inactivated, thereby...

Human graft endothelial cells (ECs) can act as antigen-presenting cells to initiate allograft rejection by host memory T cells. Rapamycin, an mTOR inhibitor used clinically to suppress T cell responses, also acts on DCs, rendering them tolerogenic. Here, we report the effects of rapamycin on EC alloimmunogenicity. Compared with mock-treated cells, rapamycin-pretreated human ECs (rapa-ECs) stimu...

The movement of transgenes from crops to weeds and the resulting consequences are concerns of modern agriculture. The possible generation of "superweeds" from the escape of fitness-enhancing transgenes into wild populations is a risk that is often discussed, but rarely studied. Oilseed rape, Brassica napus (L.), is a crop with sexually compatible weedy relatives, such as birdseed rape (Brassica...

Genic microsatellite markers, also known as functional markers, are preferred over anonymous markers as they reveal the variation in transcribed genes among individuals. In this study, we developed a total of 707 expressed sequence tag-derived simple sequence repeat markers (EST-SSRs) and used for development of a high-density integrated map using four individual mapping populations of B. rapa....

Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. pekinensis) is a widely cultivated and economically important vegetable crop with typical leaf curvature. The TCP (Teosinte branched1, Cycloidea, Proliferating cell factor) family proteins are plant-specific transcription factors (TFs) and play important roles in many plant biological processes, especially in the regulation of leaf curvature. In this study...

Cellular senescence, a state of irreversible growth arrest and altered cell function, causes aging-related diseases. Hence, treatment modalities that could target aging cells would provide a robust therapeutic avenue. Herein, for the first time, we utilized CD9 receptors (overexpressed in senescent cells) for nanoparticle targeting in addition to the inherent β-galactosidase activity. In our st...

The young allotetraploid Brassica napus (2n = 38, AACC) is one of models to study genomic responses to allopolyploidization. The extraction of AA component from natural B. napus and then restitution of progenitor B. rapa should provide a unique opportunity to reveal the genome interplay for gene expressions during the evolution. Herein, B. napus hybrids (2n = 19, AC) between the extracted and e...

For the past 60 years, glucocorticosteroid (GC) drugs, including prednisone and dexamethasone (Dex), have been used for the treatment of early stage osteoarthritis (OA). However, multiple administration of GCs may destroy the articular cartilage. It has been previously reported that GC treatment may also lead to the initiation of autophagy, which is an essential mechanism for cell homeostasis a...

14-3-3s are highly conserved, multigene family proteins that have been implicated in modulating various biological processes. The presence of inherent polyploidy and genome complexity has limited the identification and characterization of 14-3-3 proteins from globally important Brassica crops. Through data mining of Brassica rapa, the model Brassica genome, we identified 21 members encoding 14-...

This data article reports the establishment of the first pan-transcriptome resources for the Brassica A and C genomes. These were developed using existing coding DNA sequence (CDS) gene models from the now-published Brassica oleracea TO1000 and Brassica napus Darmor-bzh genome sequence assemblies representing the chromosomes of these species, along with preliminary CDS models from an updated Br...