Abstract The article startswith summingup current discussions about competence-centred Religious Education (RE) at school. This kind of RE is based on the fundamental competences of religious education and the characteristics of good teaching according to Hilbert Meyer. What is still missing in pastor and teacher training is a practical guide on planning and giving lessons in competencecentred RE. In this context, previous lesson plans have to be substituted by lesson guidelines that are directed to processes and outcome. Furthermore, in order to come to more specific observations on pupils’ religious literacy, we will need more data and more refined analyses.
An entry from the Cambridge Structural Database, the world’s repository for small molecule crystal structures. The entry contains experimental data from a crystal diffraction study. The deposited dataset for this entry is freely available from the CCDC and typically includes 3D coordinates, cell parameters, space group, experimental conditions and quality measures.
Botrytis cinerea causes gray mold disease in leading crop plants. The disease develops only at cool temperatures, but the fungus remains viable in warm climates and can survive periods of extreme heat. We discovered a strong heat priming effect in which the exposure of B. cinerea to moderately high temperatures greatly improves its ability to cope with subsequent, potentially lethal temperature conditions. We showed that priming promotes protein solubility during heat stress and discovered a group of priming-induced serine-type peptidases. Several lines of evidence, including transcriptomics, proteomics, pharmacology, and mutagenesis data, link these peptidases to the B. cinerea priming response, highlighting their important roles in regulating priming-mediated heat adaptation. By imposing a series of sub-lethal temperature pulses that subverted the priming effect, we managed to eliminate the fungus and prevent disease development, demonstrating the potential for developing temperature-based plant protection methods by targeting the fungal heat priming response. IMPORTANCE Priming is a general and important stress adaptation mechanism. Our work highlights the importance of priming in fungal heat adaptation, reveals novel regulators and aspects of heat adaptation mechanisms, and demonstrates the potential of affecting microorganisms, including pathogens through manipulations of the heat adaptation response.
Vertebra segmentation from CT volume data is needed for several medical applications. For this, an important preprocessing step is the separation of neighboring vertebrae. We introduce a method to compute planes separating the individual vertebrae of the spine. For that purpose, a virtual balloon is inflated within the vertebral canal. After inflation, the balloon graphically shows swellings at the intervertebral regions and necks in the vertebra regions which can be distinguished by Gaussian curvature analysis on the balloon surface. Planes are constructed in the intervertebral regions separating the individual vertebrae. First tests have shown that our methods can be adapted to vertebra separation even in MRT volume data.
Academic Chair is the central academic institutional model in German universities.The academic chair system reflects the key characters of German higher education system.In Germany with highly homogenous higher education system,the professional development of the faculty in universities embodies the essence of this system.The recruitments,promotions and appointments are more important issues of this model.With the massification and globalization in higher education,the defects of the traditional system are being more obvious.Therefore,the relevant reformations are being tried.
Abstract As a sessile organism, plants have evolved a complex and sophisticated immune system to defend against various pathogenic microbes effectively. However, microbes have also developed complicated and delicate strategies to suppress host immunity and successfully colonize the host. Dynamic plant‒pathogen interactions require rapid and fine-tuned regulation of their gene expression. Increasing evidence has revealed that epigenetic regulation plays key roles in plant defense-related transcriptional reprogramming, as well as microbe pathogenicity. In this review, we summarize and highlight the current progress in understanding the roles of epigenetic regulation and factors, including DNA/RNA modification, histone modification, chromatin remodeling and noncoding RNAs, in plant immunity, phytopathogen pathogenicity and their interactions. We also discuss that epigenetic regulation emerges as an efficient strategy for crop breeding and plant disease control.
Hexose kinases play a central role in the initiation of sugar metabolism of living organisms and have also been implicated in carbon catabolite repression in yeasts and plants. In this study, the genes encoding glucokinase (Glk1) and hexokinase (Hxk1) from the plant-pathogenic ascomycete Botrytis cinerea were isolated and functionally characterized. Glk1-deficient mutants were indistinguishable from the wild-type in all growth parameters tested. In contrast, Deltahxk1 mutants lacking Hxk1 showed a pleiotropic growth defect. On artificial media, vegetative growth was retarded, and conidia formation strongly reduced. No or only marginal growth of Deltahxk1 mutants was observed when fructose, galactose, sucrose or sorbitol were used as carbon sources, and fructose inhibited growth of the mutant in the presence of other carbon sources. B. cinerea mutants containing hxk1 alleles with point mutations leading to enzymically inactive enzymes showed phenotypes similar to the Deltahxk1 disruption mutant, indicating that loss of hexose phosphorylation activity of Hxk1 is solely responsible for the pleiotropic growth defect. Virulence of the Deltahxk1 mutants was dependent on the plant tissue: on leaves, lesion formation was only slightly retarded compared to the wild-type, whereas only small lesions were formed on apples, strawberries and tomatoes. The low virulence of Deltahxk1 mutants on fruits was correlated with their high contents of sugars, in particular fructose. Heterologous expression of Hxk1 and Glk1 in yeast allowed their enzymic characterization, revealing kinetic properties similar to other fungal hexokinases and glucokinases. Both Deltaglk1 and Deltahxk1 mutants showed normal glucose repression of secreted lipase 1 activity, indicating that, in contrast to yeast, B. cinerea hexose kinases are not involved in carbon catabolite repression.