The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using RNA interference in down regulating the expression of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid oxidase gene in Eksotika papaya. One-month old embryogenic calli were separately transformed with Agrobacterium strain LBA 4404 harbouring the three different RNAi pOpOff2 constructs bearing the 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid oxidase gene. A total of 176 putative transformed lines were produced from 15,000 calli transformed, selected, then regenerated on medium supplemented with kanamycin. Integration and expression of the targeted gene in putatively transformed lines were verified by PCR and real-time RT-PCR. Confined field evaluation of a total of 31 putative transgenic lines planted showed a knockdown expression of the targeted ACO1 and ACO2 genes in 13 lines, which required more than 8 days to achieve the full yellow colour (Index 6). Fruits harvested from lines pRNAiACO2 L2-9 and pRNAiACO1 L2 exhibited about 20 and 14 days extended post-harvest shelf life to reach Index 6, respectively. The total soluble solids contents of the fruits ranged from 11 to 14° Brix, a range similar to fruits from non-transformed, wild type seed-derived plants.
The side sensitive synthetic chart was proposed to improve the performance of the synthetic chart to monitor shifts in the coefficient of variation (γ), by incorporating the side sensitivity feature where successive non-conforming samples must fall on the same side of the control limits. The existing side sensitive synthetic- γ chart is only evaluated in terms of the average run length (ARL) and expected average run length (EARL). However, the run length distribution is skewed to the right, hence the actual performance of the chart may be frequently different from what is shown by the ARL and EARL. This paper evaluates the entire run length distribution by studying the percentiles of the run length distribution. It is shown that false alarms frequently happen much earlier than the in-control ARL (ARL0), and small shifts are often detected earlier compared to the ARL1. Subsequently, this paper proposes an alternative design based on the median run length (MRL) and expected median run length (EMRL). The optimal design based on the MRL shows smaller out-of-control MRL (MRL1), which shows a quicker detection of the out-of-control condition, compared to the existing design, while the results from the optimal design based on the EMRL is similar to that of the existing designs. Comparisons with the synthetic-γ chart without side sensitivity shows that side sensitivity reduces the median number of samples required to detect a shift and reduces the variability in the run length. Finally, the proposed designs are implemented on an actual industrial example.
Mitogen-activated protein kinase 4 (MPK4) interacts with the (Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 1) MEKK1/ Mitogenactivated protein kinase kinase 1 (MKK1)/ Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase 2 (MKK2) complex to affect its function in plant development or against pathogen attacks. The KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) network analysis of Arabidopsis thaliana revealed close interactions between those four genes in the same plant-pathogen interaction pathway, which warrants further study of these genes due to their evolutionary conservation in different plant species. Through targeting the signature sequence in MPK4 of papaya using orthologs from Arabidopsis, the predicted sequence of MPK4 was studied using a comparative in silico approach between different plant species and the MAP cascade complex of MEKK1/MKK1/MKK2. This paper reported that MPK4 was highly conserved in papaya with 93% identical across more than 500 bases compared in each species predicted. Slight variations found in the MEKK1/MKK1/MKK2 complex nevertheless still illustrated sequence similarities between most of the species. Localization of each gene in the cascade network was also predicted, potentiating future functional verification of these genes interactions using knock out or/and gene silencing tactics.
Heterotrigona itama is a species of stingless bee recently domesticated (or reared) for honey production in a few Southeast Asian countries namely Malaysia and Indonesia. Being categorized in the clade Corbiculata together with the honeybees (Apis spp.) and bumble bees (Bombus spp.), the stingless bees are highly social in which the colony members are subjected to labor division where a queen functions as the reproductive caste. In this data article, we provide a resource encompassing a transcriptome profile (de novo assembled) from H. itama queen larva - the first report of transcriptome assembly for this species. The generated data is pivotal for the characterization of important genes and biological pathways in order to further improve our understanding on the developmental biology, behavior, social structure and ecological needs of this eusocial hymenopteran insect from the molecular aspect. The raw RNA sequencing data is available at NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SAR) under the accession number SRP230250 and the assembled reads are deposited at DDBJ/EMBL/Genbank as Transcriptome Shotgun Assembly (TSA) under the accession GIIH00000000.