Development of a superhydrophobic polyurethane-based coating from a two-step plasma-fluoroalkyl silane treatment

A method of achieving a superhydrophobic surface based upon a highly filled polyurethane (PU) paint coating has been demonstrated through the use of a combined oxygen/argon plasma pretreatment and a fluoroalkyl silane (FAS) final treatment. The combined plasma-FAS treated PU surface has been investigated and characterised using: field emission gun secondary electron microscope (FEG-SEM); X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS); energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX); water contact angle analysis (WCA); atomic force microscopy (AFM), and; Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). It was found that the oxygen/argon plasma treatment increased both the surface roughness (Ra) and surface free energy (SFE) of the PU paint coating from approximately 60-320 nm, and, from ~52 to ~80 mN/m respectively. It was also found that the plasma process created a multiscale roughened texture through the process of differential ablation between the PU polymer and the barium sulphate solid content, which is present in the paint as an extender, and other additives. In addition, the process also imparted favourable polar groups into the PU surface from the ionised and radical oxygen species in the plasma. When the FAS coating was subsequently applied to the PU without prior plasma treatment, there was a significant increases in water contact angles. This parameter increased from approximately 60°on untreated PU to around 130°with FAS applied. In this case, the SFE decreased to ~7.5 mN/m and showed 42.0 at% fluorine present as indicated by XPS. However, subsequently applying the FAS polymer after plasma pretreatment takes advantage of the known synergistic relationship that exists between surface roughness and low surface free energy coatings. The two processes combined to create superhydrophobicity with a surface that exhibited water contact angles up to 153.1°. With this optimised process, the apparent SFE was 0.84 mN/m with a more highly fluorinated surface present. In this case 47.2 at% surface fluorine was observed by XPS. In addition to changes in SFE, plasma treatment was also observed to alter levels of surface gloss and colour. After exposure to 600 s of plasma gloss levels are shown to reduce from values of from ~50 to ~21 (GU), with small but significant corresponding increases in the lightness and yellowness of the surface

Pharmacogenomic alerts: Developing guidance for use by healthcare professionals.

Funder: NHS England; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100013963Funder: NIHR UCLH Biomedical Centre; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100012317AIMS: For diseases with a genetic cause, genomics can deliver improved diagnostics and facilitate access to targeted treatments. Drug pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics are often dependent on genetic variation underlying these processes. As pharmacogenomics comes of age, it may be the first way in which genomics is utilised at a population level. Still required is guidance and standards of how genomic information can be communicated within the health record, and how clinicians should be alerted to variation impacting the use of medicines. METHODS: The Professional Record Standards Body commissioned by NHS England developed guidance on using pharmacogenomics information in clinical practice. We conducted research with those implementing pharmacogenomics in England and internationally to produce guidance and recommendations for a systems-based approach. RESULTS: A consensus viewpoint is that systems need to be in place to ensure the safe provision of pharmacogenomics information that is curated, actionable and up-to-date. Standards should be established with respect to notification and information exchange, which could impact new or existing prescribing and these must be in keeping with routine practice. Alerting systems should contribute to safer practices. CONCLUSION: Ensuring pharmacogenetics information is available to make safer use of medicines will require a major effort, of which this guidance is a beginning. Standards are required to ensure useful genomic information within the health record can be communicated to clinicians in the right format and at the right times to be actioned successfully. A multidisciplinary group of stakeholders must be engaged in developing pharmacogenomic standards to support the most appropriate prescribing

Acetyl-CoA synthetase 2 promotes acetate utilization and maintains cancer cell growth under metabolic stress

A functional genomics study revealed that the activity of acetyl-CoA synthetase 2 (ACSS2) contributes to cancer cell growth under low-oxygen and lipid-depleted conditions. Comparative metabolomics and lipidomics demonstrated that acetate is used as a nutritional source by cancer cells in an ACSS2-dependent manner, and supplied a significant fraction of the carbon within the fatty acid and phospholipid pools. ACSS2 expression is upregulated under metabolically stressed conditions and ACSS2 silencing reduced the growth of tumor xenografts. ACSS2 exhibits copy-number gain in human breast tumors, and ACSS2 expression correlates with disease progression. These results signify a critical role for acetate consumption in the production of lipid biomass within the harsh tumor microenvironment

Multi-taxa spatial conservation planning reveals similar priorities between taxa and improved protected area representation with climate change

Protected area (PA) networks have in the past been constructed to include all major habitats, but have often been developed through consideration of only a few indicator taxa or across restricted areas, and rarely account for global climate change. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) aims to improve the efficiency of biodiversity conservation, particularly when addressing internationally agreed protection targets. We apply SCP in Great Britain (GB) using the widest taxonomic coverage to date (4,447 species), compare spatial prioritisation results across 18 taxa and use projected future (2080) distributions to assess the potential impact of climate change on PA network effectiveness. Priority conservation areas were similar among multiple taxa, despite considerable differences in spatial species richness patterns; thus systematic prioritisations based on indicator taxa for which data are widely available are still useful for conservation planning. We found that increasing the number of protected hectads by 2% (to reach the 2020 17% Aichi target) could have a disproportionate positive effect on species protected, with an increase of up to 17% for some taxa. The PA network in GB currently under-represents priority species but, if the potential future distributions under climate change are realised, the proportion of species distributions protected by the current PA network may increase, because many PAs are in northern and higher altitude areas. Optimal locations for new PAs are particularly concentrated in southern and upland areas of GB. This application of SCP shows how a small addition to an existing PA network could have disproportionate benefits for species conservation

Salience-driven overestimation of total somatosensory stimulation

Psychological characterisation of sensory systems often focusses on minimal units of perception, such as thresholds, acuity, selectivity and precision. Research on how these units are aggregated to create integrated, synthetic experiences is rarer. We investigated mechanisms of somatosensory integration by asking volunteers to judge the total intensity of stimuli delivered to two fingers simultaneously. Across four experiments, covering physiological pathways for tactile, cold and warm stimuli, we found that judgements of total intensity were particularly poor when the two simultaneous stimuli had different intensities. Total intensity of discrepant stimuli was systematically overestimated. This bias was absent when the two stimulated digits were on different hands. Taken together, our results showed that the weaker stimulus of a discrepant pair was not extinguished, but contributed less to the perception of the total than the stronger stimulus. Thus, perception of somatosensory totals is biased towards the most salient element. ‘Peak’ biases in human judgements are well-known, particularly in affective experience. We show that a similar mechanism also influences sensory experience

Open letter from UK based academic scientists to the secretaries of state for digital, culture, media and sport and for health and social care regarding the need for independent funding for the prevention and treatment of gambling harms

First paragraph: Dear secretaries of state, As leading academic scientists studying gambling behaviours and its harms, we are writing to express our concern about the continuing support shown for the voluntary system of funding treatment, prevention and research in Great Britain. We feel compelled to write to you following the Betting and Gaming Council’s (BGC) recent announcement (17 June 2020) that five of its operators will now allocate the long awaited increase in funding for prevention and treatment, first promised on 2 August 2019, to GambleAware rather than the charity Action Against Gambling Harms. Irrespective of which organisation funds are given to, the BGC’s announcement exemplifies the longstanding weakness of a funding system that allows the gambling industry to regulate the availability and distribution of vital funds to address gambling harms across our communities. As we outline below, the continuance of this arrangement produces several negative effects that undermine the collective effort to reduce harms from gambling. It is also our belief that funds for research into gambling harms and their reduction should primarily be distributed through recognised independent organisations, such as UK Research and Innovation. We hereby urge you, as the secretaries of state with responsibilities for addressing gambling harms, to implement a statutory levy to fund effective prevention and treatment of gambling harms that is free both from industry influence and the perception of industry influence...... [Read more in the article]Additional co-authors: Carolyn Downs, Simon Dymond, Emanuele Fino, Elizabeth Goyder, Cindy Gray, Mark Griffiths, Peter Grindrod, Lee Hogan, Alice Hoon, Richard James, Bev John, Jill Manthorpe, Jim McCambridge, David McDaid, Martin McKee, Sally McManus, Antony Moss, Caroline Norrie, David J Nutt, Jim Orford, Rob Pryce, Gerda Reith, Amanda Roberts, Emmett Roberts, Gareth Roderique-Davies, Jim Rogers, Robert D Rogers, Stephen Sharman, John Strang, Richard Tunney, John Turner, Robert West, David Zendl

Highly Precise and Developmentally Programmed Genome Assembly in Paramecium Requires Ligase IV–Dependent End Joining

During the sexual cycle of the ciliate Paramecium, assembly of the somatic genome includes the precise excision of tens of thousands of short, non-coding germline sequences (Internal Eliminated Sequences or IESs), each one flanked by two TA dinucleotides. It has been reported previously that these genome rearrangements are initiated by the introduction of developmentally programmed DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), which depend on the domesticated transposase PiggyMac. These DSBs all exhibit a characteristic geometry, with 4-base 5′ overhangs centered on the conserved TA, and may readily align and undergo ligation with minimal processing. However, the molecular steps and actors involved in the final and precise assembly of somatic genes have remained unknown. We demonstrate here that Ligase IV and Xrcc4p, core components of the non-homologous end-joining pathway (NHEJ), are required both for the repair of IES excision sites and for the circularization of excised IESs. The transcription of LIG4 and XRCC4 is induced early during the sexual cycle and a Lig4p-GFP fusion protein accumulates in the developing somatic nucleus by the time IES excision takes place. RNAi–mediated silencing of either gene results in the persistence of free broken DNA ends, apparently protected against extensive resection. At the nucleotide level, controlled removal of the 5′-terminal nucleotide occurs normally in LIG4-silenced cells, while nucleotide addition to the 3′ ends of the breaks is blocked, together with the final joining step, indicative of a coupling between NHEJ polymerase and ligase activities. Taken together, our data indicate that IES excision is a “cut-and-close” mechanism, which involves the introduction of initiating double-strand cleavages at both ends of each IES, followed by DSB repair via highly precise end joining. This work broadens our current view on how the cellular NHEJ pathway has cooperated with domesticated transposases for the emergence of new mechanisms involved in genome dynamics

Evidence for Limited Genetic Compartmentalization of HIV-1 between Lung and Blood

BACKGROUND:HIV-1 is frequently detected in the lungs of infected individuals and is likely important in the development of pulmonary opportunistic infections. The unique environment of the lung, rich in alveolar macrophages and with specialized local immune responses, may contribute to differential evolution or selection of HIV-1. METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS:We characterized HIV-1 in the lung in relation to contemporaneous viral populations in the blood. The C2-V5 region of HIV-1 env was sequenced from paired lung (induced sputum or bronchoalveolar lavage) and blood (plasma RNA and proviral DNA from sorted or unsorted PBMC) from 18 subjects. Compartmentalization between tissue pairs was assessed using 5 established tree or distance-based methods, including permutation tests to determine statistical significance. We found statistical evidence of compartmentalization between lung and blood in 10/18 subjects, although lung and blood sequences were intermingled on phylogenetic trees in all subjects. The subject showing the greatest compartmentalization contained many nearly identical sequences in BAL sample, suggesting clonal expansion may contribute to reduced viral diversity in the lung in some cases. However, HIV-1 sequences in lung were not more homogeneous overall, nor were we able to find a lung-specific genotype associated with macrophage tropism in V3. In all four subjects in whom predicted X4 genotypes were found in blood, predicted X4 genotypes were also found in lung. CONCLUSIONS:Our results support a picture of continuous migration of HIV-1 between circulating blood and lung tissue, with perhaps a very limited degree of localized evolution or clonal replication