Journal Highlights

Mitogen Limitation and Bone Morphogenetic Protein-4 Promote Neurogenesis in SFME Cells, an EGF-Dependent Neural Stem Cell Line

The research described centers around developmental biology of the nervous system.  A cell line we have developed from mouse embryos in serum-free medium, which we term “serum-free mouse embryo cells”, or “SFME” cells, has been shown to have the property of neural stem cells.  SFME cells grow indefinitely in serum-free medium without senescence or malignant transformation. The cells express nestin, a neural stem cell marker, under serum-free conditions, and differentiate into astrocytes when the peptide transforming growth factor-beta is added to the medium.  The cells are absolutely dependent on epidermal growth factor for survival under the standard serum-free medium in which they are grown. We found that treatment of SFME cells with the peptide bone morphogenetic protein-4 led SFME to differentiate toward a neuronal lineage, but only under conditions in which the concentration of epidermal growth factor was very low or was not present.  In the presence of bone morphogenetic peptide-4, SFME cells did not need epidermal growth factor for survival.  If epidermal growth factor was present at high concentrations, neural differentiation was blocked, although high concentrations of epidermal growth factor did not affect the ability of SFME to differentiate to astrocytes under the influence of transforming growth factor-beta.  The cells in bone morphogenetic protein-4 differentiated into a particular type of neuron synthesizing gamma-aminobutyric acid. These results indicate that SFME cells have the capacity to generate both neurons and astrocytes in vitro, which resembles the behavior of known epidermal growth factor-dependent multipotential stem cells that exist in the central nervous system, The results establish a relationship between effects of bone morphogenetic peptide-4 and degree of mitogenic stimulation by other peptide growth factors. Kenichi Kusumoto, Angela Parton, and David Barnes.  Mitogen Limitation and Bone Morphogenetic Protein-4 Promote Neurogenesis in SFME Cells, an EGF-Dependent Neural Stem Cell Line, In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology-Animal, 45:55-61, 2009.

---

Biofuels: In Vitro Plant Special Issue 2009

In 2008 the Editorial Board of In Vitro Plant (IVP) decided to initiate the publication of Themed Issues to underline the commitment of IVP to international plant science and to further enhance the profile of the journal. Biofuels, the first of this series, contains topical and thought-provoking reviews from an emerging and fast-moving research area. Considerable progress is being made on several fronts, from the molecular sciences to crop biology and from cell wall chemistry to large-scale fuel production.

Biofuels Special Issue, published in June 2009, was deliberately planned to integrate research at different scales to get a better understanding of this complex field.  IVP Editor-in-Chief Dwight Tomes (DuPont-Pioneer), Invited Reviews Editor, Prakash Lakshmanan (BSES), and Guest Editors David Songstad (Monsanto), Stephen Hughes (USDA NCAUR), John Chen (Mendel), William Gibbons (South Dakota State Univ), and Rob Nelson (Biofuels Consultant) were involved with this production. This issue consisted of 14 manuscripts from various parts of the world (China, India, Australia, Brazil and the United States) and on various topics including biofuel economics, crop production and biotechnology, technical innovations for bioethanol production and a very good article about the fact that biofuels are not the main driver behind rising food prices.

This Special Issue publication was showcased at the 2009 Annual meeting in Charleston by the choice of the keynote speaker:  Russ Miller from Oak Ridge National Laboratory discussing the DOE BioEnergy Center. Russ also authored the second manuscript in this special issue publication.  Also present at our annual meeting was Stephen Hughes, who discussed his efforts in engineering yeast for the production of valuable co-products from during the ethanol refining process.  Stephen co-authored the fourth manuscript in the special issue publication.

Our publication colleagues at Springer plan to assemble these manuscripts into a book focused on Biofuels for worldwide distribution.  The book chapters will be identical to what is in the journal and will request that the journal articles be cited (which will help the impact factor of IVP).

We believe that this publication is a contribution to a very important research area and a significant boost to the profile of IVP and our Society. The list of the contents of the Special Issue Publication In Vitro Plant Volume 45, Number 3 is the following:

 

Historical Perspective of Biofuels: Learning from the Past to Rediscover the Future
D. D. Songstad, P. Lakshmanan, J. Chen, W. Gibbons, S. Hughes and R. Nelson

The DOE BioEnergy Science Center—a U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center
Russ Miller and Martin Keller

The Economics of Current and Future Biofuels
Ling Tao and Andy Aden

Integrated Biorefineries with Engineered Microbes and High-value Co-products for Profitable Biofuels Production
W. R. Gibbons and S. R. Hughes

Biodiesel Production, Properties, and Feedstocks
Bryan R. Moser

A Multiple Species Approach to Biomass Production from Native Herbaceous Perennial Feedstocks
J. L. Gonzalez-Hernandez, G. Sarath, J. M. Stein, V. Owens, K. Gedye and A. Boe

Development and Status of Dedicated Energy Crops in the United States
Russell W. Jessup

Genetic Improvement of C4 Grasses as Cellulosic Biofuel Feedstocks
Katrin Jakob, Fasong Zhou and Andrew H. Paterson

Genetic Modification of Lignin Biosynthesis for Improved Biofuel Production
Hiroshi Hisano, Rangaraj Nandakumar and Zeng-Yu Wang

Commercial Cellulosic Ethanol: The Role of Plant-expressed Enzymes
Manuel B. Sainz

Drivers Leading to Higher Food Prices: Biofuels Are Not the Main Factor
Paul Armah, Aaron Archer and Gregory C. Phillips

Biofuels in China: Opportunities and Challenges
Feng Wang, Xue-Rong Xiong and Chun-Zhao Liu

Biofuels: Opportunities and Challenges in India
Mambully Chandrasekharan Gopinathan and Rajasekaran Sudhakaran

The Brazilian Experience of Sugarcane Ethanol Industry
Sizuo Matsuoka, Jesus Ferro and Paulo Arruda

Short Rotation Woody Crops for Bioenergy and Biofuels Applications
Maud Hinchee, William Rottmann, Lauren Mullinax, Chunsheng Zhang, Shujun Chang, Michael Cunningham, Narender Nehra, and Leslie Pearson

Information provided by David Songstad, Prakash Lakshmann, and Dwight Tomes