Thermodynamics and dissociation constants of acetohydroxamic acid (AHA), pyrocatechol (PYR), acetic acid (AA) and glycolic acid (GA) at variable ion strength and temperature in NaCl solution and the corresponding activity correction to improve speciation scheme for U and V in cement leachates

The uptake of uranium and vanadium in the leakage of geological disposal facilities (GDF) via ligands sourced from vegetation, bacterial and fungi are widely discussed. It probably results in the remobilisation of these two pollutants and lead to the radioactive and heavy-metal contamination in the environment. The quantification of their complexes is the important section to provide environment risk management with scientific evidences. In this study, acetohydroxamic acid (HAHA), pyrocatechol (PYR), glycolic acid (GA) and acetic acid (AA) as typical representatives of common ligands under natural conditions were investigated via potentiometric titration (PT). It aims to determine their dissociation constants (pKa) and thermodynamic parameters (Gibbs energy ∆ , enthalpy ∆H and entropy ∆S values) for improving U(VI)-L and V(IV)-L complexing models in sodium chloride (NaCl) solution. To increase the understanding of the effect of ion strength and temperature on ligands as well as their coordination with UO2 2+ and VO2+ , their pKa values at ion strength of 0.1M, 0.5M, 1.0M, 2.0M and 3.0M and at temperature of 298.15K, 315.15K and 335.15K were measured and showed the differences compared with the results in previous studies. Based on Van’t Hoff equation, their thermodynamic parameters are also calculated. As a result, the effect of ion strength on the pKa values among these ligands showed a decrease from ion strength from 0.1 to 1.0 M, while an increase was found as ion strength increased to 3.0 M. The pKa values of HAHA and PYR displayed a high sensitivity to the temperature in this work, while the ones of GA and AA were inert to the variation of the temperature. In the calibration of intrinsic values, specific Ion Interaction Theory (SIT) showed the high consistency of pKa values obtained from 1.0 M to 3.0 M, while the Davies equation (DE) was suitable for ion strength 0.1 M to 0.5M. Meanwhile, it was found that the intrinsic pKa values of HAHA and PYR respective to the calculation of SIT and DE existed large differences referred to the literature values. In Hyss models, the new pKa values showed differences combing with the established models. Additionally, according to the speciation curves of M-L complexes with the intrinsic pKa values, the curves derived from the SIT and DE was basically showed lower contents of targeted M-L complexes than the experimental ones. Based on the highest formative percentages in their complexing species, the affinity to the metal ions followed the order: HAHA>PYR>GA>AA in terms of their largest formation percentages. The study showed an appropriate method to determine the ligand protonation under old cement leachate (OCL) and provide geological models with the data regarding the coordination of the targeted ligands with metal ions like uranyl and vanadyl ions as well.Open Acces

Towards the genetic dissection of the complex maternal infanticide behaviour using a white Duroc x Erhualian pig F2 design

Aggressionen von Sauen gegenüber ihren gerade geworfenen Ferkeln ist ein häufig beobachtetes Verhalten bei Hausschweinen, welches zu erheblichen wirtschaftlichen Verlusten führt und außerdem problematisch im Bezug auf den Tierschutz zu sehen ist. Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde das maternale Verhalten bei 288 Sauen einer Duroc x Erhualian F2-Ressourcenpopulation 5 Stunden vor bis 24 Stunden nach der Geburt in vier Betrieben untersucht. Der genetische Hintergrund des Verhaltens wurde mittels eines Genomscans und einer Kandidatengenanalyse weiter untersucht. Aggressives Verhalten der Sauen wurde definiert als einen Angriff des Muttertiers auf eines oder mehrere Ferkel, bei dem mindestens ein Tier durch die Beißattacke zum Tod kommt. Aggressives Verhalten wurde bei 10,7 % der Jungsauen (n=103) und 5,3 % der zweitgebärenden Sauen (n=94) in Betrieb 1 und 14,6 % (n=48) und 6,25 % (n=16) in Betrieb 2 beobachtet. In einem dritten Betrieb war die Inzidenz bei zweitgebärenden 6,8 % (n=44) und 3,2 % (n=31) bei drittgebärenden Sauen. In einem vierten Betrieb wurde aggressives Verhalten bei 15,7 % (n=70) der Jungsauen beobachtet. Aggressives Verhalten scheint bei Jungsauen stärker ausgeprägt zu sein (P = 0,058). Ein Teil der Jungsauen wurde zur Probengewinnung für spätere Microarray-Analysen vor der zweiten Geburt herangezogen. Zwischen den Betrieben konnte kein Unterschied im Auftreten des aggressiven Verhaltens ermittelt werden. Das Nestbauverhalten vor der Geburt konnte nicht als Parameter zur Vorhersage von aggressivem Verhalten verwendet werden, obwohl präpartal unruhige Sauen sich später auch häufiger aggressiv zeigten. Ergänzend zu den Verhaltensbeobachtungen wurde ein Genomscan durchgeführt. Insgesamt wurden 288 F2-Sauen zusammen mit 19 F0 und 68 F1 Tieren mit 183 Microsatelliten typisiert. Die Auswertung der QTL-Daten erfolgte mit der „composite regression interval mapping“-Methode. Unter der Annahme ausschließlich additiver Effekte wurde bei einem genom-weiten Signifikanzniveau von 5 % bei Zweitgebärenden ein QTL auf SSC16 identifiziert. Suggestive QTLs konnten auf den Chromosomen SSC1 für alle Sauen, SSC9 für alle Sauen und Erstgebärende, SSCX für Zweitgebärende und SSC2 für Drittgebärende ermittelt werden. Unter Einbeziehung additiver, dominanter und „imprinting“-Effekte konnte auf SSC7 für alle Sauen und SSC16 für Zweitgebärende jeweils ein QTL detektiert werden. Bei der Betrachtung von additiven und dominaten Effekten konnte ein suggestiver QTL auf SSC3 für Jungsauen festgestellt werden. Die QTLs auf SSC2 und SSCX sind in Übereinstimmung mit Untersuchungen bei kommerziellen Linien. Aus den vergleichenden Genomkarten von Mensch und Schwein lassen sich nun einige sehr interessante Kandidatengene innerhalb der QTL Regionen bestimmen. Hierzu gehört u.a. das Gen für die Progesteron-Rezeptor Membrankomponente 2 (PGRMC2). In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde das PGRMC2-Gen isoliert, chromosomal kartiert und auf assoziierte Polymorphismen untersucht. Mittels eines RH panels konnte PGRMC2 auf SSC8 mit einer Distanz von 19,75 cR vom Marker CL344180 kartiert werden. PGRMC2 liegt in zwei alternativ gespleißten Formen vor. Die Länge des längeren Transkripts beträgt 1858 bp mit einem offenen Leserahmen von 669 bp, welcher für ein 223 aminosäuren-langes Protein mit einer theoretischen Molekülmasse von 23,771 kDa und einem pI von 4,77 kodiert. Das kürzere Transkript kodiert für ein Protein mit 170 Aminosäuren. Beide porcinen Proteine weisen umfangreiche Homologien zu den Orthologen anderer Mammalier auf. Das porcine PGRMC2 besitzt ebenfalls 3 Exons mit Längen von jeweils 446 bp, 156 bp und 1259 bp. Die 5 UTR hat je nach Transkript eine Länge von 25 bp oder 70 bp, während die 3 UTR bei beiden Transkripten 1161 bp beträgt. Der Promotor ist GC-reich und enthält keine TATA-Box. Mehrere potentielle Bindungsstellen für Transkriptionsfaktoren, z.B. NF-1, AP-2, Sp1, T-Ag, glyco und RBS, konnten in der 208 bp „upstream“ Region identifiziert werden. Fünf Nukleotid-Polymorphismen (SNP) konnten in Introns und der 3 UTR detektiert werden. Eine Assoziationsstudie der SNPs mit dem Aggressionsverhalten der Sauen mittels des Transmissions-Disäquilibrium-Tests (TDT) ergab, dass Allel A in Exon 3 (c-G>A) und Allel T in Intron 2 (g-1578A>T) häufiger an aggressive Sauen vererbt wurde. Jedoch konnte dieser Trend bei der Verwendung von Haplotypen nicht bestätigt werden. RT-PCR Untersuchungen haben gezeigt, dass PGRMC2 ubiquitär und das längere Transkript in allen 18 untersuchten Geweben exprimiert wird. Beide Transkripte konnten im Hypothalamus und der Leber nachgewiesen werden

StereoPose: Category-Level 6D Transparent Object Pose Estimation from Stereo Images via Back-View NOCS

Most existing methods for category-level pose estimation rely on object point clouds. However, when considering transparent objects, depth cameras are usually not able to capture meaningful data, resulting in point clouds with severe artifacts. Without a high-quality point cloud, existing methods are not applicable to challenging transparent objects. To tackle this problem, we present StereoPose, a novel stereo image framework for category-level object pose estimation, ideally suited for transparent objects. For a robust estimation from pure stereo images, we develop a pipeline that decouples category-level pose estimation into object size estimation, initial pose estimation, and pose refinement. StereoPose then estimates object pose based on representation in the normalized object coordinate space~(NOCS). To address the issue of image content aliasing, we further define a back-view NOCS map for the transparent object. The back-view NOCS aims to reduce the network learning ambiguity caused by content aliasing, and leverage informative cues on the back of the transparent object for more accurate pose estimation. To further improve the performance of the stereo framework, StereoPose is equipped with a parallax attention module for stereo feature fusion and an epipolar loss for improving the stereo-view consistency of network predictions. Extensive experiments on the public TOD dataset demonstrate the superiority of the proposed StereoPose framework for category-level 6D transparent object pose estimation.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, Project homepage: https://appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~kaichen/stereopose.htm

Cloning, mapping and molecular characterization of porcine progesterone receptor membrane component 2 (PGRMC2) gene.

Progesterone plays an important role in sow reproduction by stimulating classic genomic pathways via nuclear receptors and non-genomic pathways via membrane receptors such a progesterone receptor membrane component 2 (PGRMC2). In this work, we used radiation hybrid mapping to assign PGRMC2 to pig chromosome 8 and observed that this receptor has two transcripts in pigs. The full-length cDNA of the large transcript is 1858 bp long and contains a 669-bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding a protein of 223 amino acids. The shorter transcript encodes a protein of 170 amino acids. The porcine PGRMC2 gene consists of three exons 446 bp, 156 bp and 1259 bp in length. The promoter sequence is GC-rich and lacks a typical TATA box. Several putative cis-regulatory DNA motifs were identified in the 208-bp upstream genomic region. Five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected in introns* and the 3' UTR. RT-PCR indicated that the PGRMC2 gene is expressed ubiquitously in all pig tissues examined

Subconscious processing reveals dissociable contextual modulations of visual size perception

Visual size perception is highly context-dependent. In a series of experiments reported here, we demonstrated that the contextual modulation of visual size processing could occur independent of conscious awareness. Specifically, the Ebbinghaus illusion, which is mediated by lateral connections within the early visual processing stream, persisted even when the surrounding inducers were rendered invisible. Moreover, when the central target was initially interocularly suppressed, the identical target emerged from suppression faster when surrounded by small relative to large inducers, with the suppression time difference well predicted by the strength of the illusion. By contrast, there were no such subconscious contextual modulation effects associated with the Ponzo illusion, which largely relies on feedback projections to the early visual cortices. These results indicate that contextual information can modulate visual size perception without conscious awareness, and the dissociated modulation effects further suggest that subconscious contextual modulation takes place in the early visual processing stream and is largely independent of high-level feedback influences

I13 overrides resistance mediated by the T315I mutation in chronic myeloid leukemia by direct BCR-ABL inhibition

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a myeloproliferative neoplasm caused by a BCR-ABL fusion gene. Imatinib has significantly improved the treatment of CML as a first-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKIs). The T315I mutant form of BCR-ABL is the most common mutation that confers resistance to imatinib or the second-generation TKIs, resulting in poor clinical prognosis. In this work, we assessed the effect of a potent histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, I13, on the differentiation blockade in CML cells harboring T315I-mutated and wild-type BCR-ABL by MTT assay, flow cytometery, cell colony formation assay, mRNA Sequencing, Quantitative real-time PCR and Western blotting analysis. We found that I13 possessed highly potent activity against T315I-mutated BCR-ABL mutant-expressing cells and wild-type BCR-ABL-expressing cells. I13 induced cell differentiation and significantly suppressed the proliferation of these CML cells via the cell cycle G0/G1-phase accumulation. Moreover, it was revealed that I13 triggered the differentiation of BaF3-T315I cells, which was attributed to the block of the chronic myeloid leukemia signaling pathway via the depletion of BCR-ABL that was mediated by the inhibition of HDAC activity presented by the acetylation of histones H3 and H4. Taken together, I13 efficiently depleted BCR-ABL in CML cells expressing the BCR-ABL-T315I mutation, which blocked its function, serving as a scaffold protein that modulated the chronic myeloid leukemia signaling pathway mediating cell differentiation. The present findings demonstrate that I13 is a BCR-ABL modulator for the development of CML therapy that can override resistance caused by T315I-mutated BCR-ABL

Fine mapping of a QTL for ear size on porcine chromosome 5 and identification of high mobility group AT-hook 2 (HMGA2) as a positional candidate gene

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ear size and shape are distinct conformation characteristics of pig breeds. Previously, we identified a significant quantitative trait locus (QTL) influencing ear surface on pig chromosome 5 in a White Duroc × Erhualian F₂resource population. This QTL explained more than 17% of the phenotypic variance.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Four new markers on pig chromosome 5 were genotyped across this F₂population. RT-PCR was performed to obtain expression profiles of different candidate genes in ear tissue. Standard association test, marker-assisted association test and F-drop test were applied to determine the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) on ear size. Three synthetic commercial lines were also used for the association test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We refined the QTL to an 8.7-cM interval and identified three positional candidate genes i.e. <it>HMGA2</it>, <it>SOX5 </it>and <it>PTHLH </it>that are expressed in ear tissue. Seven SNP within these three candidate genes were selected and genotyped in the F₂population. Of the seven SNP, <it>HMGA2 </it>SNP (JF748727: g.2836 A > G) showed the strongest association with ear size in the standard association test and marker-assisted association test. With the F-drop test, F value decreased by more than 97% only when the genotypes of <it>HMGA2 </it>g.2836 A > G were included as a fixed effect. Furthermore, the significant association between g.2836 A > G and ear size was also demonstrated in the synthetic commercial Sutai pig line. The haplotype-based association test showed that the phenotypic variance explained by <it>HMGA2 </it>was similar to that explained by the QTL and at a much higher level than by <it>SOX5</it>. More interestingly, <it>HMGA2 </it>is also located within the dog orthologous chromosome region, which has been shown to be associated with ear type and size.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p><it>HMGA2 </it>was the closest gene with a potential functional effect to the QTL or marker for ear size on chromosome 5. This study will contribute to identify the causative gene and mutation underlying this QTL.</p