151 research outputs found
Comparing the spatio-temporal variability of remotely sensed oceanographic parameters between the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal throughout a decade
The spatio-temporal variability of sea-surface temperature (SST), photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), particulate organic carbon (POC) and particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) was evaluated in the Arabian Sea (ABS) and Bay of Bengal (BoB), from July 2002 to November 2014 by means of remotely sensed monthly composite Aqua MODIS level-3 data having a spatial resolution of 4.63 km. Throughout the time period under consideration, the surface waters of ABS (27.76 ± 1.12°C) were slightly cooler than BoB (28.93 ± 0.76°C); this was observed during all the seasons. On the contrary, the availability of PAR was higher in ABS (45.76 ± 3.41 mol m-2 d-1) compared to BoB (41.75 ± 3.75 mol m-2 d-1), and its spatial dynamics in the two basins was mainly regulated by cloud cover and turbidity of the water column. The magnitude and variability of Chl-a concentration were substantially higher in ABS (0.487 ± 0.984 mg m-3), compared to BoB (0.187 ± 0.243 mg m-3), and spatially higher values were observed near the coastal waters. Both POC and PIC exhibited higher magnitudes in ABS compared to BoB; however, the difference was substantially high in case of POC. None of the parameters showed any significant temporal trend during the 12-year span, except PIC, which exhibited a significant decreasing trend in ABS
The role of the mammalian DNA end-processing enzyme polynucleotide kinase 3'-phosphatase in spinocerebellar ataxia Type 3 pathogenesis
DNA strand-breaks (SBs) with non-ligatable ends are generated by ionizing radiation, oxidative stress, various chemotherapeutic agents, and also as base excision repair (BER) intermediates. Several neurological diseases have already been identified as being due to a deficiency in DNA end-processing activities. Two common dirty ends, 3'-P and 5'-OH, are processed by mammalian polynucleotide kinase 3'-phosphatase (PNKP), a bifunctional enzyme with 3'-phosphatase and 5'-kinase activities. We have made the unexpected observation that PNKP stably associates with Ataxin-3 (ATXN3), a polyglutamine repeat-containing protein mutated in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3), also known as Machado-Joseph Disease (MJD). This disease is one of the most common dominantly inherited ataxias worldwide; the defect in SCA3 is due to CAG repeat expansion (from the normal 14-41 to 55-82 repeats) in the ATXN3 coding region. However, how the expanded form gains its toxic function is still not clearly understood. Here we report that purified wild-type (WT) ATXN3 stimulates, and by contrast the mutant form specifically inhibits, PNKP's 3' phosphatase activity in vitro. ATXN3-deficient cells also show decreased PNKP activity. Furthermore, transgenic mice conditionally expressing the pathological form of human ATXN3 also showed decreased 3'-phosphatase activity of PNKP, mostly in the deep cerebellar nuclei, one of the most affected regions in MJD patients' brain. Finally, long amplicon quantitative PCR analysis of human MJD patients' brain samples showed a significant accumulation of DNA strand breaks. Our results thus indicate that the accumulation of DNA strand breaks due to functional deficiency of PNKP is etiologically linked to the pathogenesis of SCA3/MJD.This research was supported by USPHS grant NS073976 (TKH) and P30 ES 06676 that support the NIEHS Center Cell Biology Core and Molecular Genomics Core of UTMB’s NIEHS Center for DNA sequencing. TKP is supported by CA129537 and CA154320. This work was also supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through the project [PTDC/SAU-GMG/101572/2008] and through fellowships [SFRH/BPD/91562/2012 to ASF, SFRH/BD/51059/2010 to ANC]. IB is supported by NIEHS R01 ES018948 and NIAID/AI06288
Circulating microparticles: square the circle
Background: The present review summarizes current knowledge about microparticles (MPs) and provides a systematic overview of last 20 years of research on circulating MPs, with particular focus on their clinical relevance. Results: MPs are a heterogeneous population of cell-derived vesicles, with sizes ranging between 50 and 1000 nm. MPs are capable of transferring peptides, proteins, lipid components, microRNA, mRNA, and DNA from one cell to another without direct cell-to-cell contact. Growing evidence suggests that MPs present in peripheral blood and body fluids contribute to the development and progression of cancer, and are of pathophysiological relevance for autoimmune, inflammatory, infectious, cardiovascular, hematological, and other diseases. MPs have large diagnostic potential as biomarkers; however, due to current technological limitations in purification of MPs and an absence of standardized methods of MP detection, challenges remain in validating the potential of MPs as a non-invasive and early diagnostic platform. Conclusions: Improvements in the effective deciphering of MP molecular signatures will be critical not only for diagnostics, but also for the evaluation of treatment regimens and predicting disease outcomes
Precise measurement of the lifetime at Belle II
We measure the lifetime of the meson using a data sample of 207
fb collected by the Belle II experiment running at the SuperKEKB
asymmetric-energy collider. The lifetime is determined by fitting the
decay-time distribution of a sample of
decays. Our result is \tau^{}_{D^+_s} = (498.7\pm
1.7\,^{+1.1}_{-0.8}) fs, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the
second is systematic. This result is significantly more precise than previous
measurements.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, to be submitted to Physical Review Letter
Search for an invisible in a final state with two muons and missing energy at Belle II
The extension of the standard model predicts the existence
of a lepton-flavor-universality-violating boson that couples only
to the heavier lepton families. We search for such a through its
invisible decay in the process . We use a
sample of electron-positron collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 10.58GeV
collected by the Belle II experiment in 2019-2020, corresponding to an
integrated luminosity of 79.7fb. We find no excess over the expected
standard-model background. We set 90-confidence-level upper limits on the
cross section for this process as well as on the coupling of the model, which
ranges from at low masses to 1 at
masses of 8
Measurement of asymmetries in decays with Belle II
We present a measurement of time-dependent rate asymmetries in decays to search for non-standard-model physics in transitions. The data sample is collected with the Belle II
detector at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy collider in 2019-2022
and contains bottom-antibottom mesons from
resonance decays. We reconstruct signal events and
extract the charge-parity () violating parameters from a fit to the
distribution of the proper-decay-time difference of the two mesons. The
measured direct and mixing-induced asymmetries are
and , respectively, where the first
uncertainties are statistical and the second are systematic. The results are
compatible with the asymmetries observed in
transitions
Tests of light-lepton universality in angular asymmetries of decays
We present the first comprehensive tests of light-lepton universality in the
angular distributions of semileptonic \Bz-meson decays to charged spin-1
charmed mesons. We measure five angular-asymmetry observables as functions of
the decay recoil that are sensitive to lepton-universality-violating
contributions. We use events where one neutral \B is fully reconstructed in
\PUpsilonFourS{} \to\B\overline{B} decays in data corresponding to \lumion
integrated luminosity from electron-positron collisions collected with the
\belletwo detector. We find no significant deviation from the standard model
expectations
Measurement of branching fractions and direct asymmetries for and decays at Belle II
We report measurements of the branching fractions and direct
asymmetries of the decays , , , and , and use these for testing the standard
model through an isospin-based sum rule. In addition, we measure the branching
fraction and direct asymmetry of the decay and
the branching fraction of the decay . The data are
collected with the Belle II detector from collisions at the
resonance produced by the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy collider
and contain bottom-antibottom meson pairs. Signal yields are
determined in two-dimensional fits to background-discriminating variables, and
range from 500 to 3900 decays, depending on the channel. We obtain for the sum rule, in agreement with the standard model
expectation of zero and with a precision comparable to the best existing
determinations
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