The Response to BSE in the United States

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Ecophysiology of coral reef primary producers across an upwelling gradient in the tropical central Pacific

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Johnson, M. D., Fox, M. D., Kelly, E. L. A., Zgliczynski, B. J., Sandin, S. A., & Smith, J. E. Ecophysiology of coral reef primary producers across an upwelling gradient in the tropical central Pacific. Plos One, 15(2), (2020): e0228448, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0228448.Upwelling is an important source of inorganic nutrients in marine systems, yet little is known about how gradients in upwelling affect primary producers on coral reefs. The Southern Line Islands span a natural gradient of inorganic nutrient concentrations across the equatorial upwelling region in the central Pacific. We used this gradient to test the hypothesis that benthic autotroph ecophysiology is enhanced on nutrient-enriched reefs. We measured metabolism and photophysiology of common benthic taxa, including the algae Porolithon, Avrainvillea, and Halimeda, and the corals Pocillopora and Montipora. We found that temperature (27.2–28.7°C) was inversely related to dissolved inorganic nitrogen (0.46–4.63 μM) and surface chlorophyll a concentrations (0.108–0.147 mg m-3), which increased near the equator. Contrary to our prediction, ecophysiology did not consistently track these patterns in all taxa. Though metabolic rates were generally variable, Porolithon and Avrainvillea photosynthesis was highest at the most productive and equatorial island (northernmost). Porolithon photosynthetic rates also generally increased with proximity to the equator. Photophysiology (maximum quantum yield) increased near the equator and was highest at northern islands in all taxa. Photosynthetic pigments also were variable, but chlorophyll a and carotenoids in Avrainvillea and Montipora were highest at the northern islands. Phycobilin pigments of Porolithon responded most consistently across the upwelling gradient, with higher phycoerythrin concentrations closer to the equator. Our findings demonstrate that the effects of in situ nutrient enrichment on benthic autotrophs may be more complex than laboratory experiments indicate. While upwelling is an important feature in some reef ecosystems, ancillary factors may regulate the associated consequences of nutrient enrichment on benthic reef organisms.This work was supported by funding from the Moore Family Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Scripps family, and anonymous donors. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, or preparation of the manuscript

The Role of Genomic Data in the Discovery, Annotation and Evolutionary Interpretation of the Interferon-Lambda Family

Type-I interferons, type-II interferons, and the IL-10 family are helical cytokines with similar three-dimensional folds. However, their homologous relationship is difficult to detect on the basis of sequence alone. We have previously described the discovery of the human type-III interferons (IFN lambda-1, -2, -3 or IL-29, IL-28A, IL-28B), which required a combination of manual and computational techniques applied to predicted protein sequences.Here we describe how the use of gene structure analysis and comparative genomics enabled a more extensive understanding of these genes early in the discovery process. More recently, additional mammalian genome sequences have shown that there are between one and potentially nine copies of interferon lambda genes in each genome, and that several species have single exon versions of the interferon lambda gene.The variable number of single exon type-I interferons in mammals, along with recently identified genes in zebrafish homologous to interferons allows a story of interferon evolution to be proposed. This model suggests that the gene duplications and single exon retrotransposons of mammalian type-III interferons are positively selected for within a genome. These characteristics are also shared with the fish interferons and could be responsible for the generation of the IL10 family and also the single exon type-I interferons

CubeSat Proximity Operations Demonstration (CPOD) Mission Results

CubeSat rendezvous and proximity operation (RPO) technology development is critical for improving the performance and economics of space debris remediation and the inspection, servicing, and assembly of larger space systems. The CubeSat Proximity Operations Demonstration (CPOD) is a program led by Terran Orbital and funded by NASA to achieve autonomous on-orbit RPO with two identical 3U CubeSats, thereby maturing CubeSat RPO technology. This article presents the CPOD RPO guidance architecture and its on-orbit outcomes. The architecture advances the autonomy, fuel-efficiency, and safety of CubeSat RPO through the synthesis of optimization-based control theory and orbital dynamics analysis, with different optimization techniques tailored to different stages of the mission. Fully autonomous stages frequently, regularly recompute optimization solutions onboard the vehicles, each time using new measured data to provide robustness to unmodeled force disturbances. RPO is supported by a unique docking magnet control scheme for angular momentum management, a thruster configuration yielding 3DOF translational control, and a data-driven intersatellite distance prediction method for advance (12-200 hours) RPO planning. Ultimately this framework yielded rendezvous of the vehicles from intersatellite distances up to 997 km, a minimum intersatellite distance of 361 m, and passively safe formation flying across 5 major on-orbit experiments

Composition and properties of bovine colostrum: a review

International audienceAbstractColostrum is the initial milk secreted by mammals following parturition, the composition and physicochemical properties of which are highly dynamic and variable. The composition and physicochemical properties of colostrum during the initial post-partum period has not been systematically reviewed for many years, although the topic remains of interest both to milk producers and processors. In this article, the current understanding of the composition of colostrum, i.e. carbohydrates, proteins, growth factors, enzymes, enzyme inhibitors, nucleotides and nucleosides, cytokines, fats, vitamins and minerals, is reviewed. In addition, the physicochemical properties, i.e. pH and buffering capacity, colour, density and specific gravity, osmotic pressure, somatic cell count, properties of casein micelles, ethanol stability and rennet coagulation properties are discussed, as well as the effects of heat-treating colostrum

Biotransformation of fluorophenyl pyridine carboxylic acids by the model fungus Cunninghamella elegans

1. Fluorine plays a key role in the design of new drugs and recent FDA approvals included two fluorinated drugs, tedizolid phosphate and vorapaxar, both of which contain the fluorophenyl pyridyl moiety. 2. To investigate the likely phase-I (oxidative) metabolic fate of this group, various fluorinated phenyl pyridine carboxylic acids were incubated with the fungus Cunninghamella elegans, which is an established model of mammalian drug metabolism. 3. 19F NMR spectroscopy established the degree of biotransformation, which varied depending on the position of fluorine substitution, and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) identified alcohols and hydroxylated carboxylic acids as metabolites. The hydroxylated metabolites were further structurally characterised by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), which demonstrated that hydroxylation occurred on the 4′ position; fluorine in that position blocked the hydroxylation. 4. The fluorophenyl pyridine carboxylic acids were not biotransformed by rat liver microsomes and this was a consequence of inhibitory action, and thus, the fungal model was crucial in obtaining metabolites to establish the mechanism of catabolism

Forced Abstinence from Cocaine Self-Administration is Associated with DNA Methylation Changes in Myelin Genes in the Corpus Callosum: a Preliminary Study

Background: Human cocaine abuse is associated with alterations in white matter integrity revealed upon brain imaging, an observation that is recapitulated in an animal model of continuous cocaine exposure. The mechanism through which cocaine may affect white matter is unknown and the present study tested the hypothesis that cocaine self-administration results in changes in DNA methylation that could result in altered expression of several myelin genes that could contribute to the effects of cocaine on white matter integrity. Methods: In the present study, we examined the impact of forced abstinence from cocaine self-administration on chromatin associated changes in white matter. To this end, rats were trained to self-administer cocaine (0.75 mg/kg/0.1 mL infusion) for 14 days followed by forced abstinence for 1 day (n = 6) or 30 days (n = 6) before sacrifice. Drug-free, sham surgery controls (n = 7) were paired with the experimental groups. Global DNA methylation and DNA methylation at specific CpG sites in the promoter regions ofmyelin basic protein (Mbp), proteolipid protein-1 (Plp1), and SRY-related HMG-box-10 (Sox10) genes were analyzed in DNA extracted from corpus callosum. Results: Significant differences in the overall methylation patterns of the Sox10 promoter region were observed in the corpus callosum of rats at 30 days of forced abstinence from cocaine self-administration relative to sham controls; the −189, −142, −93, and −62 CpG sites were significantly hypomethylated point-wise at this time point. After correction for multiple comparisons, no differences in global methylation or the methylation patterns of Mbp or Plp1 were found. Conclusion: Forced abstinence from cocaine self-administration was associated with differences in DNA methylation at specific CpG sites in the promoter region of the Sox10 gene in corpus callosum. These changes may be related to reductions in normal age related changes in DNA methylation and could be a factor in white matter alterations seen after withdrawal from repeated cocaine self-administration. Further research is warranted examining the effects of cocaine on DNA methylation in white matter

A comprehensive study of GRB 070125, a most energetic gamma ray burst

We present a comprehensive multiwavelength analysis of the bright, long duration gamma-ray burst GRB 070125, comprised of observations in $\gamma$-ray, X-ray, optical, millimeter and centimeter wavebands. Simultaneous fits to the optical and X-ray light curves favor a break on day 3.78, which we interpret as the jet break from a collimated outflow. Independent fits to optical and X-ray bands give similar results in the optical bands but shift the jet break to around day 10 in the X-ray light curve. We show that for the physical parameters derived for GRB 070125, inverse Compton scattering effects are important throughout the afterglow evolution. While inverse Compton scattering does not affect radio and optical bands, it may be a promising candidate to delay the jet break in the X-ray band. Radio light curves show rapid flux variations, which are interpreted as due to interstellar scintillation, and are used to derive an upper limit of $2.4 \times 10^{17}$ cm on the radius of the fireball in the lateral expansion phase of the jet. Radio light curves and spectra suggest a high synchrotron self absorption frequency indicative of the afterglow shock wave moving in a dense medium. Our broadband modeling favors a constant density profile for the circumburst medium over a wind-like profile ($R^{-2}$). However, keeping in mind the uncertainty of the parameters, it is difficult to unambiguously distinguish between the two density profiles. Our broadband fits suggest that \event is a burst with high radiative efficiency ($> 60$).Comment: 50 pages, 33 figures, sty file included, Appeared in 20 Aug 2008 edition of Astrophysical Journa