Deciphering the Potential Coding of Human Cytomegalovirus: New Predicted Transmembrane Proteome

CMV is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised individuals that will benefit from the availability of a vaccine. Despite the efforts made during the last decade, no CMV vaccine is available. An ideal CMV vaccine should elicit a broad immune response against multiple viral antigens including proteins involved in virus-cell interaction and entry. However, the therapeutic use of neutralizing antibodies targeting glycoproteins involved in viral entry achieved only partial protection against infection. In this scenario, a better understanding of the CMV prote-ome potentially involved in viral entry may provide novel candidates to include in new potential vaccine design. In this study, we aimed to explore the CMV genome to identify proteins with puta-tive transmembrane domains to identify new potential viral envelope proteins. We have performed in silico analysis using the genome sequences of nine different CMV strains to predict the trans-membrane domains of the encoded proteins. We have identified 77 proteins with transmembrane domains, 39 of which were present in all the strains and were highly conserved. Among the core proteins, 17 of them such as UL10, UL139 or US33A have no ascribed function and may be good candidates for further mechanistic studies

Monolayered versus multilayered electroless NiP coatings: Impact of the plating approach on the microstructure, mechanical and corrosion properties of the coatings

Electroless nickel-phosphorous (NiP) coatings were produced on low carbon steel substrates for a total plating time of 3\u202fh. Different preparation modalities were pursued. Multilayered coatings were produced by stacking three layers of the same composition by successive electroless plating with rinsing steps in between. On the other hand, coatings termed \u2018monolayered\u2019 for the sake of comparison were deposited by one step electroless process, with and without undergoing bath replenishment of the electrolyte during plating. All the samples were subjected to thermal annealing at 400\u202f\ub0C for 1\u202fh under argon atmosphere. The results show that the multilayer approach prevents crack propagation in the as-deposited coatings because the interfaces between layers block the advance of defects. Bath replenishment during monolayered coatings production creates pseudo-interfaces similar to those of the multilayered case but they are ineffective in terms of corrosion protection. Un-replenishment of the electrolyte promotes a change in the coating's microstructure from lamellar to columnar which severely worsens their performance. Upon annealing, the presence of interfaces, along with the recrystallization of the metallic matrix, promotes an upgrading of the corrosion performance of the multi-layered coatings. The corrosion products spread laterally at the interface where they stockpile. At a certain point, the accumulation of these by-products provokes the exfoliation of the outermost layer exposing the layer underneath to the corrosive media, thereby delaying the advancement of the corrosion attack. The results of this study highlight the importance of the plating approach selection, as well as the need for proper electrolyte maintenance during the production of high-performance electroless coatings

Mechanisms of institutional continuity in neoliberal "success stories" : developmental regimes in Chile and Estonia

© 2015 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc. Several mycoplasmas, such as the emergent human pathogen Mycoplasma genitalium, developed a complex polar structure, known as the terminal organelle (TO), responsible for a new type of cellular motility, which is involved in a variety of cell functions: cell division, adherence to host cells, and virulence. The TO cytoskeleton is organized as a multisubunit dynamic motor, including three main ultrastructures: the terminal button, the electrodense core, and the wheel complex. Here, we describe the interaction between MG200 and MG491, two of the main components of the TO wheel complex that connects the TO with the cell body and the cell membrane. The interaction between MG200 and MG491 has a KD in the 80 nM range, as determined by surface plasmon resonance. The interface between the two partners was confined to the >enriched in aromatic and glycine residues> (EAGR) box of MG200, previously described as a protein-protein interaction domain, and to a 25-residue-long peptide from the C-terminal region of MG491 by surface plasmon resonance and NMR spectroscopy studies. An atomic description of the MG200 EAGR box binding surface was also provided by solution NMR. An M. genitalium mutant lacking the MG491 segment corresponding to the peptide reveals specific alterations in cell motility and cell morphology indicating that the MG200-MG491 interaction plays a key role in the stability and functioning of the TO.This work was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion Grants BFU2012-36827 (to I. F.) and BFU2010-22209-C02-01 (to E. Q.), a grant from the Centre de Referencia de R+D de Biotecnologia (Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain) (to E. Q.), and by FEDER funds through the Operational Competitiveness Programme-COMPETE and by Portuguese national funds through FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under Project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027581 (EXPL/BBB-BQB/0546/2012) (to B. C.). The NMR characterization was conducted through the FP7 Access to Research Infrastructures (Bio-NMR Contract 261863) and by Instruct, which is part of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and supported by national member subscriptionsPeer Reviewe

Plant communities and landscape diversity in NW Sicily: The MEMOLA EU FP7 Project case study

The MEMOLA EU FP7 Project case study\u201d was presented at IV International Plant Science Conference (IPSC) held in Parma (Italy) on September 20-22, 2017. The poster focuses on the contribution of botany in the interdisciplinary debate of Memola Project and underline the role plant communities play in understanding the formative processes of the Mediterranean Landscapes

Independence in CLP Languages

Studying independence of goals has proven very useful in the context of logic programming. In particular, it has provided a formal basis for powerful automatic parallelization tools, since independence ensures that two goals may be evaluated in parallel while preserving correctness and eciency. We extend the concept of independence to constraint logic programs (CLP) and prove that it also ensures the correctness and eciency of the parallel evaluation of independent goals. Independence for CLP languages is more complex than for logic programming as search space preservation is necessary but no longer sucient for ensuring correctness and eciency. Two additional issues arise. The rst is that the cost of constraint solving may depend upon the order constraints are encountered. The second is the need to handle dynamic scheduling. We clarify these issues by proposing various types of search independence and constraint solver independence, and show how they can be combined to allow dierent optimizations, from parallelism to intelligent backtracking. Sucient conditions for independence which can be evaluated \a priori" at run-time are also proposed. Our study also yields new insights into independence in logic programming languages. In particular, we show that search space preservation is not only a sucient but also a necessary condition for ensuring correctness and eciency of parallel execution

Unveiling Far-Infrared Counterparts of Bright Submillimeter Galaxies Using PACS Imaging

We present a search for Herschel-PACS counterparts of dust-obscured, high-redshift objects previously selected at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey North field. We detect 22 of 56 submillimeter galaxies (39%) with a SNR of >=3 at 100 micron down to 3.0 mJy, and/or at 160 micron down to 5.7 mJy. The fraction of SMGs seen at 160 micron is higher than that at 100 micron. About 50% of radio-identified SMGs are associated with PACS sources. We find a trend between the SCUBA/PACS flux ratio and redshift, suggesting that these flux ratios could be used as a coarse redshift indicator. PACS undetected submm/mm selected sources tend to lie at higher redshifts than the PACS detected ones. A total of 12 sources (21% of our SMG sample) remain unidentified and the fact that they are blank fields at Herschel-PACS and VLA 20 cm wavelength may imply higher redshifts for them than for the average SMG population (e.g., z>3-4). The Herschel-PACS imaging of these dust-obscured starbursts at high-redshifts suggests that their far-infrared spectral energy distributions have significantly different shapes than template libraries of local infrared galaxies.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. ApJ Letters in pres

Physiological, morphological, and mannanase production studies on Aspergillus niger uam-gs1 mutants

Mutant strains from Aspergillus niger UAM-GS1 were produced by UV radiation to increase their hemicellulolytic and cellulolytic activity production. The mutant strains showing more enzymatic activity were those labelled GS1-S059 and GS1-S067. These strains also showed the largest relationship between diameter of hydrolysis zone and colony diameter. The mutant GS1-S067 showed a colony radial extension rate and a biomass growth rate [g biomass/(cm2 h)], 1.17 times higher than that achieved by strain UAM-GS1. The high invasive capacity makes this mutant strain a promising alternative for its use in solid substrate fermentation (SSF). The morphological properties of the two mutant strains were evaluated by using scanning electron microscopy. The diameter of the sporangium of the mutant strains GS1-S059 and GS1-S067 was significantly larger (P < 0.05) than that found for the parental strain. The hypha length and diameter of the mutant strains significantly changed (P < 0.05) compared to the parental strain. A Pearson correlation analysis on hypha length, sporangium diameter, and cellulase and xylanase activities indicated that there was a strong relationship among these variables in relation to mannanase activity. Mutant strains GS1-S059 and GS1-S067 significantly increased their level of mannanase, xylanase and cellulase production, compared to the parental strain, improving their potential industrial applications

Callus culture development of two varieties of Tagetes erecta and carotenoid production

Background: The properties of natural pigments, such as antioxidants, functional,medical, and nutraceutical, have demonstrated the advantages of these natural compounds over synthetic ones. Some products are accepted only when they are pigmented with natural, food-quality colorants: for example poultry products (manly marigold flower extracts). Carotenoids such as \u3b2-carotene, \u3b2-criptoxanthin and lutein are very attractive as natural food colorants due to their antioxidant and pro-vitamin activities which provide additional value to the target products. Marigold ( Tagetes erecta ) is an Asteraceous ornamental plant native to Mexico, and it is also important as a carotenoid source for industrial and medicinal purposes but nowadays its production is destined mainly for ornamental purposes. Results: Friable callus of T. erecta yellow flower (YF) and white flower (WF) varieties was induced from leaf explants on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 9.0 \u3bcM 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 8.8 \u3bcM benzyladenine (BA). Calluses developed from both varieties were different in pigmentation. Extract characterization from callus cultures was carried out by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). This analytical process detected several carotenoids; the main pigments in extracts from YF callus were lutein and zeaxanthin, whereas in the extracts of the WF callus the main pigmentswere lutein, zeaxanthin, \u3b2-cryptoxanthin and \u3b2-carotene. Callus cultures of T. erecta accumulated pigments even after several rounds of subculture. Conclusions: WF callus appeared to be a suitable candidate as a source of different carotenoids, and tested varieties could represent an alternative for further studies about in vitro pigment production

Ionize Hard: Interstellar PO+ Detection

We report the first detection of the phosphorus monoxide ion (PO+) in the interstellar medium. Our unbiased and very sensitive spectral survey toward the G+0.693–0.027 molecular cloud covers four different rotational transitions of this molecule, two of which (J = 1–0 and J = 2–1) appear free of contamination from other species. The fit performed, assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions, yields a column density of N=(6.0 \ub1 0.7) 7 1011\ua0cm−2. The resulting molecular abundance with respect to molecular hydrogen is 4.5 7 10–12. The column density of PO+ normalized by the cosmic abundance of P is larger than those of NO+ and SO+, normalized by N and S, by factors of 3.6 and 2.3, respectively. The N(PO+)/N(PO) ratio is 0.12 \ub1 0.03, more than one order of magnitude higher than that of N(SO+)/N(SO) and N(NO+)/N(NO). These results indicate that P is more efficiently ionized than N and S in the ISM. We have performed new chemical models that confirm that the PO+ abundance is strongly enhanced in shocked regions with high values of cosmic-ray ionization rates (10–15 − 10–14 s−1), as occurring in the G+0.693–0.027 molecular cloud. The shocks sputter the interstellar icy grain mantles, releasing into the gas phase most of their P content, mainly in the form of PH3, which is converted into atomic P, and then ionized efficiently by cosmic rays, forming P+. Further reactions with O2 and OH produces PO+. The cosmic-ray ionization of PO might also contribute significantly, which would explain the high N(PO+)/N(PO) ratio observed. The relatively high gas-phase abundance of PO+ with respect to other P-bearing species stresses the relevance of this species in the interstellar chemistry of P