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  In vitro grown pollen tubes of Nicotiana alata actively synthesise a fucosylated xyloglucan.

  Lampugnani ER, Moller IE, Cassin A, Jones DF, Koh PL, Ratnayake S, Beahan CT, Wilson SM, Bacic A, Newbigin E.

  PLoS One. 2013;8(10):e77140.

  Nicotiana alata pollen tubes are a widely used model for studies of polarized tip growth and cell wall synthesis in plants. To better understand these processes, RNA-Seq and de novo assembly methods were used to produce a transcriptome of N. alata pollen grains. Notable in the reconstructed transcriptome were sequences encoding proteins that are involved in the synthesis and remodelling of xyloglucan, a cell wall polysaccharide previously not thought to be deposited in Nicotiana pollen tube walls. Expression of several xyloglucan-related genes in actively growing pollen tubes was confirmed and xyloglucan epitopes were detected in the wall with carbohydrate-specific antibodies: the major xyloglucan oligosaccharides found in N. alata pollen grains and tubes were fucosylated, an unusual structure for the Solanaceae, the family to which Nicotiana belongs. Finally, carbohydrate linkages consistent with xyloglucan were identified chemically in the walls of N. alata pollen grains and pollen tubes grown in culture. The presence of a fucosylated xyloglucan in Nicotiana pollen tube walls was thus confirmed. The consequences of this discovery to models of pollen tube growth dynamics and more generally to polarised tip-growing cells in plants are discussed.

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• Book

  Viruses, plagues, and history : past, present, and future. Second edition.

  Michael B.A. Oldstone.

  Summary: "Here, my previous edition of Viruses, Plagues, & History is updated to reflect both progress and disappointment since that publication. This edition describes newcomers to the range of human infections, specifically, plagues that play important roles in this 21st century. The first is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), an infection related to Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). SARS was the first new-found plague of this century. Zika virus, which is similar to yellow fever virus in being transmitted by mosquitos, is another of the recent scourges. Zika appearing for the first time in the Americas is associated with birth defects and a paralytic condition in adults. Lastly, illness due to hepatitis viruses were observed prominently during the second World War initially associated with blood transfusions and vaccine inoculations. Since then, hepatitis virus infections have afflicted millions of individuals, in some leading to an acute fulminating liver disease or more often to a life-long persistent infection. A subset of those infected has developed liver cancer. However, in a triumph of medical treatments for infectious diseases, pharmaceuticals have been developed whose use virtually eliminates such maladies. For example, Hepatitis C virus infection has been eliminated from almost all (>97%) of its victims. This incredible result was the by-product of basic research in virology as well as cell and molecular biology during which intelligent drugs were designed to block events in the hepatitis virus life-cycle"-- Provided by publisher.
  
  Contents:
  Author's note: Covid-19
  Viruses, plagues, and history. A general introduction
  Introduction to the principles of virology
  Introduction to the principles of immunology
  Success stories. Smallpox : the geopolitical impact of smallpox
  Yellow fever
  Measles virus
  Poliomyelitis
  Hepatitis viruses : oysters, blood transfusions, and cancer
  Present and future challenges. An overview of newly emerging viral plagues : the hemorrhagic fevers and a newly mysterious suspect of viral disease, acute flaccid paralysis
  Lassa fever
  Ebola
  Hantavirus
  Severe acute respiratory syndrome, the first pandemic of the twenty-first century; Middle east respiratory syndrome; and the 2019-2020 outbreak of 2019-nCoV
  West Nile virus : deaths of crows and humans
  Zika comes to the western hemisphere and Americas : how, when, consequences
  Human immunodeficiency virus : AIDS, the current plague
  Mad cow disease and Englishmen : dementia of humans, prions : folding protein transmissible diseases
  Influenza virus, the plague that will continue to return
  Apathy and ignorance : false prophets of autism and the anti-vaccine movement
  Conclusions and future predictions.

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