310 research outputs found
European agriculture since World War II : technical change in south-west England, 1940-1985
The food shortages that beset individual European countries in 1945 had been
transformed into surpluses that a common European agricultural policy struggled in
vain to control by the 1980s. In the same period, the v
olume of agricultural output in
the United Kingdom rose by 255 per cent, with the pace of change reaching its peak
of 2.8 per cent per annum in the years from 1945 to 1965 (Brassley, 2000ESR
Whole body and splanchnic amino acid metabolism in sheep during an acute endotoxin challenge
Acknowledgements The expertise of A. Graham Calder and Susan Anderson for the various stable isotope analyses is gratefully recognised. Ngaire Dennison is also thanked for her surgical expertise with the trans-splanchnic tissue catheter preparations. This study was supported by funds provided to the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Aberdeen and Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland by the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government. S. O. H. was a recipient of a FoRST (NZ) award to study abroad.Peer reviewedPostprin
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Splanchnic metabolism of nutrients and hormones in steers fed alfalfa under conditions of increased absorption of ammonia and L-arginine supply across the portal-drained viscera
Effects of increased ammonia and/or arginine
absorption on net splanchnic (portal-drained viscera
[PDV] plus liver) metabolism of nonnitrogenous
nutrients and hormones in cattle were examined. Six
Hereford × Angus steers (501 ± 1 kg BW) prepared with
vascular catheters for measurements of net flux across
the splanchnic bed were fed a 75% alfalfa:25% (as-fed
basis) corn and soybean meal diet (0.523 MJ of ME/[kg
BW0.75.d]) every 2 h without (27.0 g of N/kg of DM) and
with 20 g of urea/kg of DM (35.7 g of N/kg of DM) in a
split-plot design. Net flux measurements were made
immediately before and after a 72-h mesenteric vein
infusion of L-arginine (15 mmol/h). There were no treatment
effects onPDVor hepaticO2 consumption. Dietary
urea had no effect on splanchnic metabolism of glucose
or L-lactate, but arginine infusion decreased net hepatic
removal of L-lactate when urea was fed (P < 0.01). Net PDV appearance of n-butyrate was increased by arginine
infusion (P < 0.07), and both dietary urea (P <
0.09) and arginine infusion (P < 0.05) increased net
hepatic removal of n-butyrate. Dietary urea also increased
total splanchnic acetate output (P < 0.06),
tended to increase arterial glucagon concentration (P
< 0.11), and decreased arterial ST concentration (P <
0.03). Arginine infusion increased arterial concentration
(P < 0.07) and net PDV release (P < 0.10) and
tended to increase hepatic removal (P < 0.11) of insulin,
as well as arterial concentration (P < 0.01) and total
splanchnic output (P < 0.01) of glucagon. Despite
changes in splanchnic N metabolism, increased ammonia
and arginine absorption had little measurable effect
on splanchnic metabolism of glucose and other nonnitrogenous
components of splanchnic energy metabolism
Protein annotation and modelling servers at University College London
The UCL Bioinformatics Group web portal offers several high quality protein structure prediction and function annotation algorithms including PSIPRED, pGenTHREADER, pDomTHREADER, MEMSAT, MetSite, DISOPRED2, DomPred and FFPred for the prediction of secondary structure, protein fold, protein structural domain, transmembrane helix topology, metal binding sites, regions of protein disorder, protein domain boundaries and protein function, respectively. We also now offer a fully automated 3D modelling pipeline: BioSerf, which performed well in CASP8 and uses a fragment-assembly approach which placed it in the top five servers in the de novo modelling category. The servers are available via the group web site at http://bioinf.cs.ucl.ac.uk/
Analysis of socio-economic aspects of local and national organic farming markets
Final report for Defra, July 200
Farmers feeding the nation : processes of technical change and agricultural innovation in South West England (1937-1985)
Farmers feeding the nation:
processes
of technical change and
agricultural innovation in south west
England (
1937
-
1985)ESR
Technical change in agriculture 1935-85: using Farm Management Survey data from south-west England to explore processes of technical change
Technical change in agriculture 1935-85: using Farm Management Survey data from south-west England to explore processes of technical changeESR
Ultra-high resolution X-ray structure of orthorhombic bovine pancreatic Ribonuclease A at 100K
The crystal structure of orthorhombic Bovine Pancreatic Ribonuclease A has been determined to 0.85 Å resolution using low temperature, 100 K, synchrotron X-ray data collected at 16000 keV (λ = 0.77 Å). This is the first ultra-high-resolution structure of a native form of Ribonuclease A to be reported. Refinement carried out with anisotropic displacement parameters, stereochemical restraints, inclusion of H atoms in calculated positions, five SO2−4 moieties, eleven ethanol molecules and 293 water molecules, converged with final R values of R1(Free) = 0.129 (4279 reflections) and R1 = 0.112 (85,346 reflections). The refined structure was deposited in the Protein Data Bank as structure 7p4r. Conserved waters, using four high resolution structures, have been investigated. Cluster analysis identified clusters of water molecules that are associated with the active site of Bovine Ribonuclease A. Particular attention has been paid to making detailed comparisons between the present structure and other high quality Bovine Pancreatic Ribonuclease A X-ray crystal structures with special reference to the deposited classic monoclinic structure 3RN3 Howlin et al. (Acta Crystallogr A 45:851–861, 1989). Detailed studies of various aspects of hydrogen bonding and conformation have been carried out with particular reference to active site residues Lys-1, Lys-7, Gln-11, His-12, Lys-41, Asn-44, Thr-45, Lys-66, His-119 and Ser-123. For the two histidine residues in the active site the initial electron density map gives a clear confirmation that the position of His-12 is very similar in the orthorhombic structure to that in 3RN3. In 3RN3 His-119 exhibited poor electron density which was modelled and refined as two distinct sites, A (65%) and B (35%) but with respect to His-119 in the present ultra-high resolution orthorhombic structure there is clear electron density which was modelled and refined as a single conformation distinct from either conformation A or B in 3RN3. Other points of interest include Serine-32 which is disordered at the end of the sidechain in the present orthorhombic form but has been modelled as a single form in 3RN3. Lysine-66: there is density indicating a possible conformation for this residue. However, the density is relatively weak, and the conformation is unclear. Three types of amino acid representation in the ultra-high resolution electron density are examined: (i) sharp with very clearly resolved features, for example Lys-37; (ii) well resolved but clearly divided into two conformations which are well behaved in the refinement, both having high quality geometry, for example Tyr-76; (iii) poor density and difficult or impossible to model, an example is Lys-31 for which density is missing except for Cβ. The side chains of Gln-11, His-12, Lys-41, Thr-45 and His-119 are generally recognised as being closely involved in the enzyme activity. It has also been suggested that Lys-7, Asp-44, Lys-66, Phe-120, Asp-121 and Ser-123 may also have possible roles in this mechanism. A molecular dynamics study on both structures has investigated the conformations of His-119 which was modelled as two conformations in 3RN3 but is observed to have a single clearly defined conformation in the present orthorhombic structure. MD has also been used to investigate Lys-31, Lys-41 and Ser32. The form of the Ribonuclease A enzyme used in both the present study and in 3RN3 (Howlin et al. in Acta Crystallogr A 45:851–861, 1989) includes a sulphate anion which occupies approximately the same location as the PO2−4 phosphate group in protein nucleotide complexes (Borkakoti et al. in J Mol Biol 169:743–755, 1983). The present structure contains 5 SO2−4 groups SO41151–SO41155 two of which, SO41152 and SO41153 are disordered, SO41152 being in the active site, and 11 EtOH molecules, EOH A 201–EOH A 211 all of which have good geometry. H atoms were built into the EtOH molecules geometrically. Illustrations of these features in the present structure are included here. The sulphates are presumably present in the material purchased for use in the present study. 293 water molecules are included in the present structure compared to 134 in 3RN3 (Howlin et al. in Acta Crystallogr A 45:851–861, 1989)
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