Intrinsically disordered domains: Sequence ➔ disorder ➔ function relationships

Disordered domains are long regions of intrinsic disorder that ideally have conserved sequences, conserved disorder, and conserved functions. These domains were first noticed in protein–protein interactions that are distinct from the interactions between two structured domains and the interactions between structured domains and linear motifs or molecular recognition features (MoRFs). So far, disordered domains have not been systematically characterized. Here, we present a bioinformatics investigation of the sequence–disorder–function relationships for a set of probable disordered domains (PDDs) identified from the Pfam database. All the Pfam seed proteins from those domains with at least one PDD sequence were collected. Most often, if a set contains one PDD sequence, then all members of the set are PDDs or nearly so. However, many seed sets have sequence collections that exhibit diverse proportions of predicted disorder and structure, thus giving the completely unexpected result that conserved sequences can vary substantially in predicted disorder and structure. In addition to the induction of structure by binding to protein partners, disordered domains are also induced to form structure by disulfide bond formation, by ion binding, and by complex formation with RNA or DNA. The two new findings, (a) that conserved sequences can vary substantially in their predicted disorder content and (b) that homologues from a single domain can evolve from structure to disorder (or vice versa), enrich our understanding of the sequence ➔ disorder ensemble ➔ function paradigm

Geotechnical characteristics of aged biosolids stabilized with cement and lime

Biosolids are the remains of the sewage treatment process, which are a mixture of both organic and inorganic compounds including household and industrial wastes. Recent attempts have been made to stabilize biosolids with special admixtures, in order to improve their geotechnical properties. The aim of this paper is to report the results of a geotechnical laboratory investigation on waste-water biosolids stabilized with different percentages of cement and lime. Biosolids were sourced from the Western Treatment Plant (WTP) in Melbourne, Australia. Compaction, California Bearing Ratio (CBR), swell, hydraulic conductivity, consolidation, creep and triaxial tests were carried out on the compacted specimens. Both static and standard proctor compaction methods were used to prepare the test specimens in this research. The results suggest that the permeability values of biosolids decrease consistently by increasing the amount of lime and cement. In addition, increasing the amount of additives decreased the compression potential ofbiosolids. The strength of the biosolids samples increased with the addition of lime and cement but the highest shear strength was achieved with 3% cement. This paper concludes with a discussion of possible applications of the stabilized mixture in road embankments

Association between JC virus and colorectal cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: Given the probable role of JC virus in associate with increasing the odds of colorectal cancer, this study was conducted systematically to evaluate the association between JC virus and colorectal cancer. Materials and methods: Systematic reviews of the articles published prior to January 1, 2019 without time and place limitations were done independently through the PubMed, ISI, EMBASE and Medline main databases. The heterogeneity rate was assessed through I2, Chi2 and Tau2, and the sensitivity analysis and meta-regression were used to investigate the source of heterogeneity among the studies. Results: 24 studies with a sample size of 2576 were finally entered into the meta-analysis. The results showed that the prevalence of JC virus in colorectal cancer tissues was about 43 (95 CI: 29 �58). The meta-analysis results also showed that the presence of JCV in colorectal tissues increased the odds of colorectal cancer 4.70 times as much (OR Pooled = 4.70; 95 CI: 2.95�7.50). Also, the results of the sub-group analysis indicated that the presence of JC virus, compared with the tissues adjacent to the tumour and the healthy control tissues, increased the odds of colorectal cancer (OR Pooled = 4.50, 95 CI: 2.09�9.65 and OR Pooled = 4.70, 95 CI: 2.95�7.50) respectively. Conclusion: The meta-analysis showed that as an oncogene virus, JC could increase the odds of colorectal cancer, reinforcing the hypothesis on the role of viral factors in the pathogenesis of cancers. © 2019, © 2019 Society for Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases

Review of calculation procedures of Thornthwaite Moisture Index and its impact on footing design

Thornthwaite Moisture Index (TMI) was introduced in 1948 as an index to classify the climate condition of different areas. Since then it has been widely used in many fields such as agricultural and environmental geotechnics. The Australian residential footing design procedure is associated with TMI in order to relate the effect of climate condition on the variation of soil moisture profile. This paper illustrates the different methods commonly used to calculate TMI and compares their different outcomes. The different calculation methods result in different TMI values for the same climate condition which consequently affects the subsequent correlations. The sensitivity of the primary climate data used to calculate TMI is also discussed in this paper. TMI is an index highly dependent on the rainfall variation and is less sensitive to temperature variations and so the annual TMI can be reliably related to annual rainfall. The change in TMI with change of number of years which the average rainfall is based on has also been presented in this paper. The higher the numbers of years used to obtain the average TMI, the less reliable it is to describe the effects of extreme climate events