Established doxorubicin cardiomyopathy is a lethal disease. When congestive heart failure develops, mortality is approximately 50%. Extensive research has been done to understand the mechanism and pathophysiology of doxorubicin cardiomyopathy, and considerable knowledge and experience has been gained. Unfortunately, no effective treatment for established doxorubicin cardiomyopathy is presently available. Extensive research has been done and is being done to discover preventive treatments. However an effective and clinically applicable preventive treatment is yet to be discovered.

The deployment of heterosis in the form of hybrid rice varieties has boosted grain yield, but grain quality improvement still remains a challenge. Here we show that a quantitative trait locus for rice grain quality, qGW7, reflects allelic variation of GW7, a gene encoding a TONNEAU1-recruiting motif protein with similarity to C-terminal motifs of the human centrosomal protein CAP350. Upregulation of GW7 expression was correlated with the production of more slender grains, as a result of increased cell division in the longitudinal direction and decreased cell division in the transverse direction. OsSPL16 (GW8), an SBP-domain transcription factor that regulates grain width, bound directly to the GW7 promoter and repressed its expression. The presence of a semidominant GW7(TFA) allele from tropical japonica rice was associated with higher grain quality without the yield penalty imposed by the Basmati gw8 allele. Manipulation of the OsSPL16-GW7 module thus represents a new strategy to simultaneously improve rice yield and grain quality.

Enhancing global food security by increasing the productivity of green revolution varieties of cereals risks increasing the collateral environmental damage produced by inorganic nitrogen fertilizers. Improvements in the efficiency of nitrogen use of crops are therefore essential; however, they require an in-depth understanding of the co-regulatory mechanisms that integrate growth, nitrogen assimilation and carbon fixation. Here we show that the balanced opposing activities and physical interactions of the rice GROWTH-REGULATING FACTOR 4 (GRF4) transcription factor and the growth inhibitor DELLA confer homeostatic co-regulation of growth and the metabolism of carbon and nitrogen. GRF4 promotes and integrates nitrogen assimilation, carbon fixation and growth, whereas DELLA inhibits these processes. As a consequence, the accumulation of DELLA that is characteristic of green revolution varieties confers not only yield-enhancing dwarfism, but also reduces the efficiency of nitrogen use. However, the nitrogen-use efficiency of green revolution varieties and grain yield are increased by tipping the GRF4-DELLA balance towards increased GRF4 abundance. Modulation of plant growth and metabolic co-regulation thus enables novel breeding strategies for future sustainable food security and a new green revolution.