Ionizing Radiation Activates Mitochondrial Function in Osteoclasts and Causes Bone Loss in Young Adult Male Mice

The damaging effects of ionizing radiation (IR) on bone mass are well-documented in mice and humans and are most likely due to increased osteoclast number and function. However, the mechanisms leading to inappropriate increases in osteoclastic bone resorption are only partially understood. Here, we show that exposure to multiple fractions of low-doses (10 fractions of 0.4 Gy total body irradiation [TBI]/week, i.e., fractionated exposure) and/or a single exposure to the same total dose of 4 Gy TBI causes a decrease in trabecular, but not cortical, bone mass in young adult male mice. This damaging effect was associated with highly activated bone resorption. Both osteoclast differentiation and maturation increased in cultures of bone marrow-derived macrophages from mice exposed to either fractionated or singular TBI. IR also increased the expression and enzymatic activity of mitochondrial deacetylase Sirtuin-3 (Sirt3)—an essential protein for osteoclast mitochondrial activity and bone resorption in the development of osteoporosis. Osteoclast progenitors lacking Sirt3 exposed to IR exhibited impaired resorptive activity. Taken together, targeting impairment of osteoclast mitochondrial activity could be a novel therapeutic strategy for IR-induced bone loss, and Sirt3 is likely a major mediator of this effect

Influence of Conjugation Axis on the Optical and Electronic Properties of Aryl-Substituted Benzobisoxazoles

Six different 2,6-diethyl-4,8-diarylbenzo­[1,2-<i>d</i>:4,5-<i>d</i>′]­bis­(oxazoles) and four different 2,4,6,8-tetraarylbenzobisoxazoles were synthesized in two steps: a Lewis acid catalyzed orthoester cyclization followed by a Suzuki or Stille cross-coupling with various arenes. The influence of aryl group substitution and/or conjugation axis variation on the optical and electronic properties of these benzobis­(oxazole) (BBO) compounds was evaluated. Structural modifications could be used to alter the HOMO, LUMO, and band gap over a range of 1.0, 0.5, and 0.5 eV, respectively. However, depending on the location and identity of the substituent, the HOMO level can be altered without significantly impacting the LUMO level. This is supported by the calculated frontier molecular orbitals. Our results indicate that the FMOs and band gaps of benzobisoxazoles can be readily modified either jointly or individually

Effective diagnosis of genetic disease by computational phenotype analysis of the disease-associated genome

Less than half of patients with suspected genetic disease receive a molecular diagnosis. We have therefore integrated next-generation sequencing (NGS), bioinformatics, and clinical data into an effective diagnostic workflow. We used variants in the 2741 established Mendelian disease genes [the disease-associated genome (DAG)] to develop a targeted enrichment DAG panel (7.1 Mb), which achieves a coverage of 20-fold or better for 98% of bases. Furthermore, we established a computational method [Phenotypic Interpretation of eXomes (PhenIX)] that evaluated and ranked variants based on pathogenicity and semantic similarity of patients' phenotype described by Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) terms to those of 3991 Mendelian diseases. In computer simulations, ranking genes based on the variant score put the true gene in first place less than 5% of the time; PhenIX placed the correct gene in first place more than 86% of the time. In a retrospective test of PhenIX on 52 patients with previously identified mutations and known diagnoses, the correct gene achieved a mean rank of 2.1. In a prospective study on 40 individuals without a diagnosis, PhenIX analysis enabled a diagnosis in 11 cases (28%, at a mean rank of 2.4). Thus, the NGS of the DAG followed by phenotype-driven bioinformatic analysis allows quick and effective differential diagnostics in medical genetics.status: publishe

Spanning Trees with Bounded Number of Branch Vertices

We introduce the following combinatorial optimization problem: Given a connected graph G, find a spanning tree T of G with the smallest number of branchv ertices (vertices of degree 3 or more in T). The problem is motivated by new technologies in the realm of optical networks. We investigate algorithmic and combinatorial aspects of the problem

Analysis of Defects and Traps in N–I–P Layered-Structure of Perovskite Solar Cells by Charge-Based Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy ( Q -DLTS)

International audienc