Population differentiation of alien invasive plants within their non-native range has received increasingly more attention. Common gardens are typically used to assess the levels of genotypic differentiation among populations.However, in such experiments, environmental maternal effects can influence phenotypic variation among individuals if seed sources are collected from field populations unde...

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have the ability to differentiate towards various cell types of the adult organism and are a potential source of transplantable material in regenerative medicine. The entire process of conversion of iPSCs into terminally differentiated cells takes place in vitro and requires long periods of time. During in vitro culture, cells are exposed to environmental ...

Articular cartilage defects often progress to osteoarthritis, which negatively impacts quality of life for millions of people worldwide and leads to high healthcare expenditures. Tissue engineering approaches to osteoarthritis have concentrated on proliferation and differentiation of stem cells by activation and suppression of signaling pathways, and by using a variety of scaffolding techniques...

Multicellular organisms depend on developmental programs to coordinate growth and differentiation from single cells, but the origins of development are unclear. A possible starting point is stochastic phenotypic variation generated by molecular noise. Given appropriate environmental conditions, noise-driven differentiation could conceivably evolve so as to come under regulatory control; however...

AIMS Erigeron breviscapus (Vant.) Hand.-Mazz. is an important, widely used Chinese herb with scutellarin, 1,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid and erigoster B being its major active compounds. We aimed to resolve the influence of biotic and abiotic factors on the concentrations of these compounds and to determine appropriate cultivation methods to improve the yields of the four ...

Question: How is tundra vegetation related to climatic, soil chemical, geological variables and grazing across a very large section of the Eurasian arctic area? We were particularly interested in broad-scale vegetation-environment relationships and how well do the patterns conform to climate-vegetation schemes. Material and Methods: We sampled vegetation in 1132 plots from 16 sites from differe...

The T lymphocyte response to pathogens is shaped by the microenvironment. Environmental sensors in T cells include the nutrient-sensing serine/threonine kinases, adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase and mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1. Other environmental sensors are transcription factors such as hypoxia-inducible factor-1 and the aryl hydrocarbon receptor. The present revie...

Environmental chemicals are known to disrupt the endocrine system in humans and to have adverse effects on several organs including the developing brain. Recent studies indicate that exposure to environmental chemicals during gestation can interfere with neuronal differentiation, subsequently affecting normal brain development in newborns. Xenoestrogen, bisphenol A (BPA), which is widely used i...