Arabidopsis NPR1/NIM1 is a key regulator of systemic acquired resistance (SAR), which confers lasting broad-spectrum resistance. Over-expression of Arabidopsis NPR1 or the NPR1 homolog 1 (NH1) in rice results in enhanced resistance to the pathogen Xanthomonasoryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), suggesting the presence of a related defense pathway in rice. We investigated this pathway in rice by identifying...

We recently reported the development of nonhomologous random recombination (NRR) as a method for nucleic acid diversification and applied NRR to the evolution of DNA aptamers. Here, we describe a modified method, protein NRR, that enables proteins to access diversity previously difficult or impossible to generate. We investigated the structural plasticity of protein folds and the ability of hel...

Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) in plants confers lasting broad-spectrum resistance to pathogens and requires the phytohormone salicylic acid (SA). Arabidopsis NPR1/NIM1 is a key regulator of the SAR response. Studies attempting to reveal the function of NPR1 and how it mediates SA signaling have led to isolation of two classes of proteins that interact with NPR1: the first class includes ri...

We study the problem of Non-Rigid Registration (NRR) for intra-operative recovery of brain shift during image-guided neurosurgery. Time-critical nature of the tumour resection procedure presents a major obstacle to the routine clinical use of many available NRR approaches. In this paper, we utilise the resources of a single multicore workstation with an advanced graphics card to parallelise and...

Nardostahyos Radix et Rhizoma (NRR; the root and rhizome of Nardostachys jatamansi DC.) is a widely used medicinal herb. Historically, NRR is being used for the treatment of cardiovascular and neurological diseases. To search for active ingredients of NRR, we investigated the vascular benefit of NRR volatile oil in (i) the vasodilation in rat aorta ring, and (ii) the release of nitric oxide (NO...

The Notch signalling pathway is fundamental to cell differentiation in developing and self-renewing tissues. Notch is activated upon ligand-induced conformational change of the Notch negative regulatory region (NRR), unmasking a key proteolytic site (S2) and facilitating downstream events. The favoured model requires endocytosis of a tightly bound ligand to transmit force to the NRR region, suf...

Last year, the original Glucocorticoid Receptor Resource was expanded into a comprehensive project: the Nuclear Receptor Resource (NRR, http:// nrr.georgetown.edu/nrr/nrr.html ). The NRR has since been offering comprehensive information on nuclear receptor structure and function, as well as general facts of interest to the scientific community on meetings, funding and employment opportunities. ...

Electrochemical nitrogen-to-ammonia fixation is emerging as a sustainable strategy to tackle the hydrogen- and energy-intensive operations by Haber-Bosch process for ammonia production. However, current electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) progress is impeded by overwhelming competition from the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) across all traditional NRR catalysts and the requirem...

Juvenile specimens of the earthworm species Eisenia fetida Savigny, 1826, were exposed in the laboratory to a range of concentrations of the fungicide copper oxychloride. After an eight-week exposure period, the neutral-red retention (NRR) times were measured in the coelomocytes of all the worms that had matured. Life-cycle traits (survival, biomass change, cocoon production, cocoon mass, hatch...