Tomato Growth and Organic Acid Changes in Response to Partial Replacement of NO_3^--N by NH_4^+-N

A hydroponic experiment was conducted to study the effect of partial replacement of NO-3-N by NH4+-N on the seedling growth and organic acid content of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.). A completely randomized design was established with three replications and five treatments, i.e., NO-3-N/NH4+-N of 100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75 and 0/100. Results showed that 25% replacement of NO3--N by NH4+-N significantly (P = 0.05) improved fresh and dry weight, revealing that a proper percentage of NH4+-N was important for tomato nitrogen nutrition. This could increase the plant growth even though tomato was a crop that preferred nitrate nutrition. Also an increase in the proportion of NH4+-N in the nutrient solution led to a significant decrease (P = 0.05) in malate, citrate and fumarate. However, the 25% NH4+-N plus 75% NO3--N treatment had no significant effect (P = 0.05) on the 2-ketoglutarate, succinate or oxalic acid content, showing that only some organic acids in tomato plants were affected. Only pyruvate increased significantly (P = 0.05), and it only increased for 25% and 50% replacement of NO3--N by NH4+-N. Metabolism of these organic acids, especially malate, citrate and fumarate, should be further studied at the molecular level in vegetables applied with different nitrogen forms.

Replication of M13 single-stranded DNA bearing a sitespecific ethenocytosine lesion by Escherichia coil cell extracts

Previous investigation on the mutagenic effects of 3,N4-Ethenocytosine (εC), a nonpairing DNA lesion,revealed the existence of a novel SOS-independent inducible mutagenic mechanism in E. coli termed UVM for UV modulation of mutagenesis. To investigate whether UVM is mediated by an alteration of DNA replication, we have set up an in vitro replication system ill which phage M13 viral single-stranded DNA bearing a single site-specific (εC) residue is replicated by soluble protein extracts from E. coli cells. Replication products were analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis and the frequency of translesion synthesis was determined by restriction endonuclease analyses. Our data indicate that DNA replication is strongly inhibited by εC, but that translesion DNA synthesis does occur in about 14% of the replicated DNA molecules. These results are very similar to those observed previously in vivo, and suggest that this experimental system may be suitable for evaluating alterations in DNA replication in UVM-induced cells.

A general fan-beam reconstruction algorithm for free-form trajectories

In this paper we develop a general exact fan-beam reconstruction algorithm for free-form trajectories not only closed but also unclosed,based on the fan-beam reconstruction formula recently developed by Noo et al.. A mathematical proof is then provided with the geometrical explanation of equi-spatial detectors. With this algorithm we can obtain exact region of interest (ROI) reconstruction if and only if every projecting line passing through the ROI intersects the free-form source trajectory,when the projections are not truncated. Furthermore,under the condi- tion that the source-to-detectors distance changes slowly enough relative to the length itself,we obtain a very good approximate reconstruction algorithm,which is the same as the algorithm of the circular trajectory except that the source-to-detectors distance is a function of the rotation angle. Then the algorithms are tested using the Shepp-Logan phantom and the experiment shows that the algorithms can get perfect numerical results.