Identification of epidermal Pdx1 expression discloses different roles of Notch1 and Notch2 in murine KrasG12D-induced skin carcinogenesis in vivo

Background The Ras and Notch signaling pathways are frequently activated during development to control many diverse cellular processes and are often dysregulated during tumorigenesis. To study the role of Notch and oncogenic Kras signaling in a progenitor cell population, Pdx1-Cre mice were utilized to generate conditional oncogenic KrasG12D mice with ablation of Notch1 and/or Notch2. Methodology/Principal Findings Surprisingly, mice with activated KrasG12D and Notch1 but not Notch2 ablation developed skin papillomas progressing to squamous cell carcinoma providing evidence for Pdx1 expression in the skin. Immunostaining and lineage tracing experiments indicate that PDX1 is present predominantly in the suprabasal layers of the epidermis and rarely in the basal layer. Further analysis of keratinocytes in vitro revealed differentiation-dependent expression of PDX1 in terminally differentiated keratinocytes. PDX1 expression was also increased during wound healing. Further analysis revealed that loss of Notch1 but not Notch2 is critical for skin tumor development. Reasons for this include distinct Notch expression with Notch1 in all layers and Notch2 in the suprabasal layer as well as distinctive p21 and β-catenin signaling inhibition capabilities. Conclusions/Significance Our results provide strong evidence for epidermal expression of Pdx1 as of yet not identified function. In addition, this finding may be relevant for research using Pdx1-Cre transgenic strains. Additionally, our study confirms distinctive expression and functions of Notch1 and Notch2 in the skin supporting the importance of careful dissection of the contribution of individual Notch receptors

Mechkit: a continuum mechanics toolkit in Python

Finish JOSS reviewThe research documented in this package and manuscript has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the International Research Training Group "Integrated engineering of continuous-discontinuous long fiber-reinforced polymer structures" (GRK 2078/2). The support by the German Research Foundation (DFG) is gratefully acknowledged

Austrian Transition to Open Access

Die aktuelle Ausgabe der „Mitteilungen der Vereinigung Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare“ (Mitteilungen der VÖB) ist dem Schwerpunktthema Austrian Transition to Open Access, einem Hochschulraumstrukturmittelprojekt mit der Laufzeit 2017 bis 2020 gewidmet, an dem alle 21 öffentlichen Universitäten in Österreich beteiligt sind. Die Schwerpunktausgabe beinhaltet einen Übersichtsbeitrag zu Projekt, Beiträge zu den vier Teilprojekten sowie einen Überblick über die vom Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft geförderten Hochschulraumstrukturmittelprojekte (2014–2020), an denen Universitätsbibliotheken der öffentlichen Universitäten beteiligt waren bzw. sind.The current issue of the „Communications of the Association of Austrian Librarians“ (Mitteilungen der VÖB) is dedicated to the topic Austrian Transition to Open Access, a Higher Education Area Structural Funding project lasting 2017–2020, in which all 21 Austrian public universities are involved. The special issue includes an overview article on the project, contributions on the four subprojects and an overview of the Higher Education Structural Research projects (2014–2020) co-funded by the Federal Ministry of Science, in which libraries of the public universities have been or are involved

Austrian Transition to Open Access

Die aktuelle Ausgabe der „Mitteilungen der Vereinigung Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare“ (Mitteilungen der VÖB) ist dem Schwerpunktthema Austrian Transition to Open Access, einem Hochschulraumstrukturmittelprojekt mit der Laufzeit 2017 bis 2020 gewidmet, an dem alle 21 öffentlichen Universitäten in Österreich beteiligt sind. Die Schwerpunktausgabe beinhaltet einen Übersichtsbeitrag zu Projekt, Beiträge zu den vier Teilprojekten sowie einen Überblick über die vom Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft geförderten Hochschulraumstrukturmittelprojekte (2014–2020), an denen Universitätsbibliotheken der öffentlichen Universitäten beteiligt waren bzw. sind

Metalldampffieber nach Schneidbrenntätigkeit als Differentialdiagnose bei alveolärem Infiltrat

Metalldampffieber (synonym: Giesser-, Schweisser-, Zinkdampf-Fieber) tritt vor allem nach Schweissen oder Schneiden verzinkter Werkstücke auf. Die durch die Inhalation von Zinkoxiden verursachte und durch Zytokine vermittelte Symptomatik beginnt meist wenige Stunden nach Exposition, geht mit allgemeinem Krankheitsgefühl, Kopf- und Gliederschmerzen, Husten und Fieber einher und klingt zumeist ohne Folgeschäden in 24 bis 36 Stunden ab. Eine computertomographische Darstellung des dabei möglichen alveolären Infiltrats wird hier aufgezeigt

Generation of annotated multimodal ground truth datasets for abdominal medical image registration

Sparsity of annotated data is a major limitation in medical image processing tasks such as registration. Registered multimodal image data are essential for the diagnosis of medical conditions and the success of interventional medical procedures. To overcome the shortage of data, we present a method that allows the generation of annotated multimodal 4D datasets. We use a CycleGAN network architecture to generate multimodal synthetic data from the 4D extended cardiac-torso (XCAT) phantom and real patient data. Organ masks are provided by the XCAT phantom, therefore the generated dataset can serve as ground truth for image segmentation and registration. Realistic simulation of respiration and heartbeat is possible within the XCAT framework. To underline the usability as a registration ground truth, a proof of principle registration is performed. Compared to real patient data, the synthetic data showed good agreement regarding the image voxel intensity distribution and the noise characteristics. The generated T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), and cone beam CT (CBCT) images are inherently co-registered. Thus, the synthetic dataset allowed us to optimize registration parameters of a multimodal non-rigid registration, utilizing liver organ masks for evaluation. Our proposed framework provides not only annotated but also multimodal synthetic data which can serve as a ground truth for various tasks in medical imaging processing. We demonstrated the applicability of synthetic data for the development of multimodal medical image registration algorithms.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. This work has been published in the International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery volum

Some observations of the Azores Current and the North Equatorial Current

The regions containing the two zonal currents of the subtropical gyre in the eastern North Atlantic, the Azores Current and the North Equatorial Current (NEC), have quite different physical characteristics. Associated with the Azores Current are strong horizontal thermohaline gradients that can be located easily both at the surface and at depth with temperature data alone, thus making satellite IR imagery and expendable bathythermograph profiles suitable for observing it. During winter, the surface expression of the Azores Current is often found to the north of the strongest subsurface gradients. In contrast to the Azores Current and to the central water mass boundary just to the south, the NEC has relatively weak horizontal temperature and salinity gradients, requiring density information in order to identify it. There is no clear surface manifestation found with the NEC. Common to both currents, though, is that each transports O(8 Sv) in the upper 800 m of the ocean near 27°W, with the largest velocities being in the upper 400 m

Observation of enhanced chiral asymmetries in the inner-shell photoionization of uniaxially oriented methyloxirane enantiomers

Most large molecules are chiral in their structure: they exist as two enantiomers, which are mirror images of each other. Whereas the rovibronic sublevels of two enantiomers are almost identical, it turns out that the photoelectric effect is sensitive to the absolute configuration of the ionized enantiomer - an effect termed Photoelectron Circular Dichroism (PECD). Our comprehensive study demonstrates that the origin of PECD can be found in the molecular frame electron emission pattern connecting PECD to other fundamental photophysical effects as the circular dichroism in angular distributions (CDAD). Accordingly, orienting a chiral molecule in space enhances the PECD by a factor of about 10

Characterization of bacterial operons consisting of two tubulins and a kinesin-like gene by the novel Two-Step Gene Walking method

Tubulins are still considered as typical proteins of Eukaryotes. However, more recently they have been found in the unusual bacteria Prosthecobacter (btubAB). In this study, the genomic organization of the btub-genes and their genomic environment were characterized by using the newly developed Two-Step Gene Walking method. In all investigated Prosthecobacters, btubAB are organized in a typical bacterial operon. Strikingly, all btub-operons comprise a third gene with similarities to kinesin light chain sequences. The genomic environments of the characterized btub-operons are always different. This supports the hypothesis that this group of genes represents an independent functional unit, which was acquired by Prosthecobacter via horizontal gene transfer. The newly developed Two-Step Gene Walking method is based on randomly primed polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It presents a simple workflow, which comprises only two major steps—a Walking-PCR with a single specific outward pointing primer (step 1) and the direct sequencing of its product using a nested specific primer (step 2). Two-Step Gene Walking proved to be highly efficient and was successfully used to characterize over 20 kb of sequence not only in pure culture but even in complex non-pure culture samples