BackgroundVarious expansions or contractions of inverted repeats (IRs) in chloroplast genomes led to fluxes in the IR-LSC (large single copy) junctions. Previous studies revealed that some monocot IRs contain a trnH-rps19 gene cluster, and it has been speculated that this may be an evidence of a duplication event prior to the divergence of monocot lineages. Therefore, we compared the organizations of genes flanking two IR-LSC junctions in 123 angiosperm representatives to uncover the evolutionary dynamics of IR-LSC junctions in basal angiosperms and monocots.ResultsThe organizations of genes flanking IR-LSC junctions in angiosperms can be classified into three types. Generally each IR of monocots contains a trnH-rps19 gene cluster near the IR-LSC junctions, which differs from those in non-monocot angiosperms. Moreover, IRs expanded more progressively in monocots than in non-monocot angiosperms. IR-LSC junctions commonly occurred at polyA tract or A-rich regions in angiosperms. Our RT-PCR assays indicate that in monocot IRA the trnH-rps19 gene cluster is regulated by two opposing promoters, S10A and psbA.ConclusionTwo hypotheses are proposed to account for the evolution of IR expansions in monocots. Based on our observations, the inclusion of a trnH-rps19 cluster in majority of monocot IRs could be reasonably explained by the hypothesis that a DSB event first occurred at IRB and led to the expansion of IRs to trnH, followed by a successive DSB event within IRA and lead to the expansion of IRs to rps19 or to rpl22 so far. This implies that the duplication of trnH-rps19 gene cluster was prior to the diversification of extant monocot lineages. The duplicated trnH genes in the IRB of most monocots and non-monocot angiosperms have distinct fates, which are likely regulated by different expression levels of S10A and S10B promoters. Further study is needed to unravel the evolutionary significance of IR expansion in more recently diverged monocots.

Data hiding is a well-known technique which embeds the secret data into a digital media. Most of the existing schemes either have the low image quality, or provide the restricted embedding capacity. In this paper, a new data hiding scheme based on turtle shell is proposed to obtain better image quality and higher embedding capacity. In the proposed scheme, a secret digit is embedded into each cover pixel pair with the guidance of the turtle shell. Experimental results reveal that the proposed scheme ensures not only higher embedding capacity, but also obtains better visual quality compared with the existing schemes.

The atmospheric pressure plasma enhanced nanoparticle synthesis (APPENS) process is applied to produce nitrogen (N) doped titania (TiO2) photocatalysts. With TTIP (titanium tetraisopropoxide; Ti(OC3H7)4) and water vapors as precursors, the effect of plasma and annealing gas composition on the N-doping status is identified by a cross comparison of the chemical shift of N atoms with those of Ti and O atoms. The activities of various types of N-doped photocatalysts are evaluated via the conversion of isopropyl alcohol (IPA). The results show that the N-doped TiO2 particles with O X −Ti−N Y and −(NO) dopants are produced via N2 plasma gas followed by air or N2 annealing gases. They have better visible and UV photocatalytic activities compared to the pure TiO2 photocatalysts prepared under O2/Ar plasma and annealing gases. On the other hand, the N-doped TiO2 photocatalyst produced under N2/O2/Ar plasma gas and then annealed with pure N2 gas tends to have an additional dopant of −(NO2), but its photocatalytic activity is even worse than those of the pure TiO2 photocatalysts. The results reveal that the O X −Ti−N Y and −(NO) dopants may have positive effects on the visible light photocatalytic activity while the −(NO2) dopant tends to have a negative effect on the visible light photocatalytic activity.

We have characterized two maize cDNAs, rpoTm and rpoTp, that encode putative T7-like RNA polymerases. In vivo cellular localization experiments using transient expression of the green fluorescent protein suggest that their encoded proteins are targeted exclusively to mitochondria and plastids, respectively. An antibody raised against the C terminus of the rpoTp gene product identified mitochondrial polypeptides of approximately 100 kD. Their presence was correlated with RNA polymerase activity, and the antibody inhibited mitochondrial in vitro transcription activity. Together, these results strongly suggest that the product of rpoTm is involved in maize mitochondrial transcription. By contrast, immunoblot analysis and an antibody-linked polymerase assay indicated that rpoTp specifies a plastid RNA polymerase component. A quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay was used to study the transcription of rpoTp and rpoTm in different tissues and under different environmental conditions. Although both genes were constitutively expressed, rpoTm transcripts were generally more prevalent in nonphotosynthetic tissues, whereas an increase in rpoTp transcripts paralleled chloroplast development. We suggest that these two genes encode constitutive components of the organelle transcription machinery but that their expression is nonetheless subject to modulation during plant development.

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