Showing papers by "Hilary Koprowski published in 2010"

Tobacco as a production platform for biofuel: overexpression of Arabidopsis DGAT and LEC2 genes increases accumulation and shifts the composition of lipids in green biomass.

Abstract: When grown for energy production instead for smoking, tobacco can generate a large amount of inexpensive biomass more efficiently than almost any other agricultural crop. Tobacco possesses potent oil biosynthesis machinery and can accumulate up to 40% of seed weight in oil. In this work, we explored two metabolic engineering approaches to enhance the oil content in tobacco green tissues for potential biofuel production. First, an Arabidopsis thaliana gene diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) coding for a key enzyme in triacylglycerol (TAG) biosynthesis, was expressed in tobacco under the control of a strong ribulose-biphosphate carboxylase small subunit promoter. This modification led to up to a 20-fold increase in TAG accumulation in tobacco leaves and translated into an overall of about a twofold increase in extracted fatty acids (FA) up to 5.8% of dry biomass in Nicotiana tabacum cv Wisconsin, and up to 6% in high-sugar tobacco variety NC-55. Modified tobacco plants also contained elevated amounts of phospholipids. This increase in lipids was accompanied by a shift in the FA composition favourable for their utilization as biodiesel. Second, we expressed in tobacco Arabidopsis gene LEAFY COTYLEDON 2 (LEC2), a master regulator of seed maturation and seed oil storage under the control of an inducible Alc promoter. Stimulation of LEC2 expression in mature tobacco plants by acetaldehyde led to the accumulation of up to 6.8% per dry weight of total extracted FA. The obtained data reveal the potential of metabolically modified plant biomass for the production of biofuel.

Modulation of serum uric acid levels by inosine in patients with multiple sclerosis does not affect blood pressure.

Abstract: Modulation of serum uric acid levels by inosine in patients with multiple sclerosis does not affect blood pressure

Role of uric acid in Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract: For many years, uric acid (UA) was considered to be a waste metabolic product in the human body that can cause gout and kidney stones if elevated, and might also be involved in the development of hypertension, vascular and renal diseases [reviewed 1, 2] Later it was demonstrated that UA or urate, under physiological conditions, is an efficient scavenger of free radicals including several nitrogen-oxygen based radicals such as peroxynitrite and its derivatives [3,4] Over the past ten years, several dozen studies were conducted to establish a correlation between serum UA levels and the risk of developing as well as the progression of several neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS) [reviewed in 5], Parkinson’s disease [6], and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) [7] It was also linked to neuroprotection in several models of viral [8] and bacterial [9] infections in the central nervous system (CNS) and spinal cord injury [10] So far the role of UA in MS remains the area most studied In approximately two-thirds of the publications on MS with a total enrollment of about one thousand patients in several different studies, a correlation between a low serum UA level and disease was demonstrated [5] These findings were followed by clinical trials aimed at ameliorating MS conditions by raising serum UA levels Clinical trials