TET Enzymes and 5hmC in Adaptive and Innate Immune Systems

DNA methylation is an abundant and stable epigenetic modification that allows inheritance of information from parental to daughter cells. At active genomic regions, DNA methylation can be reversed by TET (Ten-eleven translocation) enzymes, which are responsible for fine-tuning methylation patterns. TET enzymes oxidize the methyl group of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) to yield 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) and other oxidized methylcytosines, facilitating both passive and active demethylation. Increasing evidence has demonstrated the essential functions of TET enzymes in regulating gene expression, promoting cell differentiation, and suppressing tumor formation. In this review, we will focus on recent discoveries of the functions of TET enzymes in the development and function of lymphoid and myeloid cells. How TET activity can be modulated by metabolites, including vitamin C and 2-hydroxyglutarate, and its potential application in shaping the course of immune response will be discussed

Cross Linguistic Transfer of Phonological Awareness and Word Recognition: An Exploratory Study on English Language Learners

Bilingual studies on cross-linguistic transfer of phonological awareness and word recognition emphasize the relevance of nature of language and orthography. The current study was designed to examine the significance of language and orthographic structure for phonological awareness and word recognition skills in children who are native speakers of Malayalam language learning English at school. The association of phonological awareness and word recognition in 30 Malayalam speaking preschool English Language Learners (ELL’s) was tested using a set of stimuli in both English and Malayalam.  Results revealed that word recognition was associated with phoneme awareness in English whereas in Malayalam, all the three levels tested in this study (rhyme, syllable and phoneme awareness) showed association with word recognition. However, considering the cross-linguistic associations, Malayalam word recognition was related to all levels of phonological awareness in English whereas no strong association was observed for word recognition in Malayalam with phonological awareness in English. Regression analysis revealed phoneme awareness in English as a strong predictor of word recognition in both the languages. These findings highlight the cross-linguistic transfer of phonological awareness between English and Malayalam supporting the Transfer Facilitation Model (TFM). Pedagogical implications of these findings on ELLs are discussed

Unusual Activity of a Chlamydomonas TET/JBP Family Enzyme.

The Great Oxygenation Event, which occurred on earth around 2.45 billion years ago, opened up the niche for enzymes that could directly oxidize substrates using molecular oxygen (O2), including the 2-oxoglutarate (2OG) and Fe(II)-dependent dioxygenases. 2OGFe-dioxygenases possess a double-stranded β-helix, with an iron center chelated by two histidines and an aspartate.(1) 2OGFe-dioxygenases catalyze the incorporation of one atom of O2 into 2-oxoglutarate, oxidizing it to succinate, and the second atom into an organic substrate. The AlkB family and related clades catalyze this reaction on alkyl adducts on nitrogens of bases, whereas the TET/JBP family catalyzes the oxidation of methyl groups attached to carbons of bases.(1) As enzymes that generate epigenetic marks by modifying DNA or RNA, members of both the AlkB and TET/JBP families have been repeatedly recruited to different eukaryotic lineages

Redes Neurais artificiais e Sistema Adaptativo de Inferência Neuro Fuzzy para análise e previsão da produtividade do trigo

The current study evaluated the prediction of the yield of wheat crops in the Bagalkot district of Karnataka State, India. The study aimed to provide crop yield predictions to help farmers optimize their cultivation and marketing strategies. The model used various independent variables, such as temperature, humidity of air, and water resources, to predict growth in the yield of wheat crops. The correlation analysis helps determine the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables based on the results. The statistical analysis identifies the variables that have a significant impact on crop yield growth. The work developed and tested two different models (the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model and the Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Interference System (ANFIS) to predict crop yield growth based on the selected independent variables. The ANFIS model was particularly interesting as it can predict a mapping between the input and output parameters, which can be useful for understanding the relationships between different variables. ANFIS was considered a better predictor than ANN as the error percentage ranged from 0-3%. Overall, the work highlighted the importance of crop yield predictions and the potential benefits that simulations can generate for farmers and the agriculture sector in general.O presente estudo avaliou a previsão do rendimento das culturas de trigo no distrito de Bagalkot, do Estado de Karnataka, India. O estudo teve como objetivo fornecer previsões de rendimento das colheitas para ajudar os agricultores a otimizar suas estratégias de cultivo e comercialização. O modelo usou várias variáveis independentes tais como temperatura, humidade do ar e recursos hídricos para prever o crescimento no rendimento das culturas de trigo. O trabalho se desenvolveu e testou dois modelos diferentes: Modelo de Rede Neural Artificial (Artificial Neural Network – ANN) e Sistema de Interferência Neuro-fuzzy Adaptativo (Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Interference System - ANFIS) a fim prever o crescimento do rendimento das culturas com base nas variáveis independentes selecionadas. O modelo ANFIS foi particularmente interessante, pois pôde prever um mapeamento entre os parâmetros de entrada e saída, os quais podem ser úteis para compreender a relação entre diferentes variáveis. ANFIS foi considerado um modelo de predição melhor que o modelo ANN, com uma porcentagem de erro variando de 0-3%. De maneira geral, o trabaho destacou a importância das previsões do rendimento das culturas e os potenciais benefícios que as simulações podem gerar para os agricultores e para o setor agrícola em geral

Gene regulation and signal transduction in the immune system

A report of the meeting 'Gene Expression and Signaling in the Immune System', Cold Spring Harbor, USA, 22-26 April 2008

Cloud Service Provider Evaluation System using Fuzzy Rough Set Technique

Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) offer a wide variety of scalable, flexible, and cost-efficient services to cloud users on demand and pay-per-utilization basis. However, vast diversity in available cloud service providers leads to numerous challenges for users to determine and select the best suitable service. Also, sometimes users need to hire the required services from multiple CSPs which introduce difficulties in managing interfaces, accounts, security, supports, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). To circumvent such problems having a Cloud Service Broker (CSB) be aware of service offerings and users Quality of Service (QoS) requirements will benefit both the CSPs as well as users. In this work, we proposed a Fuzzy Rough Set based Cloud Service Brokerage Architecture, which is responsible for ranking and selecting services based on users QoS requirements, and finally monitor the service execution. We have used the fuzzy rough set technique for dimension reduction. Used weighted Euclidean distance to rank the CSPs. To prioritize user QoS request, we intended to use user assign weights, also incorporated system assigned weights to give the relative importance to QoS attributes. We compared the proposed ranking technique with an existing method based on the system response time. The case study experiment results show that the proposed approach is scalable, resilience, and produce better results with less searching time.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, and 8 table