The two major mechanisms of plant defense against pathogens are resistance (the host's ability to limit pathogen multiplication) and tolerance (the host's ability to reduce the effect of infection on its fitness regardless of the level of pathogen multiplication). There is abundant literature on virtually every aspect of plant resistance to pathogens. Although tolerance to plant pathogens is co...

Plant tolerance to natural enemy damage is a defense strategy that minimizes the effects of damage on fitness. Despite the apparent benefits of tolerance, many populations exhibit intermediate levels of tolerance, indicating that constraints on the evolution of tolerance are likely. In a field experiment with the ivyleaf morning glory, costs of tolerance to deer herbivory in the form of negativ...

Tolerance to herbivory minimizes the effects of herbivory on plant fitness. In the presence of herbivores, maximal levels of tolerance may be expected to evolve. In many plant species, however, tolerance is found at an intermediate level. Tolerance may be prevented from evolving to a maximal level by genetic constraints or stabilizing selection. We report on a field study of Ipomoea purpurea, t...

A reliable and reproducible method to automatically characterize the radiation sensitivity of macromolecular crystals at the ESRF beamlines has been developed. This new approach uses the slope of the linear dependence of the overall isotropic B-factor with absorbed dose as the damage metric. The method has been implemented through an automated procedure using the EDNA on-line data analysis fram...

The radiation damage rates to crystals of 15 model macromolecular structures were studied using an automated radiation sensitivity characterization procedure. The diffracted intensity variation with dose is described by a two-parameter model. This model includes a strong resolution-independent decay specific to room-temperature measurements along with a linear increase in overall Debye-Waller f...

DNA damage may compromise genome integrity and lead to cell death. Cells have evolved a variety of processes to respond to DNA damage including damage repair and tolerance mechanisms, as well as damage checkpoints. The DNA damage tolerance (DDT) pathway promotes the bypass of single-stranded DNA lesions encountered by DNA polymerases during DNA replication. This prevents the stalling of DNA rep...