Port Orford cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana) has a reputation for being resistant to fungal attack, but much of the work to support this premise used older growth material (80-100 yr old). Given the tendency for the heartwood from the second growth of some species to be less durable, we evaluated the...
The ability of natural and synthetic hinokitiol, as well as a water soluble derivative (hinokitiol sodium salt), to protect wood against fungal attack was examined. Synthetic and natural hinokitiol provided similar protection. All three materials exhibited similar antifungal activity against Aspergillus niger and Penicillium citrinum on yellow poplar wafers at...
A solid, crystalline fumigant (dazomet) with and without a supplemental copper compound was evaluated as an internal decay control treatment on Douglas-fir poles in two long-term field tests. Methylisothiocyanate (MITC), the decomposition
product of dazomet, was used as a measure of effectiveness. MITC levels in the wood were above the...
Bacillus subtilis and essential oils have been explored separately for their ability to limit colonization by wood stain and mold fungi, but neither approach has been completely effective. One alternative strategy would be to combine the bacterial biocontrol with one or more natural products extracts. In this report, the ability...
Histones, as part of nucleosomes, are responsible for DNA packaging in chromosomes. They also affect DNA expression by a multitude of post-translational modifications, especially prevalent on the amino terminus of histones. Co-activator protein complexes “write”, “read”, or “erase” histone modifications, and in balance determine which sections of DNA are free...
In eukaryotes, the defined loci on each chromosome, the centromeres, accomplish
the critical task of correct cell division. In some organisms, centromeres are
composed of a euchromatic central core region embedded in a stretch of
heterochromatin and the inheritance and maintenance of centromeres are controlled
by dynamic epigenetic phenomena. Although...
Modifications of histone tail amino acid residues are necessary for many reactions involving chromatin. These processes can produce transcriptionally active, euchromatic, or inactive, heterochromatic, segments of DNA. The formation and maintenance of facultative heterochromatin is critical for the proper growth and development of many eukaryotes. Euchromatin can be changed into...
Fungi are capable of growth on a wide variety of carbon sources, both living and dead. They can produce an arsenal of enzymes and transporters for harvesting sugars, polysaccharides, amino acids, lipids and micronutrients from their environments [1]. Within the nucleus of a cell, transcription factors (TF) control whether genes...
Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) is a histone methyltransferase that initiates facultative heterochromatin formation by trimethylating histone H3 on lysine 27 (H3K27me3). Mutations within its three primary subunits, KMT6, EED, and SUZ12, result in inherited diseases and sporadic cancers. In the fungus Fusarium graminearum, deletion of the gene encoding the...