Complement in reproductive white adipose tissue characterizes the obese preeclamptic-like BPH/5 mouse prior to and during pregnancy

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Preeclampsia (PE) is a serious hypertensive disorder of pregnancy characterized by abnormal placental development with an unknown etiology. To better understand which women will develop PE, a number of maternal risk factors have been identified, including obesity. Visceral white adipose tissue (WAT) contains inflammatory mediators that may contribute to PE. To explore this, we utilized the blood pressure high (BPH)/5 mouse model of superimposed PE that spontaneously recapitulates the maternal PE syndrome. We hypothesized that BPH/5 visceralWAT adjacent to the female reproductive tract (reproductiveWAT) is a source of complement factors that contribute to the inflammatory milieu and angiogenic imbalance at the maternal-fetal interface in this model and in preeclamptic women. To test our hypothesis, we calorie-restricted BPH/5 females for two weeks prior to pregnancy and the first seven days of pregnancy, which attenuated complement component 3 (C3) but not complement factor B, nor complement factor D, (adipsin) in the reproductiveWAT or the implantation site in BPH/5. Furthermore, calorie restriction during pregnancy restored vascular endothelial and placental growth factor mRNA levels in the BPH/5 implantation site. These data show maternal reproductive WAT may be a source of increased C3 during pregnancy, which is increased at the maternal-fetal interface in preeclamptic BPH/5 mice. It also suggests that calorie restriction could regulate inflammatory mediators thought to contribute to placental dysfunction in PE. Future studies are necessary to examine the e_ect of calorie restriction on C3 throughout pregnancy and the role of maternal obesity in PE

Impurity-induced transition and impurity-enhanced thermopower in the thermoelectric oxide NaCo_{2-x}Cu_x$O_4

Various physical quantities are measured and analysed for the Cu-substituted thermoelectric oxide NaCo_{2-x}Cu_xO_4. As was previously known, the substituted Cu enhances the thermoelectric power, while it does not increase the resistivity significantly. The susceptibility and the electron specific-heat are substantially decreased with increasing x, which implies that the substituted Cu decreases the effective-mass enhancement. Through a quantitative comparison with the heavy fermion compounds and the valence fluctuation systems, we have found that the Cu substitution effectively increases the coupling between the conduction electron and the magnetic fluctuation. The Cu substitution induces a phase transition at 22 K that is very similar to a spin-density-wave transition.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna Ultra-high Energy Neutrino Detector Design, Performance, and Sensitivity for 2006-2007 Balloon Flight

We present a detailed report on the experimental details of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) long duration balloon payload, including the design philosophy and realization, physics simulations, performance of the instrument during its first Antarctic flight completed in January of 2007, and expectations for the limiting neutrino detection sensitivity. Neutrino physics results will be reported separately.Comment: 50 pages, 49 figures, in preparation for PR

Genetic variation in mitochondrial DNA of North American herring gulls, Larus argentatus

The herring gull (Larus argentatus), which is one of the most abundant gulls in temperate North America, is used as an important bioindicator species, but little is known about its patterns of genetic variation. This study examines DNA sequence diversity in the cytochrome b gene of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from herring gull colonies in the Great Lakes basin and from a site in the Maritimes. A 307-bp fragment of the gene was analyzed using a rapid mutation screening procedure coupling directed termination PCR (DT-PCR) with single-stranded conformation polymorphism (SSCP). Seven mtDNA haplotypes were revealed in 224 specimens with a common haplotype dominating all populations. Direct sequencing of a 1063-bp fragment of the cytochrome b gene identified 8 additional haplotypes, but the sequence divergence among all 15 haplotypes was very low (average 0.24%). These data suggest that herring gulls experienced a bottleneck during the last glaciation that is now reflected in their low levels of genetic divergence. The geographic distribution of mtDNA haplotypes indicates that gene flow among herring gull populations is sufficient to ensure genetic homogeneity in the Great Lakes, but insufficient to homogenize genetic variation between the Great Lakes and the Maritimes. Meanwhile, a comparison analysis of frozen egg specimens suggests a possible shift in the genetic composition of the Great Lakes populations over the last 15 years

Erratum to: Cardiac ischemia in patients with septic shock randomized to vasopressin or norepinephrine. [Crit Care. (2013), 17, (R117)], DOI: 10.1186/cc12789

10.1186/s13054-017-1680-7Critical Care2119