Uncontrolled allergic rhinoconjunctivitis to pollen and a new oral allergy syndrome with fresh fruits: should we take a top down or a bottom up approach?

European Acad Allergol & Clin Immunolinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The evaluation of surface diffusion coefficients of gold and platinum atoms at electrochemical interfaces from combined STM-SEM imaging and electrochemical techniques

A simple method is presented for measuring the surface diffusion coefficients of Au and Pt atoms at electrodispersed electrodes of the same metals in contact with 0.5M H2SO4. The technique is based upon the time dependence of the surface roughness factor of electrodispersed metal overlayers. The method requires a model for the surface roughness of the metal structure. The model is deduced from microscopic measurements by a STM integrated into a conventional SEM microscope. This allows the relationship between the roughness factor and the area of the surface structure to be obtained. For Au and Pt in contact with an electrolyte solution, the values of our diffusion coefficients are higher than those reported in vacuum at the same temperature.Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas (INIFTA)Facultad de Ciencias Exacta

Mind the numt: Finding informative mitochondrial markers in a giant grasshopper genome

H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, Grant/Award Number: 658706; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades, Grant/Award Number: PID2019-104952GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033The barcoding of the mitochondrial COX1 gene has been instrumental in cataloguing the tree of life, and in providing insights in the phylogeographic history of species. Yet, this strategy has encountered difficulties in major clades characterized by large genomes, which contain a high frequency of nuclear pseudogenes originating from the mitochondrial genome (numts). Here, we use the meadow grasshopper (Chorthippus parallelus), which possesses a giant genome of ~13 Gb, to identify mitochondrial genes that are underrepresented as numts, and test their use as informative phylogeographic markers. We recover the same full mitochondrial sequence using both whole genome and transcriptome sequencing, including functional protein‐coding genes and tRNAs. We show that a region of the mitogenome containing the COX1 gene, typically used in DNA barcoding, has disproportionally higher diversity and coverage than the rest of the mitogenome, consistent with multiple insertions of that region into the nuclear genome. By designing new markers in regions of less elevated diversity and coverage, we identify two mitochondrial genes that are less likely to be duplicated as numts. We show that, while these markers show high levels of incomplete lineage sorting between subspecies, as expected for mitochondrial genes, genetic variation reflects their phylogeographic history accurately. These findings allow us to identify useful mitochondrial markers for future studies in C. parallelus, an important biological system for evolutionary biology. More generally, this study exemplifies how non‐PCR‐based methods using next‐generation sequencing can be used to avoid numts in species characterized by large genomes, which have remained challenging to study in taxonomy and evolution.H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions 658706Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades PID2019-104952GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/50110001103

Loss of PLA2G6 leads to elevated mitochondrial lipid peroxidation and mitochondrial dysfunction

© 2015 The Author.The PLA2G6 gene encodes a group VIA calcium-independent phospholipase A2 beta enzyme that selectively hydrolyses glycerophospholipids to release free fatty acids. Mutations in PLA2G6 have been associated with disorders such as infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy, neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation type II and Karak syndrome. More recently, PLA2G6 was identified as the causative gene in a subgroup of patients with autosomal recessive early-onset dystonia-Parkinsonism. Neuropathological examination revealed widespread Lewy body pathology and the accumulation of hyperphosphorylated tau, supporting a link between PLA2G6 mutations and Parkinsonian disorders. Here we show that knockout of the Drosophila homologue of the PLA2G6 gene, iPLA2-VIA, results in reduced survival, locomotor deficits and organismal hypersensitivity to oxidative stress. Furthermore, we demonstrate that loss of iPLA2-VIA function leads to a number of mitochondrial abnormalities, including mitochondrial respiratory chain dysfunction, reduced ATP synthesis and abnormal mitochondrial morphology. Moreover, we show that loss of iPLA2-VIA is strongly associated with increased lipid peroxidation levels. We confirmed our findings using cultured fibroblasts taken from two patients with mutations in the PLA2G6 gene. Similar abnormalities were seen including elevated mitochondrial lipid peroxidation and mitochondrial membrane defects, as well as raised levels of cytoplasmic and mitochondrial reactive oxygen species. Finally, we demonstrated that deuterated polyunsaturated fatty acids, which inhibit lipid peroxidation, were able to partially rescue the locomotor abnormalities seen in aged flies lacking iPLA2-VIA gene function, and restore mitochondrial membrane potential in fibroblasts from patients with PLA2G6 mutations. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that loss of normal PLA2G6 gene activity leads to lipid peroxidation, mitochondrial dysfunction and subsequent mitochondrial membrane abnormalities. Furthermore we show that the iPLA2-VIA knockout fly model provides a useful platform for the further study of PLA2G6-associated neurodegeneration

Aperture Restriction Localisation in the LHC Arcs using an RF Mole and the LHC Beam Position Measurement System

Ensuring that the two 27km beam pipes of the LHC do not contain aperture restrictions is of utmost importance. Most of the ring is composed of continuous cryostats, so any intervention to remove aperture restrictions when the machine is at its operating temperature of 1.9K will require a substantial amount of time. On warming-up the first cooled sector, several of the sliding contacts which provide electrical continuity for the beam image current between successive sections of the vacuum chamber were found to have buckled into the beam pipe. This led to a search for a technique to verify the integrity of a complete LHC arc (~3km) before any subsequent cool-down. In this paper the successful results from using a polycarbonate ball fitted with a 40MHz RF transmitter are presented. Propulsion of the ball is achieved by sucking filtered air through the entire arc, while its progress is traced every 54m via the LHC beam position measurement system which is auto-triggered by the RF transmitter on passage of the ball. Reflectometry at frequencies in the 4-8 GHz range can cover the gaps between beam position monitors and could therefore be used to localise a ball blocked by an obstacle

Determination of the Dalitz plot parameter alpha for the decay eta->3pi^0 with the Crystal Ball at MAMI-B

A precise measurement of the Dalitz plot parameter, alpha, for the eta->3pi^0 decay is presented. The experiment was performed with the Crystal Ball and TAPS large acceptance photon detectors at the tagged photon beam facility of the MAMI-B electron accelerator in Mainz. High statistics of 1.8*10^6 eta->3pi^0 events were obtained, giving the result alpha = -0.032 +/- 0.002(stat) +/- 0.002(syst).Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, published in the online-first section of EPJ A, included changes referees asked for, added DO

Photoproduction of π0\pi^0-pairs off protons and off neutrons

Total cross sections, angular distributions, and invariant-mass distributions have been measured for the photoproduction of $\pi^0\pi^0$ pairs off free protons and off nucleons bound in the deuteron. The experiments were performed at the MAMI accelerator facility in Mainz using the Glasgow photon tagging spectrometer and the Crystal Ball/TAPS detector. The accelerator delivered electron beams of 1508 and 1557~MeV, which produced bremsstrahlung in thin radiator foils. The tagged photon beam covered energies up to 1400~MeV. The data from the free proton target are in good agreement with previous measurements and were only used to test the analysis procedures. The results for differential cross sections (angular distributions and invariant-mass distributions) for free and quasi-free protons are almost identical in shape, but differ in absolute magnitude up to 15\%. Thus, moderate final-state interaction effects are present. The data for quasi-free neutrons are similar to the proton data in the second resonance region (final state invariant masses up to $\approx$1550~MeV), where both reactions are dominated by the $N(1520)3/2^-\rightarrow \Delta(1232)3/2^+\pi$ decay. At higher energies, angular and invariant-mass distributions are different. A simple analysis of the shapes of the invariant-mass distributions in the third resonance region is consistent with strong contributions of an $N^{\star}\rightarrow N\sigma$ decay for the proton, while the reaction is dominated by a sequential decay via a $\Delta\pi$ intermediate state for the neutron. The data are compared to predictions from the Two-Pion-MAID model and the Bonn-Gatchina coupled channel analysis.Comment: accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.