The selectivity, voltage-dependence and acid sensitivity of the tandem pore potassium channel TASK-1 : contributions of the pore domains

We have investigated the contribution to ionic selectivity of residues in the selectivity filter and pore helices of the P1 and P2 domains in the acid sensitive potassium channel TASK-1. We used site directed mutagenesis and electrophysiological studies, assisted by structural models built through computational methods. We have measured selectivity in channels expressed in Xenopus oocytes, using voltage clamp to measure shifts in reversal potential and current amplitudes when Rb+ or Na+ replaced extracellular K+. Both P1 and P2 contribute to selectivity, and most mutations, including mutation of residues in the triplets GYG and GFG in P1 and P2, made channels nonselective. We interpret the effects of these—and of other mutations—in terms of the way the pore is likely to be stabilised structurally. We show also that residues in the outer pore mouth contribute to selectivity in TASK-1. Mutations resulting in loss of selectivity (e.g. I94S, G95A) were associated with slowing of the response of channels to depolarisation. More important physiologically, pH sensitivity is also lost or altered by such mutations. Mutations that retained selectivity (e.g. I94L, I94V) also retained their response to acidification. It is likely that responses both to voltage and pH changes involve gating at the selectivity filter

Inhibitor binding mode and allosteric regulation of Na+-glucose symporters.

Sodium-dependent glucose transporters (SGLTs) exploit sodium gradients to transport sugars across the plasma membrane. Due to their role in renal sugar reabsorption, SGLTs are targets for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Current therapeutics are phlorizin derivatives that contain a sugar moiety bound to an aromatic aglycon tail. Here, we develop structural models of human SGLT1/2 in complex with inhibitors by combining computational and functional studies. Inhibitors bind with the sugar moiety in the sugar pocket and the aglycon tail in the extracellular vestibule. The binding poses corroborate mutagenesis studies and suggest a partial closure of the outer gate upon binding. The models also reveal a putative Na+ binding site in hSGLT1 whose disruption reduces the transport stoichiometry to the value observed in hSGLT2 and increases inhibition by aglycon tails. Our work demonstrates that subtype selectivity arises from Na+-regulated outer gate closure and a variable region in extracellular loop EL5

Increased capability gas generator for Space Shuttle APU. Development/hot restart test report

The design, fabrication, and testing of an increased capability gas generator for use in space shuttles are described. Results show an unlimited hot restart capability in the range of feed pressures from 400 psi to 80 psi. Effects of vacuum on hot restart were not addressed, and only beginning-of-life bed conditions were tested. No starts with bubbles were performed. A minimum expected life of 35 hours or more is projected, and the design will maintain a surface temperature of 350 F or more

West Virginia coal fly ash sorption of BTEX

Sorption is a term used in the environmental field to describe how chemical contaminants in soil and groundwater adhere to solid particles such as: clay, peat and activated carbon for the purposes of remediation, fate and transport. A potential surrogate for sorption of chemical contaminants in groundwater is coal fly ash. Batch test experiments have demonstrated coal fly ash\u27s ability to remove hydrophobic, organic petroleum contaminants including: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX) in groundwater through the processes of sorption. Coal fly ash is a byproduct material of coal fired power plants that is often disposed of on-site or at landfills. A beneficial use of coal fly ash is for the sorption of BTEX in groundwater

MirGeneDB 2.1: toward a complete sampling of all major animal phyla

B.F. is supported by the Tromso forskningsstiftelse (TFS) [20 SG BF `MIRevolution']; Strategic Research Area (SFO) program of the Swedish Research Council (to V.R.) through Stockholm University (to B.F., W.K., E.M.-S. and M.R.F.); M.R.F. is additionally supported by ERC [758397 `miRCell']; South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority support is acknowledged [2018014 to E.H.]; P.J. Chabot is supported by the Junior Scholars Program (Dartmouth College); V.O.'s research funding was awarded to Dr Mary J. O'Connell (Associate Professor) from the School of Life Sciences University of Nottingham; M.H. is supported by the Spanish Government [AGL2017-88702C2-2-R]; University of Granada [A-BIO-481-UGR18, FEDER 18]; K.J.P. has been supported by the National Science Foundation; NASA Ames; Dartmouth College.We describe an update of MirGeneDB, the manually curated microRNA gene database. Adhering to uniform and consistent criteria for microRNA annotation and nomenclature, we substantially expanded MirGeneDB with 30 additional species representing previously missing metazoan phyla such as sponges, jellyfish, rotifers and flatworms. MirGeneDB 2.1 now consists of 75 species spanning over ∼800 million years of animal evolution, and contains a total number of 16 670 microRNAs from 1549 families. Over 6000 microRNAs were added in this update using ∼550 datasets with ∼7.5 billion sequencing reads. By adding new phylogenetically important species, especially those relevant for the study of whole genome duplication events, and through updating evolutionary nodes of origin for many families and genes, we were able to substantially refine our nomenclature system. All changes are traceable in the specifically developed MirGeneDB version tracker. The performance of read-pages is improved and microRNA expression matrices for all tissues and species are now also downloadable. Altogether, this update represents a significant step toward a complete sampling of all major metazoan phyla, and a widely needed foundation for comparative microRNA genomics and transcriptomics studies. MirGeneDB 2.1 is part of RNAcentral and Elixir Norway, publicly and freely available at http://www.mirgenedb.org/.Tromso forskningsstiftelse (TFS) 20_SG_BFStrategic Research Area (SFO) program of the Swedish Research Council through Stockholm UniversityEuropean Research Council (ERC) European Commission 758397South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority 2018014Junior Scholars Program (Dartmouth College)School of Life Sciences University of NottinghamSpanish GovernmentEuropean Commission AGL2017-88702-C2-2-RUniversity of Granada A-BIO-481-UGR18 FEDER 18National Science Foundation (NSF)National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA)Dartmouth Colleg

Repositori de preguntes per als cursos de moodle del departament d'electricitat d'un centre d'FP del centre de Barcelona

L'Objectiu d'aquest treball és promoure i facilitar la utilització de qüestionaris en la plataforma moodle. Crear un repositori de preguntes amb la finalitat de poder crear qüestionaris amb més facilitat dins dels cursos de moodle. El format escollit serà el banc de preguntes. En aquest projecte es tindran en compte els següents objectius: - Que sigui una eina d'utilitat pels docents. Els docents tindran més facilitat per a poder generar proves, test, exàmens, etc. dins del seu curs del moodle. Així com poder generar versions diferenciades d'un alumne a un altre. Tanmateix podran anar afegint noves preguntes al reposi tori de manera que cada cop sigui més ampli i útil. - D'utilitat pels alumnes. Els alumnes podran rebre una retroacció immediata de la prova que han realitzat. També es podran preparar tests per a que posin a prova els seus coneixements. - D'utilitat pels pares. Podran veure les qualificacions de l'alumne i els treballs que tenen, les dates d'entrega i els resultats obtinguts fins al moment. - Que estigui vinculat al currículum del mòdul. Cada pregunta que s'introdueixi al repositori es podrà associar als diferents coneixements, resultats d'aprenentatge i criteris d'avaluació de manera que el docent podrà verificar que s'assoleixen els objectius de l'aprenentatge de l'alumne

Prediction of Metabolic Pathways Involvement in Prokaryotic UniProtKB Data by Association Rule Mining

The widening gap between known proteins and their functions has encouraged the development of methods to automatically infer annotations. Automatic functional annotation of proteins is expected to meet the conflicting requirements of maximizing annotation coverage, while minimizing erroneous functional assignments. This trade-off imposes a great challenge in designing intelligent systems to tackle the problem of automatic protein annotation. In this work, we present a system that utilizes rule mining techniques to predict metabolic pathways in prokaryotes. The resulting knowledge represents predictive models that assign pathway involvement to UniProtKB entries. We carried out an evaluation study of our system performance using cross-validation technique. We found that it achieved very promising results in pathway identification with an F1-measure of 0.982 and an AUC of 0.987. Our prediction models were then successfully applied to 6.2 million UniProtKB/TrEMBL reference proteome entries of prokaryotes. As a result, 663,724 entries were covered, where 436,510 of them lacked any previous pathway annotations

A disulfide bridge in the calcium binding site of a polyester hydrolase increases its thermal stability and activity against polyethylene terephthalate

Elevated reaction temperatures are crucial for the efficient enzymatic degradation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). A disulfide bridge was introduced to the polyester hydrolase TfCut2 to substitute its calcium binding site. The melting point of the resulting variant increased to 94.7°C (wild-type TfCut2: 69.8 °C) and its half-inactivation temperature to 84.6 °C (TfCut2: 67.3 °C). The variant D204C-E253C-D174R obtained by introducing further mutations at vicinal residues showed a temperature optimum between 75 and 80 °C compared to 65 and 70 °C of the wild-type enzyme. The variant caused a weight loss of PET films of 25.0 +/- 0.8% (TfCut2: 0.3 +/-0.1%) at 70 °C after a reaction time of 48 h. The results demonstrate that a highly efficient and calcium-independent thermostable polyester hydrolase can be obtained by replacing its calcium binding site with a disulfide bridge