Mid March 2009 papers

Some interest papers.

RESOURCE POLICY: Wood Energy in America, D. deB. Richter Jr. et al., Science 323(5920):1432 (13 March 2009).
Sustainable wood energy offers recurring economic, social, and environmental benefits.
(note, here are some sentences from first 2 paragraphs of this article. Maybe this is a way out for our energy consumption and CO2 emission?
"....thanks to regrowth of forests and improved technologies, advanced wood combustion (AWC) is being deployed throughout Europe, supplying heat, cooling, and power and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. ......
More than 1000 AWC facilities have been constructed in Austria, nearly all local community-based; more than 100 combine heat and electric power. .... The facilities emit remarkably low quantities of air pollutants, including greenhouse gases, and have thermal efficiencies across the system approaching 90%.")

A Functional Genomics Approach Reveals CHE as a Component of the Arabidopsis Circadian Clock, J. L. Pruneda-Paz et al., Science 323(5920):1481 - 1485 (13 March 2009).
A transcription factor (CHE) binds the promoter of the clock gene CCA1, adding to the molecular clock circuitry in plants.

Paternal Control of Embryonic Patterning in Arabidopsis thaliana, M. Bayer et al., Science 323(5920):1485 - 1488 (13 March 2009).
Transcripts of a cytoplasmic gene from sperm are translated after fertilization and control asymmetric zygotic division.

Obeying the clock yields benefits for metabolism, Kathryn Moynihan Ramsey and Joseph Bass, PNAS 106(11):4069-4070 (March 17, 2009).

From the Cover: Adverse metabolic and cardiovascular consequences of circadian misalignment, Frank A. J. L. Scheer, Michael F. Hilton, Christos S. Mantzoros, and Steven A. Shea, PNAS 2009 106(11):4453-4458.

The N-end rule pathway promotes seed germination and establishment through removal of ABA sensitivity in Arabidopsis, Tara J. Holman, Peter D. Jones, Laurel Russell, Anne Medhurst, Susana Úbeda Tomás, Prabhavathi Talloji, Julietta Marquez, Heike Schmuths, Swee-Ang Tung, Ian Taylor, Steven Footitt, Andreas Bachmair, Frederica L. Theodoulou, and Michael J. Holdsworth, PNAS 2009 106(11):4549-4554.

Variations in Hd1 proteins, Hd3a promoters, and Ehd1 expression levels contribute to diversity of flowering time in cultivated rice, Yasuyuki Takahashi, Kosuke M. Teshima, Shuji Yokoi, Hideki Innan, and Ko Shimamoto, PNAS 2009 106(11):4555-4560.

Epigenetics: RNAi protects across the generations, Louisa Flintoft, Nature Reviews Genetics 10:220-221 (April 2009).
RNAi is increasingly being recognized as a means of protecting the genome from harmful epigenetic changes. Two new studies in plants describe how RNAi can prevent or reverse the reactivation of transposable elements (TEs), which might otherwise wreak havoc in the genomes of successive generations.

A role for RNAi in the selective correction of DNA methylation defects, Teixeira, F. K. et al., Science 323(5921):1600 - 1604(20 March 2009).

Epigenetic reprogramming and small RNA silencing of transposable elements in pollen, Slotkin, R. K. et al., Cell 136:461–472 (2009)

Epigenetics: Taking a position on regulatory diversity, Louisa Flintoft, Nature Reviews Genetics 10:220-221 (April 2009).
Epigenetic differences between individual cells, populations or species are established contributors to differences in gene expression. Whereas previous work has focused mainly on the contribution of proteins that act in trans to epigenetic differences, studies using yeast now reveal that differences in nucleosome positioning that contribute to variability and divergence in gene expression can be encoded in the genome.

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY: Dynamic DNA Methylation, J. A. Law and S. E. Jacobsen, Science 323(5921):1568 - 1569 (20 March 2009).
The methylation of DNA during plant development is a much more dynamic process than previously assumed.

A Role for RNAi in the Selective Correction of DNA Methylation Defects, F. K. Teixeira et al., Science 323(5921):1600 - 1604 (20 March 2009).
An RNA interference–dependent DNA methylation rescue system helps to preserve a subset of DNA methylation marks in Arabidopsis.