ARC privacy notice: new version May 2019.

Notices for GCU Gym, health and wellbeing

ARC privacy notice.

Notices for GCU Gym, health and wellbeing

Visuospatial bootstrapping: Long-term memory representations are necessary for implicit binding of verbal and visuospatial working memory

It has recently been shown that presenting additional visuospatial information alongside to-be-remembered numbers in a digit span task enhances participants' memory for those items. However, the mechanisms behind this visuospatial bootstrapping effect have remained unspecified. In this article, we report evidence that this effect involves an integration of information from verbal and visuospatial temporary memory with long-term-memory (LTM) representations and that the existence of a relevant LTM representation is necessary for bootstrapping to occur.div_PaS19pub2642pub

Intragenic copy number variation within filaggrin contributes to the risk of atopic dermatitis with a dose-dependent effect

Loss-of-function variants within the filaggrin gene (FLG) increase the risk of atopic dermatitis. FLG also demonstrates intragenic copy number variation (CNV), with alleles encoding 10, 11, or 12 filaggrin monomers; hence, CNV may affect the amount of filaggrin expressed in the epidermis. A total of 876 Irish pediatric atopic dermatitis cases were compared with 928 population controls to test the hypothesis that CNV within FLG affects the risk of atopic dermatitis independently of FLG-null mutations. Cases and controls were screened for CNV and common FLG-null mutations. In this population the 11-repeat allele was most prevalent (allele frequency 51.5%); the 10-repeat allele frequency was 33.9% and the 12-repeat allele frequency was 14.6%. Having excluded FLG mutation carriers, the control group had a significantly higher number of repeats than cases (χ2P=0.043), and the odds ratio of disease was reduced by a factor of 0.88 (95% confidence interval 0.78–0.98, P=0.025) for each additional unit of copy number. Breakdown products of filaggrin were quantified in tape-stripped stratum corneum from 31 atopic dermatitis patients and urocanic acid showed a positive correlation with total copy number. CNV within FLG makes a significant, dose-dependent contribution to atopic dermatitis risk, and therefore treatments to increase filaggrin expression may have therapeutic utility

Optimisation of the enzyme-linked lectin assay for enhanced glycoprotein and glycoconjugate analysis

Lectin’s are proteins capable of recognising and binding to specific oligosaccharide tructures found on glycoproteins and other biomoloecules. As such they have found tility for glycoanalytical applications. One common difficulty encountered in the pplication of these proteins, particularly in multi-well plate assay formats known as Enzyme Linked Lectin Assays (ELLA’s), is in finding appropriate blocking solutions to prevent non-specific binding with plate surfaces. Many commonly used blocking agents contain carbohydrates and generate significant background signals in ELLA’s, limiting the utility of the assay. In this study we examined the suitability of a range of blocking reagents, including rotein based, synthetic and commercially available carbohydrate free blocking eagents, for ELLA applications. Each blocking reagent was assessed against a panel f 19 commercially available biotinylated lectins exhibiting diverse structures and arbohydrate specificities. We identified the synthetic polymer Polyvinyl Alcohol PVA) as the best global blocking agent for performing ELLA’s. We ultimately present n ELLA methodology facilitating broad spectrum lectin analysis of glycoconjugates nd extending the utility of the ELLA

Systematic review of exercise and the long-term outcomes of the treatment for obesity.

We systematically reviewed randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of obesity treatments in adults and assessed long term effects on weight and risk factors for disease