Understanding the differential hygienic behavior towards drone brood in Apis mellifera colonies from Argentina

Brood diseases of Apis mellifera colonies constitute a main problem of beekeeping worldwide. Worker bees display a social health mechanism that consists in detecting, uncapping and removing dead or diseased brood from the hive: the hygienic behavior (CH). These activities are induced by olfactory cues and have been described as associated to hygiene of brood parasitized by Varroa destructor. This mite have preference for drone brood, but the efficiency of CH towards their cells is significantly lower compared with cells of worker brood, being left uninspected by workers. Some authors suggest that a possible cause of the CH differences is due to the cell wax cap of drone brood (thicker than worker cells) acting as a barrier to volatile compounds and obstructing disease detection. The aims of this research were to study the differential CH towards worker and drone brood belonging to highly hygienic colonies from Argentina, and to explore the importance of drone cell wax cap as an interfering factor in the transmission of chemical signals. To this end, removal percentages of pin-killed worker and drone brood were recorded and an innovative cell wax cap exchange was implemented in three different treatments: pin-killed worker pupa with a healthy drone cell wax cap; a healthy worker pupa with a pin-killed drone cell wax cap; and a healthy worker pupa covered with a healthy drone cell wax cap (control). Results showed a greater removal towards worker cells than drone cells. For the cell wax cap exchange experiment, we found that the removal of pin-killed worker pupae covered with healthy drone cell wax cap was significantly high, while the removal of healthy worker pupae covered with pin-killed drone opercula was low. These preliminary results confirms a differential behavior between both type of brood cells and suggests that the cell wax cap of drone brood is not interfering the detection of chemical compounds from the diseased brood by worker bees, regardless the thickness. This work contributes to a better understanding of the detection activity of different types of diseased brood and provides information useful to control strategies of varroosis and other brood diseases.Fil: Dowd, D. Duggan. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; ArgentinaFil: Muntaabski, Irina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigacion En Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronomicas. Instituto de Agrobiotecnologia y Biologia Molecular. Grupo Vinculado Instituto de Genetica "ewald A. Favret" Al Iabimo | Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Oficina de Coordinacion Administrativa Pque. Centenario. Instituto de Agrobiotecnologia y Biologia Molecular. Grupo Vinculado Instituto de Genetica "ewald A. Favret" Al Iabimo.; ArgentinaFil: Russo, R. M.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; ArgentinaFil: Landi, L.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación de Recursos Naturales. Instituto de Recursos Biológicos; ArgentinaFil: Lanzavecchia, S. B.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; ArgentinaFil: Cladera, J. L.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; ArgentinaFil: Palacio, M. A.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Bedascarrabure, E.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigacion de Agroindustria. Instituto de Ingeniería Rural.; ArgentinaFil: Scannapieco, Alejandra Carla. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigacion En Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronomicas. Instituto de Agrobiotecnologia y Biologia Molecular. Grupo Vinculado Instituto de Genetica "ewald A. Favret" Al Iabimo | Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Oficina de Coordinacion Administrativa Pque. Centenario. Instituto de Agrobiotecnologia y Biologia Molecular. Grupo Vinculado Instituto de Genetica "ewald A. Favret" Al Iabimo.; ArgentinaFil: Liendo, María Clara. Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigacion En Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronomicas. Instituto de Agrobiotecnologia y Biologia Molecular. Grupo Vinculado Instituto de Genetica "ewald A. Favret" Al Iabimo | Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Oficina de Coordinacion Administrativa Pque. Centenario. Instituto de Agrobiotecnologia y Biologia Molecular. Grupo Vinculado Instituto de Genetica "ewald A. Favret" Al Iabimo.; Argentina46th Apimondia International Apicultural Congress: Beekeeping together within agricultureQuébecCanadáInternational Federation of Beekeepers' AssociationsCanadian Honey Counci

Frequency and clinical impact of CDKN2A/ARF/CDKN2B gene deletions as assessed by in-depth genetic analyses in adult T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Altres ajuts: This project was supported by the Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer, AECC (project ref.: GC16173697BIGA), Obra Social "La Caixa" and by Celgene Spain. A. Gonzalez-Perez is supported by a Ramon y Cajal fellowship (RYC-2013-14554) of the Educational Ministry (Madrid, Spain). This work was also partially supported by FEDER funds from CIBERONC (CB16/12/00284 and CB16/12/00400), Madrid, Spain).Recurrent deletions of the CDKN2A/ARF/CDKN2B genes encoded at chromosome 9p21 have been described in both pediatric and adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), but their prognostic value remains controversial, with limited data on adult T-ALL. Here, we investigated the presence of homozygous and heterozygous deletions of the CDKN2A/ARF and CDKN2B genes in 64 adult T-ALL patients enrolled in two consecutive trials from the Spanish PETHEMA group. Alterations in CDKN2A/ARF/CDKN2B were detected in 35/64 patients (55%). Most of them consisted of 9p21 losses involving homozygous deletions of the CDKNA/ARF gene (26/64), as confirmed by single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays and interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (iFISH). Deletions involving the CDKN2A/ARF/CDKN2B locus correlated with a higher frequency of cortical T cell phenotype and a better clearance of minimal residual disease (MRD) after induction therapy. Moreover, the combination of an altered copy-number-value (CNV) involving the CDKN2A/ARF/CDKN2B gene locus and undetectable MRD (≤ 0.01%) values allowed the identification of a subset of T-ALL with better overall survival in the absence of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Screening of conditions controlling spectrophotometric sequential injection analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite its potential benefits over univariate, chemometrics is rarely utilized for optimizing sequential injection analysis (SIA) methods. Specifically, in previous vis-spectrophotometric SIA methods, chemometrically optimized conditions were confined within flow rate and reagent concentrations while other conditions were ignored.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The current manuscript reports, for the first time, a comprehensive screening of conditions controlling vis-spectrophotometric SIA. A new diclofenac assay method was adopted. The method was based on oxidizing diclofenac by permanganate (a major reagent) with sulfuric acid (a minor reagent). The reaction produced a spectrophotometrically detectable diclofenac form. The 2⁶full-factorial design was utilized to study the effect of volumes of reagents and sample, in addition to flow rate and concentrations of reagents. The main effects and all interaction order effects on method performance, i.e. namely sensitivity, rapidity and reagent consumption, were determined. The method was validated and applied to pharmaceutical formulations (tablets, injection and gel).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Despite 64 experiments those conducted in the current study were cumbersome, the results obtained would reduce effort and time when developing similar SIA methods in the future. It is recommended to critically optimize effective and interacting conditions using other such optimization tools as fractional-factorial design, response surface and simplex, rather than full-factorial design that used at an initial optimization stage. In vis-spectrophotometric SIA methods those involve developing reactions with two reagents (major and minor), conditions affecting method performance are in the following order: sample volume > flow rate ≈ major reagent concentration >> major reagent volume ≈ minor reagent concentration >> minor reagent volume.</p

The ELBA Force Field for Coarse-Grain Modeling of Lipid Membranes

A new coarse-grain model for molecular dynamics simulation of lipid membranes is presented. Following a simple and conventional approach, lipid molecules are modeled by spherical sites, each representing a group of several atoms. In contrast to common coarse-grain methods, two original (interdependent) features are here adopted. First, the main electrostatics are modeled explicitly by charges and dipoles, which interact realistically through a relative dielectric constant of unity (). Second, water molecules are represented individually through a new parametrization of the simple Stockmayer potential for polar fluids; each water molecule is therefore described by a single spherical site embedded with a point dipole. The force field is shown to accurately reproduce the main physical properties of single-species phospholipid bilayers comprising dioleoylphosphatidylcholine (DOPC) and dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE) in the liquid crystal phase, as well as distearoylphosphatidylcholine (DSPC) in the liquid crystal and gel phases. Insights are presented into fundamental properties and phenomena that can be difficult or impossible to study with alternative computational or experimental methods. For example, we investigate the internal pressure distribution, dipole potential, lipid diffusion, and spontaneous self-assembly. Simulations lasting up to 1.5 microseconds were conducted for systems of different sizes (128, 512 and 1058 lipids); this also allowed us to identify size-dependent artifacts that are expected to affect membrane simulations in general. Future extensions and applications are discussed, particularly in relation to the methodology's inherent multiscale capabilities

Us knows us in the UK: On director networks and CEO compensation

We analyze the relation between CEO compensation and networks of executive and non-executive directors for all listed UK companies over the period 1996-2007. We examine whether networks are built for reasons of information gathering or for the accumulation of managerial influence. Both indirect networks (enabling directors to collect information) and direct networks (leading to more managerial influence) enable the CEO to obtain higher compensation. Direct networks can harm the efficiency of the remuneration contracting in the sense that the performance sensitivity of compensation is then lower. We find that in companies with strong networks and hence busy boards the directors' monitoring effectiveness is reduced which leads to higher and less performance-sensitive CEO compensation. Our results suggest that it is important to have the 'right' type of network: some networks enable a firm to access valuable information whereas others can lead to strong managerial influence that may come at the detriment of the firm and its shareholders. We confirm that there are marked conflicts of interest when a CEO increases his influence by being a member of board committees (such as the remuneration committee) as we observe that his or her compensation is then significantly higher. We also find that hiring remuneration consultants with sizeable client networks also leads to higher CEO compensation especially for larger firms. © 2011 Elsevier B.V

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It is a standard practice to test for the signature of homologous recombination in studies examining the genetic diversity of bacterial populations. Although it has emerged that homologous recombination rates can vary widely between species, comparing the results from different studies is made difficult by the diversity of estimation methods used. Here, Multi Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) datasets from a wide variety of bacteria and archaea are analyzed using the ClonalFrame method. This enables a direct comparison between species and allows for a first exploration of the question whether phylogeny or ecology is the primary determinant of homologous recombination rate