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Chemical weed control method may cause environmental hazards and residual effects in crops and soil. Alternate approach to control weeds is getting attentions in sustainable production system. Use of aqueous extracts of crops is getting scientific attention as eco-friendly alternative to synthetic herbicides especially under scenario of fast increasing herbicide resistance in weeds. Therefore, the present study was conducted at Weed Science Laboratory, Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad during winter 2018 to determine the phytotoxic effects of Glycyrrhiza glabra on winter vegetable crop Pisum sativum. The experiments were laid out under a completely randomized design (CRD), having three replicates. The experiments comprised of seven treatments with different concentrations of extract. The wood of G. glabra extracts comprised 0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, and 80% concentration applied on Pisum sativum. Data on seed germination, root length, shoot length, and fresh weight of weed and pea was recorded following standard procedures. Data were analyzed using Fishers Analysis of Variance. The differences among treatments were separated using a least significant difference test (LSD). Results revealed that aqueous extracts were possessed phytotoxic chemicals that cause phytotoxic effect to P. sativum and result in maximum germination percentage (%), Mean Germination time (Days), Time to 50% germination and minimum, root length (mm), shoot length (mm), root fresh weight (mg), shoot fresh weight was recorded at 80 % concentration of G. glabra. It is concluded that there are phenolic compounds in the wood extract of G. glabra which cause allelopathic effects on P. sativum.

The present study was planned to identify the phenolic compounds and allelopathic effect of Glycyrrhiza glabra on germination and seedling growth Phalaris minor at Weed Science Laboratory, Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad during winter 2018. The experiments were laid out under a completely randomized design (CRD), having three replicates. In this study seven different concentrations of G. glabra aqueous extracts (0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, and 80%) applied on winter weed P. minor. Data on regarding germination percentage (%), mean Germination time (days), time to 50% germination, root length (mm), shoot length (mm), root fresh weight (mg), shoot fresh weight was recorded following standard procedures. Data were analyzed using Fishers Analysis of Variance. The differences among treatments were separated using a least significant difference test (LSD). Results of experiment revealed that maximum germination percentage (%), Mean Germination time (Days), Time to 50% germination and minimum, root length (mm), shoot length (mm), root fresh weight (mg), shoot fresh weight of p. minor was recorded at 80 % concentration of G. glabra. From the present study, it is concluded that there are phenolic compounds in the wood extract of Glycyrrhiza glabra which cause allelopathic effects on P. minor.

Effect of Fra-1 down-regulation on Pol II P-Ser5 and Pol II P-Ser2

Primer and siRNA sequences

Crop plants release biochemicals into surrounding environment that help in obtaining maximum yield of crop by acting bioherbicide at high concentration and plant growth hormone at low concentration. Therefore, this study was planned at Department of Agronomy in Weed Science Laboratory, University of Agriculture Faisalabad during Winter 2018 to evaluate the allelopathic effects of Cinnamomum verum (Dalchini) on weed Wild Pea (Pisum sativum subsp. elatius) and determination and quantification Phenolic compound present in aqueous extract of bark of C. verum. The experiment was laid out under completely randomized design (CRD) having three replications. The aqueous extract of C. verum was used on wild pea seeds at different concentrations (2.5%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 40% and 80%). Data regarding seed germination and seedling growth (shoot length, root length, shoot fresh weight, root dry weigh) of weed was recorded following standard procedures. C. verum extract at higher concentration act as bioherbicide and produced inhibitory effects on Pisum sativum subsp. elatius. while at low concentration it shows hermetic effect and promoted the emergence and seedling growth. Among different Phenolic compound (Syringic acid, p-crumeic, Ferulic acid, Quercetion and Gallic acid) determine in aqueous extract of barck of C. verum Maximum Quercetion (12.3 %) and minimum Syringic acid (0.60 %) was found. Therefore, it was concluded from this study that aqueous extract of C. verum can be used as bioherbicide for biocontrol of weed at higher concentration (80 %) while at lower concentration (10%) as growth promoter.

Mammalian-wide interspersed repeats (MIRs) are retrotransposed elements of mammalian genomes. Here, we report the specific binding of zinc finger protein ZNF768 to the sequence motif GCTGTGTG (N20) CCTCTCTG in the core region of MIRs. ZNF768 binding is preferentially associated with euchromatin and promoter regions of genes. Binding was observed for genes expressed in a cell type-specific manner in human B cell line Raji and osteosarcoma U2OS cells. Mass spectrometric analysis revealed binding of ZNF768 to Elongator components Elp1, Elp2 and Elp3 and other nuclear factors. The N-terminus of ZNF768 contains a heptad repeat array structurally related to the C-terminal domain (CTD) of RNA polymerase II. This array evolved in placental animals but not marsupials and monotreme species, displays species-specific length variations, and possibly fulfills CTD related functions in gene regulation. We propose that the evolution of MIRs and ZNF768 has extended the repertoire of gene regulatory mechanisms in mammals and that ZNF768 binding is associated with cell type-specific gene expression.

The ubiquitous family of dimeric transcription factors AP-1 is made up of Fos and Jun family proteins. It has long been thought to operate principally at gene promoters and how it controls transcription is still ill-understood. The Fos family protein Fra-1 is overexpressed in triple negative breast cancers (TNBCs) where it contributes to tumor aggressiveness. To address its transcriptional actions in TNBCs, we combined transcriptomics, ChIP-seqs, machine learning and NG Capture-C. Additionally, we studied its Fos family kin Fra-2 also expressed in TNBCs, albeit much less. Consistently with their pleiotropic effects, Fra-1 and Fra-2 up- and downregulate individually, together or redundantly many genes associated with a wide range of biological processes. Target gene regulation is principally due to binding of Fra-1 and Fra-2 at regulatory elements located distantly from cognate promoters where Fra-1 modulates the recruitment of the transcriptional co-regulator p300/CBP and where differences in AP-1 variant motif recognition can underlie preferential Fra-1- or Fra-2 bindings. Our work also shows no major role for Fra-1 in chromatin architecture control at target gene loci, but suggests collaboration between Fra-1-bound and -unbound enhancers within chromatin hubs sometimes including promoters for other Fra-1-regulated genes. Our work impacts our view of AP-1.

During thymic development and upon peripheral activation, T cells undergo extensive phenotypic and functional changes coordinated by lineage-specific developmental programs. To characterize the regulatory landscape controlling T cell identity, we perform a wide epigenomic and transcriptional analysis of mouse thymocytes and naive CD4 differentiated T helper cells. Our investigations reveal a dynamic putative enhancer landscape, and we could validate many of the enhancers using the high-throughput CapStarr sequencing (CapStarr-seq) approach. We find that genes using multiple promoters display increased enhancer usage, suggesting that apparent "enhancer redundancy" might relate to isoform selection. Furthermore, we can show that two Runx3 promoters display long-range interactions with specific enhancers. Finally, our analyses suggest a novel function for the PRC2 complex in the control of alternative promoter usage. Altogether, our study has allowed for the mapping of an exhaustive set of active enhancers and provides new insights into their function and that of PRC2 in controlling promoter choice during T cell differentiation. This work was supported in J.-C.A.’s lab by grants from Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (FRM) “Amorçage Jeunes Equipes” AJE20130728183, Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) isplice (ANR-11-BSV8-0013), ANR ChromaTin (ANR-10-BLAN-1326), ITMO INCA “Dys3Dpoly,” ESGI 2011 (FP7 funding for high-throughput sequencing), and Ligue Régionale contre le Cancer (Hérault). L.P. was supported by a grant from FRM (4eme année thèse FDT201904007910). The T.S. lab was supported by funds from the European Research Council (ERC) (H2020, Starting Grant 678624 - CHROMTOPOLOGY), the ATIP-Avenir program, and the grant ANR-10-LABX-0030-INRT, under program ANR-10-IDEX-0002-02. A.M.M. is supported by funds from IDEX (University of Strasbourg) and the Institut National Du Cancer.

International audience; Broad domains of H3K4 methylation have been associated with consistent expression of tissue-specific, cell identity, and tumor suppressor genes. Here, we identified broad domain–associated genes in healthy human thymic T cell populations and a collection of T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) primary samples and cell lines. We found that broad domains are highly dynamic throughout T cell differentiation, and their varying breadth allows the distinction between normal and neoplastic cells. Although broad domains preferentially associate with cell identity and tumor suppressor genes in normal thymocytes, they flag key oncogenes in T-ALL samples. Moreover, the expression of broad domain–associated genes, both coding and noncoding, is frequently deregulated in T-ALL. Using two distinct leukemic models, we showed that the ectopic expression of T-ALL oncogenic transcription factor preferentially impacts the expression of broad domain–associated genes in preleukemic cells. Finally, an H3K4me3 demethylase inhibitor differentially targets T-ALL cell lines depending on the extent and number of broad domains. Our results show that the regulation of broad H3K4me3 domains is associated with leukemogenesis, and suggest that the presence of these structures might be used for epigenetic prioritization of cancer-relevant genes, including long noncoding RNAs.