Preliminary genetic evidence of two different populations of Opisthorchis viverrini in Lao PDR

Opisthorchis viverrini is a major public health concern in Southeast Asia. Various reports have suggested that this parasite may represent a species complex, with genetic structure in the region perhaps being dictated by geographical factors and different species of intermediate hosts. We used four microsatellite loci to analyze O. viverrini adult worms originating from six species of cyprinid fish in Thailand and Lao PDR. Two distinct O. viverrini populations were observed. In Ban Phai, Thailand, only one subgroup occurred, hosted by two different fish species. Both subgroups occurred in fish from That Luang, Lao PDR, but were represented to very different degrees among the fish hosts there. Our data suggest that, although geographical separation is more important than fish host specificity in influencing genetic structure, it is possible that two species of Opisthorchis, with little interbreeding, are present near Vientiane in Lao PDR

Human hippocampal neurogenesis drops sharply in children to undetectable levels in adults.

New neurons continue to be generated in the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus of the adult mammalian hippocampus. This process has been linked to learning and memory, stress and exercise, and is thought to be altered in neurological disease. In humans, some studies have suggested that hundreds of new neurons are added to the adult dentate gyrus every day, whereas other studies find many fewer putative new neurons. Despite these discrepancies, it is generally believed that the adult human hippocampus continues to generate new neurons. Here we show that a defined population of progenitor cells does not coalesce in the subgranular zone during human fetal or postnatal development. We also find that the number of proliferating progenitors and young neurons in the dentate gyrus declines sharply during the first year of life and only a few isolated young neurons are observed by 7 and 13 years of age. In adult patients with epilepsy and healthy adults (18-77 years; n = 17 post-mortem samples from controls; n = 12 surgical resection samples from patients with epilepsy), young neurons were not detected in the dentate gyrus. In the monkey (Macaca mulatta) hippocampus, proliferation of neurons in the subgranular zone was found in early postnatal life, but this diminished during juvenile development as neurogenesis decreased. We conclude that recruitment of young neurons to the primate hippocampus decreases rapidly during the first years of life, and that neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus does not continue, or is extremely rare, in adult humans. The early decline in hippocampal neurogenesis raises questions about how the function of the dentate gyrus differs between humans and other species in which adult hippocampal neurogenesis is preserved

Chitosan-Graft-Branched Polyethylenimine Copolymers: Influence of Degree of Grafting on Transfection Behavior

BACKGROUND: Successful non-viral gene delivery currently requires compromises to achieve useful transfection levels while minimizing toxicity. Despite high molecular weight (MW) branched polyethylenimine (bPEI) is considered the gold standard polymeric transfectant, it suffers from high cytotoxicity. Inversely, its low MW counterpart is less toxic and effective in transfection. Moreover, chitosan is a highly biocompatible and biodegradable polymer but characterized by very low transfection efficiency. In this scenario, a straightforward approach widely exploited to develop effective transfectants relies on the synthesis of chitosan-graft-low MW bPEIs (Chi-g-bPEI(x)) but, despite the vast amount of work that has been done in developing promising polymeric assemblies, the possible influence of the degree of grafting on the overall behavior of copolymers for gene delivery has been largely overlooked. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: With the aim of providing a comprehensive evaluation of the pivotal role of the degree of grafting in modulating the overall transfection effectiveness of copolymeric vectors, we have synthesized seven Chi-g-bPEI(x) derivatives with a variable amount of bPEI grafts (minimum: 0.6%; maximum: 8.8%). Along the Chi-g-bPEI(x) series, the higher the degree of grafting, the greater the ζ-potential and the cytotoxicity of the resulting polyplexes. Most important, in all cell lines tested the intermediate degree of grafting of 2.7% conferred low cytotoxicity and higher transfection efficiency compared to other Chi-g-bPEI(x) copolymers. We emphasize that, in transfection experiments carried out in primary articular chondrocytes, Chi-g-bPEI(2.7%) was as effective as and less cytotoxic than the gold standard 25 kDa bPEI. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This work underlines for the first time the pivotal role of the degree of grafting in modulating the overall transfection effectiveness of Chi-g-bPEI(x) copolymers. Crucially, we have demonstrated that, along the copolymer series, the fine tuning of the degree of grafting directly affected the overall charge of polyplexes and, altogether, had a direct effect on cytotoxicity

Mechanical land clearing to promote establishment of coastal sandplain grassland and shrubland communities

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2005. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Blackwell Publishing for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Restoration Ecology 14 (2006): 220-232, doi:10.1111/j.1526-100X.2006.00124.x.The decline in grasslands and other species-rich early-successional habitats on the coastal sandplains of the northeastern U.S. has spurred management to increase the area of these declining plant communities. We mechanically removed overstory oak and applied seed from a nearby sandplain grassland on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts to evaluate this technique for creating an open oak community able to support sandplain herbaceous species. We compared vegetation structure and composition before and after clearing in an area of total tree removal (clearcutting), an area where 85% of tree basal area was removed (savanna cutting) and in adjacent coastal oak forest. Plant responses to clearcutting and savanna cutting were similar. Sandplain herbs colonized at high frequencies after seeding and increasing herbaceous cover from <7% before clearing to 22-38% three growing seasons later. Carex pensylvanica (Pennsylvania sedge) increased in cover ~ 6-fold, accounting for 84-90% of the increased herbaceous cover. Other native ruderals, and exotic herbs reached 6%, 2%, and 1%, cover respectively, after three years. Species richness across cleared treatments increased from 30 to 79 species. All forest species were retained. Forest shrubs and trees initially declined from their dominant cover, but rebounded after three years. Tree clearing plus seeding appeared to be a viable management practice for increasing cover of herbaceous sandplain species while causing minimal increases in exotic herbaceous cover. The long-term persistence of sandplain herbs may require periodic disturbances that limit woody regrowth.This work was funded by grants from the A. W. Mellon Foundation and the Massachusetts Environmental Trust to MBL and from the Kohlberg Foundation to TNC

Impact analysis of accidents on the traffic flow based on massive floating car data

The wide usage of GPS-equipped devices enables the mass recording of vehicle movement trajectories describing the movement behavior of the traffic participants. An important aspect of the road traffic is the impact of anomalies, like accidents, on traffic flow. Accidents are especially important as they contribute to the the aspects of safety and also influence travel time estimations. In this paper, the impact of accidents is determined based on a massive GPS trajectory and accident dataset. Due to the missing precise date of the accidents in the data set used, first, the date of the accident is estimated based on the speed profile at the accident time. Further, the temporal impact of the accident is estimated using the speed profile of the whole day. The approach is applied in an experiment on a one month subset of the datasets. The results show that more than 72% of the accident dates are identified and the impact on the temporal dimension is approximated. Moreover, it can be seen that accidents during the rush hours and on high frequency road types (e.g. motorways, trunks or primaries) have an increasing effect on the impact duration on the traffic flow

Prox1 Is Required for Granule Cell Maturation and Intermediate Progenitor Maintenance During Brain Neurogenesis

The transcription factor Prox1 plays a crucial role in intermediate progenitor maintenance and hippocampal neuron differentiation during adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus region of the hippocampus