Simultaneous knockout of multiple eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E genes confers durable and broad-spectrum resistance to potyviruses in tobacco
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 24-Jun-2025 03:10 ET (24-Jun-2025 07:10 GMT/UTC)
In a paper published on aBIOTECH, the authors identified resistance-breaking Potato virus Y (PVY RB) isolates and emerging potyviruses (TVBMV and ChiVMV) in Yunnan tobacco fields, and revealed that combined inactivation of eIFiso4E-T in the va (lacking eIF4E1-S) genetic background confers durable resistance to PVY, while knockout of eIFiso4E-S in the va genetic background confers resistance to TVBMV and ChiVMV; pyramiding mutations in these genes achieved broad-spectrum potyvirus resistance without compromising plant growth, offering a novel strategy for engineering resistance crops.
Fifth place in the international ‘Green 500’ rankings
142,656 processor cores, 108 GPUs, AMD processors from the latest ‘Turin’ generation and an IBM Spectrum Scale file system with five petabytes of storage capacity: these are the outstanding specifications of ‘Otus’, Paderborn University’s new supercomputer. Even before it is officially put into use in the third quarter of this year, it is already breaking records: at ISC in Hamburg, the international trade fair for high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence, data analytics and quantum computing, the system was placed fifth in the ‘Green 500’ list of the world's most efficient computing systems. The ‘Green 500’ and ‘Top 500’ ranking lists serve as the benchmark for science and IT specialists. Whilst the ‘Top 500’ looks at speed alone, the ‘Green 500’ examines speed in relation to electrical power consumption. This enables energy efficiency to be measured.
In a paper published on aBIOTECH, the authors constructed G protein mutants using CRISPR/cas9 technology and investigated the biological functions of G proteins in growth, development, and symbiotic nodulation in Medicago truncatula.
Dr. Hye Jin Nam’s team at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), in collaboration with Professors Dong Hyun Jo and Sangsu Bae at Seoul National University College of Medicine, found that autophagy induction via nutrient deprivation or mTOR inhibition markedly enhances the efficiency of HR-based CRISPR–Cas9 gene editing up to threefold.