The increasing climate changes and global warming are leading to colossal agricultural problems such as abatement of food production and quality. As stomatal development is considered to play a key role in crop plant productivity and water-use efficiency, studying stomatal development is useful for understanding the productivity of plant systems for both natural and agricultural systems. Herein, we report the first-in-class synthetic small molecules enhancing the number of stomata in Arabidopsis thaliana that have been discovered by screening of the chemical library and further optimized by the Pd-catalyzed C-H arylation reaction. The present study shows not only huge potential of small molecules to control the cellular and developmental processes of stomata without using genetically modified plants, but also the power of C-H functionalization chemistry to rapidly identify the optimized compounds.

To develop an efficient procedure for the genetic transformation of lavandin, wild-type Agrobacterium rhizogenes harboring pIG121-Hm was used for infection. β-Glucronidase (GUS) expression was compared in leaf segments and leaf-derived calli as inoculation explants after five days of cocultivation, but GUS expression was only observed on calli. Hairy roots with strong GUS expression formed in 27.3% of these calli. When root segments excised from hairy roots were cultured in media containing various concentrations of 6-benzylamino purine (BA), thidiazuron (TDZ), or N-(2-chloro-4-pyridyl)-N′-phenylurea (CPPU), adventitious shoots were formed in some media. The adventitious shoot formation rate depended on the plant-growth regulator, and the highest adventitious shoot formation rate was 77.5%, in medium containing 0.02 mg·L −1 CPPU. This medium was not as effective in the formation of adventitious shoots from calli. Shoots from hairy roots were easily rerooted and acclimatized in a temperature-and light-controlled room. Transformation efficiency was more than six times higher with the Agrobacterium rhizogenes-infected culture series (20.6%) than with the Agrobacterium tumefaciens-infected culture series (3.3%), in terms of the rates of hairy root induction and regeneration from hairy root segments. These results indicate that efficient genetic transformation in lavandin can be achieved with A. rhizogenes as the vector.

IntroductionIn patients with combined lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LSCS), a herniated intervertebral disc (IVD) that compresses the dura mater and nerve roots is surgically treated with discectomy after laminoplasty. However, defects in the IVD after discectomy may lead to inadequate tissue healing and predispose patients to the development of IVD degeneration. Ultrapurified stem cells (rapidly expanding clones (RECs)), combined with an in situ-forming bioresorbable gel (dMD-001), have been developed to fill IVD defects and prevent IVD degeneration after discectomy. We aim to investigate the safety and efficacy of a new treatment method in which a combination of REC and dMD-001 is implanted into the IVD of patients with combined LSCS.Methods and analysisThis is a multicentre, prospective, double-blind randomised controlled trial. Forty-five participants aged 20–75 years diagnosed with combined LSCS will be assessed for eligibility. After performing laminoplasty and discectomy, participants will be randomised 1:1:1 into the combination of REC and dMD-001 (REC-dMD-001) group, the dMD-001 group or the laminoplasty and discectomy alone (control) group. The primary outcomes of the trial will be the safety and effectiveness of the procedure. The effectiveness will be assessed using visual analogue scale scores of back pain and leg pain as well as MRI-based estimations of morphological and compositional quality of the IVD tissue. Secondary outcomes will include self-assessed clinical scores and other MRI-based estimations of compositional quality of the IVD tissue. All evaluations will be performed at baseline and at 1, 4, 12, 24 and 48 weeks after surgery.Ethics and disseminationThis study was approved by the ethics committees of the institutions involved. We plan to conduct dissemination of the outcome data by presenting our data at national and international conferences, as well as through formal publication in a peer-reviewed journal.Trial registration numberjRCT2013210076.

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