1,412 research outputs found
Transcriptome of the deep-sea black scabbardfish, Aphanopus carbo (Perciformes: Trichiuridae) : tissue-specific expression patterns and candidate genes associated to depth adaptation
Deep-sea fishes provide a unique opportunity to study the physiology and evolutionary adaptation to extreme environments. We carried out a high throughput sequencing analysis on a 454 GS-FLX titanium plate using unnormalized cDNA libraries from six tissues of A. carbo. Assemblage and annotations were performed by Newbler and InterPro/Pfam analyses, respectively. The assembly of 544,491 high quality reads provided 8,319 contigs, 55.6% of which retrieved blast hits against the NCBI nonredundant database or were annotated with ESTscan. Comparison of functional genes at both the protein sequences and protein stability levels, associated with adaptations to depth, revealed similarities between A. carbo and other bathypelagic fishes. A selection of putative genes was standardized to evaluate the correlation between number of contigs and their normalized expression, as determined by qPCR amplification. The screening of the libraries contributed to the identification of new EST simple-sequence repeats (SSRs) and to the design of primer pairs suitable for population genetic studies as well as for tagging and mapping of genes. The characterization of the deep-sea fish A. carbo first transcriptome is expected to provide abundant resources for genetic, evolutionary, and ecological studies of this species and the basis for further investigation of depth-related adaptation processes in fishes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Neonatal Brachial Plexus Palsy: Risk Factors and Its Prognostic Value
Introduction: Neonatal brachial plexus palsy affects 0.7
to 5.8 per 1,000 newborns and is characterised by upper
limb paresis detected in the immediate neonatal period.
Shoulder dystocia, instrumental delivery and foetal
macrosomia are well-known risk factors. Most neonatal
brachial plexus palsy evolve favourably, while 3%-27% of
newborns have sequelae.
Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was
conducted to characterise neonatal brachial plexus
palsy in the newborn population of a hospital with
differentiated perinatal support and to assess the rela -
tionship between the risk factors and lesion prognosis.
The authors reviewed the newborn medical records
referred to the physical medicine and rehabilitation
clinic between January 2006 and December 2016.
Results: During the study period, 137 cases of neo-
natal brachial plexus palsy were identified in 36,833
births, which translate into an incidence of 3.7/1,000
live births. Foetal macrosomia was found in 41% and
shoulder dystocia in 40%. According to the Narakas clas-
sification, 58% were included in group I, 30% in group
II, 9% in group III and 3% in group IV. The majority of
patients were discharged without sequelae. Newborns
with group II, III and IV lesions as well as macrosomic
newborns were more likely to develop sequelae (p <
0.05). Shoulder dystocia and operative delivery did not
present a statistically significant relationship with the
prognosis of the lesion.
Discussion: The incidence of neonatal brachial plexus
palsy in this population was similar to is described in
other series. The relationship between macrosomia and
neonatal brachial plexus palsy with sequelae found may
be of importance in the attempt to prevent this lesioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Interaction between vortices in models with two order parameters
The interaction energy and force between widely separated strings is analyzed
in a field theory having applications to superconducting cosmic strings, the
SO(5) model of high-temperature superconductivity, and solitons in nonlinear
optics. The field theory has two order parameters, one of which is broken in
the vacuum (giving rise to strings), the other of which is unbroken in the
vacuum but which could nonetheless be broken in the core of the string. If this
does occur, there is an effect on the energetics of widely separated strings.
This effect is important if the length scale of this second order parameter is
longer than that of the other fields in the problem.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. Minor changes in the text. Accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev.
Fluid Dynamics of Relativistic Quantum Dust
The microscopic transport equations for free fields are solved using the
Schwinger function. Thus, for general initial conditions, the evolution of the
energy-momentum tensor is obtained, incorporating the quantum effects exactly.
The result for relativistic fermions differs from classical hydrodynamics,
which is illustrated for Landau and Bjorken type initial conditions in this
model of exploding primordial matter. Free fermions behave like classical dust
concerning hydrodynamic observables. However, quantum effects which are present
in the initial state are preserved.Comment: 5 pages; LaTe
Density-dependence of functional development in spiking cortical networks grown in vitro
During development, the mammalian brain differentiates into specialized
regions with distinct functional abilities. While many factors contribute to
functional specialization, we explore the effect of neuronal density on the
development of neuronal interactions in vitro. Two types of cortical networks,
dense and sparse, with 50,000 and 12,000 total cells respectively, are studied.
Activation graphs that represent pairwise neuronal interactions are constructed
using a competitive first response model. These graphs reveal that, during
development in vitro, dense networks form activation connections earlier than
sparse networks. Link entropy analysis of dense net- work activation graphs
suggests that the majority of connections between electrodes are reciprocal in
nature. Information theoretic measures reveal that early functional information
interactions (among 3 cells) are synergetic in both dense and sparse networks.
However, during later stages of development, previously synergetic
relationships become primarily redundant in dense, but not in sparse networks.
Large link entropy values in the activation graph are related to the domination
of redundant ensembles in late stages of development in dense networks. Results
demonstrate differences between dense and sparse networks in terms of
informational groups, pairwise relationships, and activation graphs. These
differences suggest that variations in cell density may result in different
functional specialization of nervous system tissue in vivo.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
- …