EXPERIMENTAL EXAMINATIONS OF THE LOGISTICS PARAMETERS OF AN INDUCTIVE RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS

There are two main factors determining the applicability of an inductive radio frequency identification (RFID) system for dynamic operations: the logistics parameters (communication range, amount of transmittable data, communication time and speed of data carrier) and their effects on each other. The aim of the research of the Department of Building and Material Handling Machines, Technical University of Budapest, in cooperation with OMRON Electronics Hungary Ltd., is to develop a new measuring and analysing method to examine the logistics parameters mentioned above and to simulate their effects on each other. This method helps the end-users to choose the proper RFID system to be used in a given application, where RFID system will operate in dynamic conditions and the material-flow requires a lot of constantly changing information. This study gives a description of the research, its main steps, the executed examinations and their results. Furthermore, it indicates what additional tasks have to be executed to accomplish the research

Live-Cell Imaging of Single Neurotrophin Receptor Molecules on Human Neurons in Alzheimer’s Disease

Neurotrophin receptors such as the tropomyosin receptor kinase A receptor (TrkA) and the low-affinity binding p75 neurotrophin receptor p75NTR play a critical role in neuronal survival and their functions are altered in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Changes in the dynamics of receptors on the plasma membrane are essential to receptor function. However, whether receptor dynamics are affected in different pathophysiological conditions is unexplored. Using live-cell single-molecule imaging, we examined the surface trafficking of TrkA and p75NTR molecules on live neurons that were derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) of presenilin 1 (PSEN1) mutant familial AD (fAD) patients and non-demented control subjects. Our results show that the surface movement of TrkA and p75NTR and the activation of TrkA- and p75NTR-related phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)/serine/threonine-protein kinase (AKT) signaling pathways are altered in neurons that are derived from patients suffering from fAD compared to controls. These results provide evidence for altered surface movement of receptors in AD and highlight the importance of investigating receptor dynamics in disease conditions. Uncovering these mechanisms might enable novel therapies for AD

A single amino acid switch converts the Sleeping Beauty transposase into an efficient unidirectional excisionase with utility in stem cell reprogramming

The Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon is an advanced tool for genetic engineering and a useful model to investigate cut-and-paste DNA transposition in vertebrate cells. Here, we identify novel SB transposase mutants that display efficient and canonical excision but practically unmeasurable genomic re-integration. Based on phylogenetic analyses, we establish compensating amino acid replacements that fully rescue the integration defect of these mutants, suggesting epistasis between these amino acid residues. We further show that the transposons excised by the exc+/int− transposase mutants form extrachromosomal circles that cannot undergo a further round of transposition, thereby representing dead-end products of the excision reaction. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of the exc+/int− transposase in cassette removal for the generation of reprogramming factor-free induced pluripotent stem cells. Lack of genomic integration and formation of transposon circles following excision is reminiscent of signal sequence removal during V(D)J recombination, and implies that cut-and-paste DNA transposition can be converted to a unidirectional process by a single amino acid change