ALBERT

Description: Parasitic diseases have a devastating, long-term impact on human health, welfare and food production worldwide. More than two billion people are infected with geohelminths, including the roundworms Ascaris (common roundworm), Necator and Ancylostoma (hookworms), and Trichuris (whipworm), mainly in developing or impoverished nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In humans, the diseases caused by these parasites result in about 135,000 deaths annually, with a global burden comparable with that of malaria or tuberculosis in disability-adjusted life years. Ascaris alone infects around 1.2 billion people and, in children, causes nutritional deficiency, impaired physical and cognitive development and, in severe cases, death. Ascaris also causes major production losses in pigs owing to reduced growth, failure to thrive and mortality. The Ascaris-swine model makes it possible to study the parasite, its relationship with the host, and ascariasis at the molecular level. To enable such molecular studies, we report the 273 megabase draft genome of Ascaris suum and compare it with other nematode genomes. This genome has low repeat content (4.4%) and encodes about 18,500 protein-coding genes. Notably, the A. suum secretome (about 750 molecules) is rich in peptidases linked to the penetration and degradation of host tissues, and an assemblage of molecules likely to modulate or evade host immune responses. This genome provides a comprehensive resource to the scientific community and underpins the development of new and urgently needed interventions (drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests) against ascariasis and other nematodiases.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Jex, Aaron R -- Liu, Shiping -- Li, Bo -- Young, Neil D -- Hall, Ross S -- Li, Yingrui -- Yang, Linfeng -- Zeng, Na -- Xu, Xun -- Xiong, Zijun -- Chen, Fangyuan -- Wu, Xuan -- Zhang, Guojie -- Fang, Xiaodong -- Kang, Yi -- Anderson, Garry A -- Harris, Todd W -- Campbell, Bronwyn E -- Vlaminck, Johnny -- Wang, Tao -- Cantacessi, Cinzia -- Schwarz, Erich M -- Ranganathan, Shoba -- Geldhof, Peter -- Nejsum, Peter -- Sternberg, Paul W -- Yang, Huanming -- Wang, Jun -- Wang, Jian -- Gasser, Robin B -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2011 Oct 26;479(7374):529-33. doi: 10.1038/nature10553.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia. ajex@unimelb.edu.au〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22031327" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Legumes (Fabaceae or Leguminosae) are unique among cultivated plants for their ability to carry out endosymbiotic nitrogen fixation with rhizobial bacteria, a process that takes place in a specialized structure known as the nodule. Legumes belong to one of the two main groups of eurosids, the Fabidae, which includes most species capable of endosymbiotic nitrogen fixation. Legumes comprise several evolutionary lineages derived from a common ancestor 60 million years ago (Myr ago). Papilionoids are the largest clade, dating nearly to the origin of legumes and containing most cultivated species. Medicago truncatula is a long-established model for the study of legume biology. Here we describe the draft sequence of the M. truncatula euchromatin based on a recently completed BAC assembly supplemented with Illumina shotgun sequence, together capturing approximately 94% of all M. truncatula genes. A whole-genome duplication (WGD) approximately 58 Myr ago had a major role in shaping the M. truncatula genome and thereby contributed to the evolution of endosymbiotic nitrogen fixation. Subsequent to the WGD, the M. truncatula genome experienced higher levels of rearrangement than two other sequenced legumes, Glycine max and Lotus japonicus. M. truncatula is a close relative of alfalfa (Medicago sativa), a widely cultivated crop with limited genomics tools and complex autotetraploid genetics. As such, the M. truncatula genome sequence provides significant opportunities to expand alfalfa's genomic toolbox.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3272368/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3272368/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Young, Nevin D -- Debelle, Frederic -- Oldroyd, Giles E D -- Geurts, Rene -- Cannon, Steven B -- Udvardi, Michael K -- Benedito, Vagner A -- Mayer, Klaus F X -- Gouzy, Jerome -- Schoof, Heiko -- Van de Peer, Yves -- Proost, Sebastian -- Cook, Douglas R -- Meyers, Blake C -- Spannagl, Manuel -- Cheung, Foo -- De Mita, Stephane -- Krishnakumar, Vivek -- Gundlach, Heidrun -- Zhou, Shiguo -- Mudge, Joann -- Bharti, Arvind K -- Murray, Jeremy D -- Naoumkina, Marina A -- Rosen, Benjamin -- Silverstein, Kevin A T -- Tang, Haibao -- Rombauts, Stephane -- Zhao, Patrick X -- Zhou, Peng -- Barbe, Valerie -- Bardou, Philippe -- Bechner, Michael -- Bellec, Arnaud -- Berger, Anne -- Berges, Helene -- Bidwell, Shelby -- Bisseling, Ton -- Choisne, Nathalie -- Couloux, Arnaud -- Denny, Roxanne -- Deshpande, Shweta -- Dai, Xinbin -- Doyle, Jeff J -- Dudez, Anne-Marie -- Farmer, Andrew D -- Fouteau, Stephanie -- Franken, Carolien -- Gibelin, Chrystel -- Gish, John -- Goldstein, Steven -- Gonzalez, Alvaro J -- Green, Pamela J -- Hallab, Asis -- Hartog, Marijke -- Hua, Axin -- Humphray, Sean J -- Jeong, Dong-Hoon -- Jing, Yi -- Jocker, Anika -- Kenton, Steve M -- Kim, Dong-Jin -- Klee, Kathrin -- Lai, Hongshing -- Lang, Chunting -- Lin, Shaoping -- Macmil, Simone L -- Magdelenat, Ghislaine -- Matthews, Lucy -- McCorrison, Jamison -- Monaghan, Erin L -- Mun, Jeong-Hwan -- Najar, Fares Z -- Nicholson, Christine -- Noirot, Celine -- O'Bleness, Majesta -- Paule, Charles R -- Poulain, Julie -- Prion, Florent -- Qin, Baifang -- Qu, Chunmei -- Retzel, Ernest F -- Riddle, Claire -- Sallet, Erika -- Samain, Sylvie -- Samson, Nicolas -- Sanders, Iryna -- Saurat, Olivier -- Scarpelli, Claude -- Schiex, Thomas -- Segurens, Beatrice -- Severin, Andrew J -- Sherrier, D Janine -- Shi, Ruihua -- Sims, Sarah -- Singer, Susan R -- Sinharoy, Senjuti -- Sterck, Lieven -- Viollet, Agnes -- Wang, Bing-Bing -- Wang, Keqin -- Wang, Mingyi -- Wang, Xiaohong -- Warfsmann, Jens -- Weissenbach, Jean -- White, Doug D -- White, Jim D -- Wiley, Graham B -- Wincker, Patrick -- Xing, Yanbo -- Yang, Limei -- Yao, Ziyun -- Ying, Fu -- Zhai, Jixian -- Zhou, Liping -- Zuber, Antoine -- Denarie, Jean -- Dixon, Richard A -- May, Gregory D -- Schwartz, David C -- Rogers, Jane -- Quetier, Francis -- Town, Christopher D -- Roe, Bruce A -- BB/G023832/1/Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom -- BBS/B/11524/Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom -- England -- Nature. 2011 Nov 16;480(7378):520-4. doi: 10.1038/nature10625.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Plant Pathology, University of Minnesota, St Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA. neviny@umn.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22089132" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Ultra-large-scale integrated (ULSI) circuits have benefited from successive refinements in device architecture for enormous improvements in speed, power efficiency and areal density. In large-area electronics (LAE), however, the basic building-block, the thin-film field-effect transistor (TFT) has largely remained static. Now, a device concept with fundamentally different operation, the source-gated transistor (SGT) opens the possibility of unprecedented functionality in future low-cost LAE. With its simple structure and operational characteristics of low saturation voltage, stability under electrical stress and large intrinsic gain, the SGT is ideally suited for LAE analog applications. Here, we show using measurements on polysilicon devices that these characteristics lead to substantial improvements in gain, noise margin, power-delay product and overall circuit robustness in digital SGT-based designs. These findings have far-reaching consequences, as LAE will form the technological basis for a variety of future developments in the biomedical, civil engineering, remote sensing, artificial skin areas, as well as wearable and ubiquitous computing, or lightweight applications for space exploration. Scientific Reports 4 doi: 10.1038/srep04295