BACKGROUND Despite the fact that coffee rust was first investigated scientifically more than a century ago, and that the disease is one of the major constraints to coffee production--constantly changing the socio-economic and historical landscape of the crop--critical aspects of the life cycle of the pathogen, Hemileia vastatrix, remain unclear. The asexual urediniospores are regarded as the on...

Penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) are enzymes involved in the synthesis of peptidoglycan structures in Bacillus subtilis such as the vegetative cell wall and the spore cortex. The B. subtilis sequencing project has identified a gene (orf16, EMBL accession number D38161) which exhibits significant sequence similarity to genes encoding class B high-molecular-weight PBPs. We have found that orf16...

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) is grown on over 8 million ha in Brazil and is used to produce ethanol and sugar. Some sugarcane fields are burned to facilitate harvesting, which can affect the soil microbial community. However, whether sugarcane pre-harvest burning affects the community of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and symbioses development is not known. In this study, we investigated the ...

A colony screening procedure was devised to detect Bacillus subtilis mutants containing temperature-sensitive trypsin-like intracellular protease activity. The enzyme was characterized as a non-sulfhydryl serine protease on the basis of inhibitor studies. It was also inhibited by D- or L-histidine but not by any other amino acid tested. The long-term survival at 45 degrees C of these mutants in...

The phylogeny of the Entolomataceae was reconstructed using three loci (RPB2, LSU and mtSSU) and, in conjunction with spore morphology (using SEM and TEM), was used to address four main systematic issues: 1) the monophyly of the Entolomataceae; 2) inter-generic relationships within the Entolomataceae; 3) genus delimitation of Entolomataceae; and 4) spore evolution in the Entolomataceae. Results...

Homobasidiomycete fungi display many complex fruiting body morphologies, including mushrooms and puffballs, but their anatomical simplicity has confounded efforts to understand the evolution of these forms. We performed a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of homobasidiomycetes, using sequences from nuclear and mitochondrial ribosomal DNA, with an emphasis on understanding evolutionary relatio...

In the present study, previous reported smut fungi of Iran were reviewed. For this purpose, all specimens being present in the fungus section of Herbarium Ministerii Iranici Agriculturae "IRAN" as well as some newly collected ones were studied. Moreover, all taxonomic and or floristic papers so far published for smut fungi of Iran, were considered. Important characteristics such as: host plant(...

Utilizing a plasma to achieve sterilization is a possible alternative to conventional sterilization means as far as sterilization of heat-sensitive materials and innocuity of sterilizing agents are concerned. A major issue of plasma sterilization is the respective roles of ultraviolet (UV) photons and reactive species such as atomic and molecular radicals. At reduced gas pressure (≤10 torr) and...