National Autonomous University of Mexico

About: National Autonomous University of Mexico is a education organization based out in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Galaxy. The organization has 72868 authors who have published 127797 publications receiving 2285543 citations. The organization is also known as: UNAM & Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Engineering modified Bt toxins to counter insect resistance.

Abstract: The evolution of insect resistance threatens the effectiveness of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins that are widely used in sprays and transgenic crops. Resistance to Bt toxins in some insects is linked with mutations that disrupt a toxin-binding cadherin protein. We show that susceptibility to the Bt toxin Cry1Ab was reduced by cadherin gene silencing with RNA interference in Manduca sexta, confirming cadherin's role in Bt toxicity. Native Cry1A toxins required cadherin to form oligomers, but modified Cry1A toxins lacking one alpha-helix did not. The modified toxins killed cadherin-silenced M. sexta and Bt-resistant Pectinophora gossypiella that had cadherin deletion mutations. Our findings suggest that cadherin promotes Bt toxicity by facilitating toxin oligomerization and demonstrate that the modified Bt toxins may be useful against pests resistant to standard Bt toxins.

Retrieval of the Green’s Function from Cross Correlation: The Canonical Elastic Problem

Abstract: In realistic materials, multiple scattering takes place and average field intensities or energy densities follow diffusive processes. Multiple P to S energy conversions by the random inhomogeneities result in equipartition of elastic waves, which means that in the phase space the available elastic energy is distributed among all the possible states of P and S waves, with equal amounts in average. In such diffusive regimes, the P to S energy ratio equilibrates in a universal way independent of the particular details of the scattering. We study the canonical problem of isotropic plane waves in an elastic medium and show that the Fourier transform of azimuthal average of the cross correlation of motion between two points within an elastic medium is proportional to the imaginary part of the exact Green’s tensor function between these points, provided the energy ratio ES / EP is the one predicted by equipartition in two and three dimensions, respectively. These results clearly show that equipartition is a necessary condition to retrieve the exact Green’s function from correlations of the elastic field. However, even if there is not an equipartitioned regime and correlations do not allow to retrieve precisely the exact Green’s function, the correlations may provide valuable results of physical significance by reconstructing specific arrivals.

Arabidopsis pollen tube integrity and sperm release are regulated by RALF-mediated signaling

Abstract: In flowering plants, fertilization requires complex cell-to-cell communication events between the pollen tube and the female reproductive tissues, which are controlled by extracellular signaling molecules interacting with receptors at the pollen tube surface. We found that two such receptors in Arabidopsis, BUPS1 and BUPS2, and their peptide ligands, RALF4 and RALF19, are pollen tube-expressed and are required to maintain pollen tube integrity. BUPS1 and BUPS2 interact with receptors ANXUR1 and ANXUR2 via their ectodomains, and both sets of receptors bind RALF4 and RALF19. These receptor-ligand interactions are in competition with the female-derived ligand RALF34, which induces pollen tube bursting at nanomolar concentrations. We propose that RALF34 replaces RALF4 and RALF19 at the interface of pollen tube-female gametophyte contact, thereby deregulating BUPS-ANXUR signaling and in turn leading to pollen tube rupture and sperm release.