Evidence for a massive dust-trapping vortex connected to spirals: Multi-wavelength analysis of the HD 135344B protoplanetary disk

Spiral arms, rings and large scale asymmetries are structures observed in high resolution observations of protoplanetary disks, and it appears that some of the disks showing spiral arms in scattered light also show asymmetries in millimeter-sized dust. HD~135344B is one of these disks. Planets are invoked as the origin of these structures, but no planet has been observed so far. We investigate the nature of the asymmetric structure in the HD~135344B disk in order to understand the origin of the spirals and of the asymmetry seen in this disk. Ultimately, we aim at understanding whether or not one or more planets are needed to explain such structures. We present new ALMA sub-0.1" resolution observations in Band 3 and 4. The high spatial resolution allows us to characterize the mm-dust morphology of the disk. The low optical depth of continuum emission probes the bulk of the dust in vortex. Moreover, we combine the new observations with archival data to perform a multi-wavelength analysis and to obtain information about the dust distribution and properties inside the asymmetry. We resolve the asymmetric disk into a symmetric ring + asymmetric crescent, and observe that: (1) the spectral index strongly decreases at the center of the vortex, consistent with the presence of large grains; (2) for the first time, an azimuthal shift of the peak of the vortex with wavelength is observed; (3) the azimuthal width of the vortex decreases at longer wavelengths, as expected for dust traps. These features allow to confirm the nature of the asymmetry as a vortex. Finally a lower limit to the total mass of the vortex is $0.3 M_{\rm Jupiter}$. Considering the uncertainties involved in this estimate, it is possible that the actual mass of the vortex is higher and possibly within the required values ($\sim 4\,\rm M_{\rm Jupiter}$) to launch spiral arms similar to those observed in scattered light.P.P. acknowledges support by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51380.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. M.B. acknowledges funding from ANR of France under contract number ANR-16-CE31-0013 (Planet Forming disks). M.T. has been supported by the DISCSIM project, grant agreement 341137 funded by the European Research Council under ERC-2013-ADG. Astrochemistry in Leiden is supported by the European Union A-ERC grant 291141 CHEMPLAN, by the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), and by a Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) professor prize

The effects of immediate vision on implicit hand maps

Perceiving the external spatial location of the limbs using position sense requires that immediate proprioceptive afferent signals be combined with a stored body model specifying the size and shape of the body. Longo and Haggard (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107:11727–11732, 2010) developed a method to isolate and measure this body model in the case of the hand in which participants judge the perceived location in external space of several landmarks on their occluded hand. The spatial layout of judgments of different landmarks is used to construct implicit hand maps, which can then be compared with actual hand shape. Studies using this paradigm have revealed that the body model of the hand is massively distorted, in a highly stereotyped way across individuals, with large underestimation of finger length and overestimation of hand width. Previous studies using this paradigm have allowed participants to see the locations of their judgments on the occluding board. Several previous studies have demonstrated that immediate vision, even when wholly non-informative, can alter processing of somatosensory signals and alter the reference frame in which they are localised. The present study therefore investigated whether immediate vision contributes to the distortions of implicit hand maps described previously. Participants judged the external spatial location of the tips and knuckles of their occluded left hand either while being able to see where they were pointing (as in previous studies) or while blindfolded. The characteristic distortions of implicit hand maps reported previously were clearly apparent in both conditions, demonstrating that the distortions are not an artefact of immediate vision. However, there were significant differences in the magnitude of distortions in the two conditions, suggesting that vision may modulate representations of body size and shape, even when entirely non-informative

The Mych Gene Is Required for Neural Crest Survival during Zebrafish Development

Background: Amomg Myc family genes, c-Myc is known to have a role in neural crest specification in Xenopus and in craniofacial development in the mouse. There is no information on the function of other Myc genes in neural crest development, or about any developmental role: of zebrafish Myc genes. Principal Findings: We isolated the zebrafish mych (myc homologue) gene. Knockdown of mych leads to sever defects in craniofacial development and in certain other tissues including the eye. These phenotypes appear to be caused by cell death in the neural crest and in the eye field in the anterior brain. Significance: Mych is a novel factor required for neural crest cell survival in zebrafish

The chemical signatures underlying host plant discrimination by aphids

The diversity of phytophagous insects is largely attributable to speciation involving shifts between host plants. These shifts are mediated by the close interaction between insects and plant metabolites. However, there has been limited progress in understanding the chemical signatures that underlie host preferences. We use the pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) to address this problem. Host-associated races of pea aphid discriminate between plant species in race-specific ways. We combined metabolomic profiling of multiple plant species with behavioural tests on two A. pisum races, to identify metabolites that explain variation in either acceptance or discrimination. Candidate compounds were identified using tandem mass spectrometry. Our results reveal a small number of compounds that explain a large proportion of variation in the differential acceptability of plants to A. pisum races. Two of these were identified as L-phenylalanine and L-tyrosine but it may be that metabolically-related compounds directly influence insect behaviour. The compounds implicated in differential acceptability were not related to the set correlated with general acceptability of plants to aphids, regardless of host race. Small changes in response to common metabolites may underlie host shifts. This study opens new opportunities for understanding the mechanistic basis of host discrimination and host shifts in insects

Ubiquitin fusion expression and tissue-dependent targeting of hG-CSF in transgenic tobacco

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (hG-CSF) is an important human cytokine which has been widely used in oncology and infection protection. To satisfy clinical needs, expression of recombinant hG-CSF has been studied in several organisms, including rice cell suspension culture and transient expression in tobacco leaves, but there was no published report on its expression in stably transformed plants which can serve as a more economical expression platform with potential industrial application.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, hG-CSF expression was investigated in transgenic tobacco leaves and seeds in which the accumulation of hG-CSF could be enhanced through fusion with ubiquitin by up to 7 fold in leaves and 2 fold in seeds, leading to an accumulation level of 2.5 mg/g total soluble protein (TSP) in leaves and 1.3 mg/g TSP in seeds, relative to hG-CSF expressed without a fusion partner. Immunoblot analysis showed that ubiquitin was processed from the final protein product, and ubiquitination was up-regulated in all transgenic plants analyzed. Driven by <it>CaMV </it>35S promoter and phaseolin signal peptide, hG-CSF was observed to be secreted into apoplast in leaves but deposited in protein storage vacuole (PSV) in seeds, indicating that targeting of the hG-CSF was tissue-dependent in transgenic tobacco. Bioactivity assay showed that hG-CSF expressed in both seeds and leaves was bioactive to support the proliferation of NFS-60 cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this study, the expression of bioactive hG-CSF in transgenic plants was improved through ubiquitin fusion strategy, demonstrating that protein expression can be enhanced in both plant leaves and seeds through fusion with ubiquitin and providing a typical case of tissue-dependent expression of recombinant protein in transgenic plants.</p

Probing inner and outer disk misalignments in transition disks

This is the final version. Available from EDP Sciences via the DOI in this record. All codes used for the data analysis, as well as example data files, are available at https://github.com/18alex96/disk_misalignmentsContext. Transition disks are protoplanetary disks with dust-depleted cavities, possibly indicating substantial clearing of their dust content by a massive companion. For several known transition disks, dark regions interpreted as shadows have been observed in scattered light imaging and are hypothesized to originate from misalignments between distinct regions of the disk. Aims. We aim to investigate the presence of misalignments in transition disks. We study the inner disk (10 au). Methods. We fit simple parametric models to the visibilities and closure phases of the GRAVITY data to derive the inclination and position angle of the inner disks. The outer disk geometries were derived from Keplerian fits to the ALMA velocity maps and compared to the inner disk constraints. We also predicted the locations of expected shadows for significantly misaligned systems. Results. Our analysis reveals six disks to exhibit significant misalignments between their inner and outer disk structures. The predicted shadow positions agree well with the scattered light images of HD 100453 and HD 142527, and we find supporting evidence for a shadow in the south of the disk around CQ Tau. In the other three targets for which we infer significantly misaligned disks, V1247 Ori, V1366 Ori, and RY Lup, we do not see any evident sign of shadows in the scattered light images. The scattered light shadows observed in DoAr 44, HD 135344 B, and HD 139614 are consistent with our observations, yet the underlying morphology is likely too complex to be described properly by our models and the accuracy achieved by our observations. Conclusions. The combination of near infrared and submillimeter interferometric observations allows us to assess the geometries of the innermost disk regions and those of the outer disk. Whereas we can derive precise constraints on the potential shadow positions for well-resolved inner disks around Herbig Ae/Be stars, the large statistical uncertainties for the marginally resolved inner disks around the T Tauri stars of our sample make it difficult to extract conclusive constraints for the presence of shadows in these systems.European Research CouncilEuropean Research CouncilEuropean Research CouncilEuropean Research CouncilEuropean Research CouncilDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)Science Foundation Irelan

INCITE: A randomised trial comparing constraint induced movement therapy and bimanual training in children with congenital hemiplegia

Background: Congenital hemiplegia is the most common form of cerebral palsy (CP) accounting for 1 in 1300 live births. These children have limitations in capacity to use the impaired upper limb and bimanual coordination deficits which impact on daily activities and participation in home, school and community life. There are currently two diverse intensive therapy approaches. Traditional therapy has adopted a bimanual approach (BIM training) and recently, constraint induced movement therapy (CIMT) has emerged as a promising unimanual approach. Uncertainty remains about the efficacy of these interventions and characteristics of best responders. This study aims to compare the efficacy of CIMT to BIM training to improve outcomes across the ICF for school children with congenital hemiplegia

Preconditioning with Physiological Levels of Ethanol Protect Kidney against Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury by Modulating Oxidative Stress

Oxidative stress due to excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and subsequent lipid peroxidation plays a critical role in renal ischemia/reperfusion (IR) injury. The purpose of current study is to demonstrate the effect of antecedent ethanol exposure on IR-induced renal injury by modulation of oxidative stress.Bilateral renal warm IR was induced in male C57BL/6 mice after ethanol or saline administration. Blood ethanol concentration, kidney function, histological damage, inflammatory infiltration, cytokine production, oxidative stress, antioxidant capacity and Aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) enzymatic activity were assessed to evaluate the impact of antecedent ethanol exposure on IR-induced renal injury.After bilateral kidney ischemia, mice preconditioned with physiological levels of ethanol displayed significantly preserved renal function along with less histological tubular damage as manifested by the reduced inflammatory infiltration and cytokine production. Mechanistic studies revealed that precondition of mice with physiological levels of ethanol 3 h before IR induction enhanced antioxidant capacity characterized by significantly higher superoxidase dismutase (SOD) activities. Our studies further demonstrated that ethanol pretreatment specifically increased ALDH2 activity, which then suppressed lipid peroxidation by promoting the detoxification of Malondialdehyde (MDA) and 4-hydroxynonenal (HNE).Our results provide first line of evidence indicating that antecedent ethanol exposure can provide protection for kidneys against IR-induced injury by enhancing antioxidant capacity and preventing lipid peroxidation. Therefore, ethanol precondition and ectopic ALDH2 activation could be potential therapeutic approaches to prevent renal IR injury relevant to various clinical conditions