An Inventory of Evidence-Based Health and Wellness Assessments for Community-Dwelling Older Adults

It is estimated that by 2020 older adults will makeup one fifth of California\u27s population. Many of these older adults are living in the community and are maintaining their independence. In order to help the older adults to maintain their independence, occupational therapists are turning to the newly emerged wellness promotion model to guide their practice. The wellness promotion model is a holistic model that addresses six domains of wellness (intellectual, spiritual, physical, social, emotional, and vocational). One of the concerns in using this model to guide the emerging practice area in occupational therapy is that there is little information on health and wellness assessments. The purpose of this project was to create an inventory of evidence-based Health and Wellness Assessments for use with the community-dwelling older adult population

Survey of Canine Monogenetic Diseases with Established Molecular Bases

The development of a dog breed often involves selection, which intentionally propagates valued genetic traits. Unfortunately, untoward traits can be collaterally propagated during this process. For the purpose of identifying trends in canine genetic diseases, we examined 36 randomly chosen canine pathologies involving single gene mutations. For each disease we provide a brief summary of breed predilection, clinical signs, the underlying genetic mutation, and the availability of a commercial diagnostic test. The following trends were noted in this non-exhaustive list of diseases. First, these genetic diseases primarily involve the ophthalmic (28%) and nervous systems (28%). Second, no single breed was over-represented in these genetic diseases. Third, the majority (89%) of the mutations involve coding regions of the respective genes. Fourth, most (78%) mutations were autosomal recessive. Fifth, nucleotide substitutions were the most common mutation (42%). Finally, genetic testing is available for 89% of these diseases. This review encapsulates canine pathologies associated with single genetic defects, thus providing a resource for practitioners and researchers

Inhibition of angiogenesis and suppression of colorectal cancer metastatic to the liver using the Sleeping Beauty Transposon System

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Metastatic colon cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide, with disease progression and metastatic spread being closely associated with angiogenesis. We investigated whether an antiangiogenic gene transfer approach using the <it>Sleeping Beauty </it>(SB) transposon system could be used to inhibit growth of colorectal tumors metastatic to the liver.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Liver CT26 tumor-bearing mice were hydrodynamically injected with different doses of a plasmid containing a transposon encoding an angiostatin-endostatin fusion gene (Statin AE) along with varying amounts of SB transposase-encoding plasmid. Animals that were injected with a low dose (10 μg) of Statin AE transposon plasmid showed a significant decrease in tumor formation only when co-injected with SB transposase-encoding plasmid, while for animals injected with a higher dose (25 μg) of Statin AE transposon, co-injection of SB transposase-encoding plasmid did not significantly affect tumor load. For animals injected with 10 μg Statin AE transposon plasmid, the number of tumor nodules was inversely proportional to the amount of co-injected SB plasmid. Suppression of metastases was further evident in histological analyses, in which untreated animals showed higher levels of tumor cell proliferation and tumor vascularization than animals treated with low dose transposon plasmid.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results demonstrate that hepatic colorectal metastases can be reduced using antiangiogenic transposons, and provide evidence for the importance of the transposition process in mediating suppression of these tumors.</p

Age-related CNS disorder and early death in transgenic FVB/N mice overexpressing Alzheimer amyloid precursor proteins

AbstractTransgenic FVB/N mice overexpressing human (Hu) or mouse (Mo) Alzheimer amyloid precursor protein (APP695) die early and develop a CNS disorder that includes neophobia and impaired spatial alternation, with diminished glucose utilization and astrogliosis mainly in the cerebrum. Age at onset of neophobia and age at death decrease with increasing levels of brain APP. HuAPP transgenes induce death much earlier than MoAPP transgenes expressed at similar levels. No extracellular amyloid was detected, indicating that some deleterious processes related to APP overexpression are dissociated from formation of amyloid. A similar clinical syndrome occurs spontaneously in ∼20% of nontransgenic mice when they reach mid-to late-adult life, suggesting that APP overexpression may accelerate a naturally occuring age-related CNS disorder in FVB/N mice

The transposable elements of the Drosophila melanogaster euchromatin: a genomics perspective.

BACKGROUND: Transposable elements are found in the genomes of nearly all eukaryotes. The recent completion of the Release 3 euchromatic genomic sequence of Drosophila melanogaster by the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project has provided precise sequence for the repetitive elements in the Drosophila euchromatin. We have used this genomic sequence to describe the euchromatic transposable elements in the sequenced strain of this species. RESULTS: We identified 85 known and eight novel families of transposable element varying in copy number from one to 146. A total of 1,572 full and partial transposable elements were identified, comprising 3.86% of the sequence. More than two-thirds of the transposable elements are partial. The density of transposable elements increases an average of 4.7 times in the centromere-proximal regions of each of the major chromosome arms. We found that transposable elements are preferentially found outside genes; only 436 of 1,572 transposable elements are contained within the 61.4 Mb of sequence that is annotated as being transcribed. A large proportion of transposable elements is found nested within other elements of the same or different classes. Lastly, an analysis of structural variation from different families reveals distinct patterns of deletion for elements belonging to different classes. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis represents an initial characterization of the transposable elements in the Release 3 euchromatic genomic sequence of D. melanogaster for which comparison to the transposable elements of other organisms can begin to be made. These data have been made available on the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project website for future analyses.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

The transposable elements of the Drosophila melanogaster

Background: Transposable elements are found in the genomes of nearly all eukaryotes. The recent completion of the Release 3 euchromatic genomic sequence of Drosophila melanogaster by the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project has provided precise sequence for the repetitive elements in the Drosophila euchromatin. We have used this genomic sequence to describe the euchromatic transposable elements in the sequenced strain of this species. Results: We identified 85 known and eight novel families of transposable element varying in copy number from one to 146. A total of 1,572 full and partial transposable elements were identified, comprising 3.86% of the sequence. More than two-thirds of the transposable elements are partial. The density of transposable elements increases an average of 4.7 times in the centromereproximal regions of each of the major chromosome arms. We found that transposable elements are preferentially found outside genes; only 436 of 1,572 transposable elements are contained within the 61.4 Mb of sequence that is annotated as being transcribed. A large proportion of transposable elements is found nested within other elements of the same or different classes. Lastly, an analysis of structural variation from different families reveals distinct patterns of deletion for elements belonging to different classes. Conclusions: This analysis represents an initial characterization of the transposable elements in the Release 3 euchromatic genomic sequence of D. melanogaster for which comparison to the transposable elements of other organisms can begin to be made. These data have been made available on the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project website for future analyses

The Cascadia Initiative : a sea change In seismological studies of subduction zones

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 27, no. 2 (2014): 138-150, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2014.49.Increasing public awareness that the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest is capable of great earthquakes (magnitude 9 and greater) motivates the Cascadia Initiative, an ambitious onshore/offshore seismic and geodetic experiment that takes advantage of an amphibious array to study questions ranging from megathrust earthquakes, to volcanic arc structure, to the formation, deformation and hydration of the Juan De Fuca and Gorda Plates. Here, we provide an overview of the Cascadia Initiative, including its primary science objectives, its experimental design and implementation, and a preview of how the resulting data are being used by a diverse and growing scientific community. The Cascadia Initiative also exemplifies how new technology and community-based experiments are opening up frontiers for marine science. The new technology—shielded ocean bottom seismometers—is allowing more routine investigation of the source zone of megathrust earthquakes, which almost exclusively lies offshore and in shallow water. The Cascadia Initiative offers opportunities and accompanying challenges to a rapidly expanding community of those who use ocean bottom seismic data.The Cascadia Initiative is supported by the National Science Foundation; the CIET is supported under grants OCE- 1139701, OCE-1238023, OCE‐1342503, OCE-1407821, and OCE-1427663 to the University of Oregon

Characterization and Purification of Polydisperse Reconstituted Lipoproteins and Nanolipoprotein Particles

Heterogeneity is a fact that plagues the characterization and application of many self-assembled biological constructs. The importance of obtaining particle homogeneity in biological assemblies is a critical goal, as bulk analysis tools often require identical species for reliable interpretation of the results—indeed, important tools of analysis such as x-ray diffraction typically require over 90% purity for effectiveness. This issue bears particular importance in the case of lipoproteins. Lipid-binding proteins known as apolipoproteins can self assemble with liposomes to form reconstituted high density lipoproteins (rHDLs) or nanolipoprotein particles (NLPs) when used for biotechnology applications such as the solubilization of membrane proteins. Typically, the apolipoprotein and phospholipids reactants are self assembled and even with careful assembly protocols the product often contains heterogeneous particles. In fact, size polydispersity in rHDLs and NLPs published in the literature are frequently observed, which may confound the accurate use of analytical methods. In this article, we demonstrate a procedure for producing a pure, monodisperse NLP subpopulation from a polydisperse self-assembly using size exclusion chromatography (SEC) coupled with high resolution particle imaging by atomic force microscopy (AFM). In addition, NLPs have been shown to self assemble both in the presence and absence of detergents such as cholate, yet the effects of cholate on NLP polydispersity and separation has not been systematically examined. Therefore, we examined the separation properties of NLPs assembled in both the absence and presence of cholate using SEC and native gel electrophoresis. From this analysis, NLPs prepared with and without cholate showed particles with well defined diameters spanning a similar size range. However, cholate was shown to have a dramatic affect on NLP separation by SEC and native gel electrophoresis. Furthermore, under conditions where different sized NLPs were not sufficiently separated or purified by SEC, AFM was used to deconvolute the elution pattern of different sized NLPs. From this analysis we were able to purify an NLP subpopulation to 90% size homogeneity by taking extremely fine elutions from the SEC. With this purity, we generate high quality NLP crystals that were over 100 μm in size with little precipitate, which could not be obtained utilizing the traditional size exclusion techniques. This purification procedure and the methods for validation are broadly applicable to other lipoprotein particles