High conversion efficiency in resonant four-wave mixing processes.

We propose a new scheme of the resonant four-wave mixing (FWM) for the frequency up or down conversion, which is more efficient than the commonly-used scheme of the non-resonant FWM. In this new scheme, two control fields are spatially varied such that a probe field at the input can be converted to a signal field at the output. The efficiency of probe-to-signal energy conversion can be 90% at medium's optical depth of about 100. Our proposed scheme works for both the continuous-wave and pulse cases, and is flexible in choosing the control field intensity. This work provides a very useful tool in the nonlinear frequency conversion.

[Antimicrobial activities of ant Ponericin W1 against plant pathogens in vitro and the disease resistance in its transgenic Arabidopsis].

The antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) exhibit a broad antimicrobial spectrum. The application of AMPs from non-plant organisms attracts considerable attention in plant disease resistance engineering. Ponericin W1, isolated from the venom of ant (Pachycondyla goeldii), shows antimicrobial activities against Gram-positive bacteria, Gram-negative bacteria and the budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae); however, it is not clear whether Ponericin W1 is effective against plant pathogens. The results of this study indicated synthesized Ponericin W1 inhibited mycelial growth of Magnaporthe oryzae and Botrytis cinerea, as well as hyphal growth and spore production of Fusarium graminearum. Besides, Ponericin W1 exhibited antibacterial activities against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. After codon optimization, Ponericin W1 gene was constructed into plant expression vector, and transformed into Arabidopsis thaliana by floral dip method. The Ponericin W1 was located in intercellular space of the transgenic plants as expected. Compared with the wild-type plants, there were ungerminated spores and less hyphal, conidia on the leaves of transgenic plants after innoculation with the powdery mildew fungus Golovinomyces cichoracearum. After innoculation with the pathogenic bac-terium Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato, the baceria in the leaves of transgenic plants was significantly less than the wild-type plants, indicating that the transgenic plants displayed enhanced disease resistance to pathogens. These results demonstrate a potential use of Ponericin W1 in genetic engineering for broad-spectrum plant disease resistance.

Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. beticola, A New Pathovar of Pathogens in Sugar Beet.

Bacterial leaf spot of sugar beet was first discovered in 1995 in Inner Mongolia of China. The pathogen was shown to be a bacterium with properties of gram-positive bacteria: small irregular rods, lateral flagella, aerobic, and catalase-positive. The colonies of sugar beet strains produced a pale-yellow pigment. The optimum temperature for the bacteria to grow was 24 to 27°C. The bacteria could utilize a wide range of organic compounds, including hydrolyzed casein, starch, esculin and Tween 80, and released H2S from cysteine, cystine, and Na2S2O3·5H2O, but could not produce urease, oxidase, or indole. The cell wall peptidoglycan was based on ornithine (type B2ß). The predominant menaquinone was MK-9. Polar lipids contained several glycosyldiacyl-glycerols. The DNA G+C content of a type strain of the new pathovar, T30T, was 67.5%. DNA-DNA homology between T30T and Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens (International Collection of Micro-Organisms from Plants, New Zealand [ICMP] 2584) was 70.1%. The new pathovar and C. flaccumfaciens pv. flaccumfaciens had 99.9% identity in DNA sequence of 16S rRNA. Close genetic relatedness was observed for the representatives of the species Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens, but a low level of similarity between the different pathovars was found. Based on these physiological, biochemical, chemotaxonomic, phylogenetic, and genetic characteristics, we demonstrate that the pathogen represents a new pathovar of C. flaccumfaciens, for which we propose the name Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. beticola pv. nov. The type strain is T30T (=ATCC BAA-144T).

[RAPD analysis of plant pathogenic coryneform bacteria].

RAPD analysis was used for the taxonomy of plant pathogenic coryneform bacteria, especially for the classification of two new pathogens (Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. basellae pv. nov. and Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens pv. beticola pv. nov.). 20 random primers were screened from 50 ones to detect polymorphism among the total strains used. 80.4% were polymorphic bands among the 225 ones produced. The results of pairwise similarity and UPGMA cluster analysis suggest that the two new pathovars of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris var. saccharifera) and malabar spinach (Basella rubra) are genetically close related with Curtobacterium flacumfaciens, and the minimal similarity coefficient is 0.6511. According to the RAPD analysis and previous research, some newly made taxonomic changes of the plant pathogenic coryneform bacteria are discussed.