A New Study of Sea Spray Optical Properties from Multi-Sensor Spaceborne Observations

Retrievals of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) satellite sensor require the assumption of an extinction-to-backscatter ratio, also known as the lidar ratio. This paper evaluates a new method to calculate lidar ratio of sea spray aerosol using two independent sources: the AOD from Synergized Optical Depth of Aerosols (SODA) and the integrated attenuated backscatter from CALIOP. The method applied in this study allows particulate lidar ratio to be calculated for individual CALIOP retrievals of single aerosol layer columns over the ocean. Analyses are carried out using CALIOP level 2, 5km sea spray aerosol layer products and collocated SODA nighttime data from December 2007 to December 2009. The global mean lidar ratio for sea spray aerosols was found to be 26 sr, roughly 30 higher than the one prescribed by CALIOP. Data analysis also showed considerable spatiotemporal variability in calculated lidar ratio over different parts of the remote oceans. The calculated aerosol lidar ratios are shown to be inversely related to the mean ocean surface wind speed: increase in ocean surface wind speed (U10) from 0 to 15 ms-1 reduces the mean lidar ratios for sea spray particles from 32 sr (for 0 U10 4 ms-1) to 22 sr (for U10 15 ms-1). Such changes in the lidar ratio are expected to have a corresponding effect on sea spray AOD. The outcomes of this study are relevant for future improvements of the SODA and CALIOP operational product and could lead to more accurate retrievals of sea spray AOD

Soluble curcumin ameliorates motility, adhesiveness and abrogate parthanatos in cadmium-exposed retinal pigment epithelial cells

Cadmium (Cd) is a nonessential transition metal and one of the most toxic environmental pollutants. Industrial, agricultural and urban activities are the main sources of Cd environmental contamination. Multiple deleterious effects of Cd exposure were reported for different cell types and living organisms in a great number of research papers. Cd bioaccumulation hazard is mediated by the relatively long half-life of this metal in an organism. For example, in mammals its half-life lasts for about 10–30 years. Cd exposure affects many tissues. However, some of them, including the central nervous system and sensory organs, are most susceptible to its toxicity. The harmful effects of Cd could be linked to oxidative stress generation and consequently intracellular signalling disruption. Since Cd induces redox imbalance the antioxidants could be a prospective tool to ameliorate Cd cytotoxicity. In present work, we have studied the protective efficacy of soluble curcumin on Cd-caused retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells viability, reactive oxygen species production, adhesive and extracellular matrix proteins expression, cell migration and parthanatos level. Low dose (5 µM) of soluble curcumin ameliorated all aforementioned indices of Cd-induced cytotoxicity. Curcumin has restored the RPE cells motility as well as fibronectin and E-cadherin expression. Therefore, the modulation of RPE adhesiveness could be regarded as a cytoprotective effect of curcumin. Furthermore, Cd-caused poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) suppression and cleaved PARP-1 upregulation were ameliorated by curcumin exposure. Therefore, the protective effect of soluble curcumin could be related, at least partially, to the modulation of PARP activity and inhibition of parthanatos flux. The observed results have demonstrated that low doses of soluble curcumin are a promising tool to protect RPE cells against Cd-caused retinal injury

Local industrial pollution induces astrocyte cytoskeleton rearrangement in the dice snake brain: GFAP as a biomarker

The present study was designed to evaluate the responsiveness of modulation of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) content and its fragmentation in the snake brain as a biomarker of local industrial pollution of aquatic ecosystems. Despite GFAP being a well known cytoskeleton marker of astrocytes’ reactivity in the brain of vertebrates, its expression in the snake brain remains insufficiently described. The GFAP expression and its fragmentation were detected using the immunoblot method in the snake brain. ROS level was determined with dichlorofluorescein diacetate fluorescence. The content of the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) of filament (cytoskeleton) and soluble (cytosol) fractions in the brain of dice snake Natrix tessellata from three ecosystems with different rates of industrial pollution were studied (two polluted and one clean control site). Characteristic increase in GFAP fragmentation was noted for the snakes from both the researched polluted sites. Significant increase in the content of the GFAP cleaved polypeptide fragments induced by industrial pollution exposure was confirmed in the snakes’ brains. Meaningful GFAP fragmentation was determined in snake brain astrocytes as an increase in cleaved fragments of 47–35 kDa molecular weight for both soluble and cytoskeletal GFAP fractions. We found significant abnormality in the ratio of the GFAP soluble fraction to the cytoskeletal one in contaminant-exposed dice snakes. It should testify to significant metabolic disturbance in nerve cells of the dice snakes. Furthermore, growth of reactive oxygen species level as the main cause of oxidative stress was determined in brains of the snakes exposed to environmental toxicity. Thus, astrocyte cytoskeleton disorders are associated with pollutant-induced redox imbalance in the snake brain. Despite the limited data on glial cell biology in the reptilian brain, the observed results prove that snake astrocytes can respond to the environmental toxicity using typical astroglial response. The presented results evidence that monitoring of molecular characteristics of glial cytoskeleton in dice snakes could be used as reliable biomarker of neurotoxicity and adverse effects of industrial pollution. Further studies are required to elucidate the role of astrocyte cytoskeleton in the response against neurotoxic contaminants

Изменчивость морфометрических признаков водяного ужа Natrix tessellata (Reptilia, Colubridae) Центрального и Южного Приднепровья

The dice snake Natrix tessellata (Laurenti, 1768) is one of the common snake species in the Southern Palaearctic and North Africa. In the Central and Southern Dnieper River basin the dice snake is one of the most numerous and characteristic species. Relative isolation and the varying influence of environmental factors are known to be a motive force behind epigenetic divergence between populations. In populations of N. tessellata this divergence can be manifest in the form of morphometric and phenetic peculiarities. Research into these parameters of  dice snake populations in terms of anthropogenic influence on habitats along a latitude gradient is essential. In the Central and Southern parts of the Dnieper River basin such studies are of great importance for the monitoring of populations and for further indicative purposes. The aim of our study is to characterize the morphometric features of N. tessellata in this area and to determine the variability of these parameters in the snake populations under varying intensities of anthropogenic influence. The snakes were collected in 2013–2016 from the territory adjacent to the Prydniprovska Thermal Power Plant, from the Maiorova gully (Maiorka village, Dnipropetrovsk region) and the National Nature Park “Velykyi Lug” (Zaporizhia region). The following morphometric parameters were recorded: snout-vent length (SVL), tail length (TL), the number of ventral scales (V), and the number of subcaudal scales (SBC), the number of scale rows at mid-body (MBS), the number of supralabial scales (SLS), the number of temporal scales (TS), and the number of postocular scales (POS). All the tested parameters generally correspond to the limits known for this species from the literature. Nevertheless , some geographic peculiarities in variability of the tail length and number of subcaudal scales were identified. According to data from the literature, the southern populations of the dice snake are distinguished by an increase in the number of subcaudal scales . The studied dice snake populations were characterized by some sexual dimorphism in the snout-vent length, tail length and the number of subcaudal scales. A higher percentage of bilateral asymmetry in snakes from the population close to the Prydniprovska TPP was found. Such changes are usually considered to be an indicator of a certain destabilization of the embryogenesis. Для водяного ужа Natrix tessellata (Laurenti, 1768) охарактеризованы восемь морфометрических параметров: длина тела, длина хвоста, количество чешуй вокруг середины тела, количество брюшных, подхвостовых, верхнегубных, височных и заглазничных щитков. Материал собран в 2013–2016 гг. на территории, прилегающей к Приднепровской ТЭС (г. Днепропетровск). В качестве контрольных участков выбраны биотопы Национального природного парка «Великий Луг» (Запорожская область) и Майоровой балки (с. Майорка Днепропетровскрого района Днепропетровской области). Выявлены географические особенности изменчивости показателей длины хвоста и количества подхвостовых щитков. Зарегистрированы достоверные отличия между самками и самцами для длины тела и хвоста, количества подхвостовых щитков. Число щитков, расположенных на теле змей, довольно стабильно. Пределы изменчивости исследуемых признаков соответствуют литературным данным. Отмечены различия в характере изменчивости билатеральных структур. Стабильным является число височных щитков I ряда и верхнегубных щитков, более разнообразно сочетание заглазничных и височных щитков II ряда. Для исследуемых популяций водяных ужей характерен половой диморфизм. Выявлено увеличение билатеральной асимметрии для популяции водяного ужа из Приднепровска, что может свидетельствовать о дестабилизации процесса эмбриогенеза водяного ужа, обусловленной влиянием техногенной нагрузки. Для водяного ужа Natrix tessellata (Laurenti, 1768) охарактеризованы восемь морфометрических параметров: длина тела, длина хвоста, количество чешуй вокруг середины тела, количество брюшных, подхвостовых, верхнегубных, височных и заглазничных щитков. Материал собран в 2013–2016 гг. на территории, прилегающей к Приднепровской ТЭС (г. Днепропетровск). В качестве контрольных участков выбраны биотопы Национального природного парка «Великий Луг» (Запорожская область) и Майоровой балки (с. Майорка Днепропетровскрого района Днепропетровской области). Выявлены географические особенности изменчивости показателей длины хвоста и количества подхвостовых щитков. Зарегистрированы достоверные отличия между самками и самцами для длины тела и хвоста, количества подхвостовых щитков. Число щитков, расположенных на теле змей, довольно стабильно. Пределы изменчивости исследуемых признаков соответствуют литературным данным. Отмечены различия в характере изменчивости билатеральных структур. Стабильным является число височных щитков I ряда и верхнегубных щитков, более разнообразно сочетание заглазничных и височных щитков II ряда. Для исследуемых популяций водяных ужей характерен половой диморфизм. Выявлено увеличение билатеральной асимметрии для популяции водяного ужа из Приднепровска, что может свидетельствовать о дестабилизации процесса эмбриогенеза водяного ужа, обусловленной влиянием техногенной нагрузки.

The effects of linkage disequilibrium in large scale SNP datasets for MDR

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In the analysis of large-scale genomic datasets, an important consideration is the power of analytical methods to identify accurate predictive models of disease. When trying to assess sensitivity from such analytical methods, a confounding factor up to this point has been the presence of linkage disequilibrium (LD). In this study, we examined the effect of LD on the sensitivity of the Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction (MDR) software package.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Four relative amounts of LD were simulated in multiple one- and two-locus scenarios for which the position of the functional SNP(s) within LD blocks varied. Simulated data was analyzed with MDR to determine the sensitivity of the method in different contexts, where the sensitivity of the method was gauged as the number of times out of 100 that the method identifies the correct one- or two-locus model as the best overall model. As the amount of LD increases, the sensitivity of MDR to detect the correct functional SNP drops but the sensitivity to detect the disease signal and find an indirect association increases.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Higher levels of LD begin to confound the MDR algorithm and lead to a drop in sensitivity with respect to the identification of a direct association; it does not, however, affect the ability to detect indirect association. Careful examination of the solution models generated by MDR reveals that MDR can identify loci in the correct LD block; though it is not always the functional SNP. As such, the results of MDR analysis in datasets with LD should be carefully examined to consider the underlying LD structure of the dataset.</p

US SOLAS Science Report

The article of record may be found at https://doi.org/10.1575/1912/27821The Surface Ocean – Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) (http://www.solas-int.org/) is an international research initiative focused on understanding the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere that are critical elements of climate and global biogeochemical cycles. Following the release of the SOLAS Decadal Science Plan (2015-2025) (Brévière et al., 2016), the Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction Committee (OAIC) was formed as a subcommittee of the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Scientific Steering Committee to coordinate US SOLAS efforts and activities, facilitate interactions among atmospheric and ocean scientists, and strengthen US contributions to international SOLAS. In October 2019, with support from OCB, the OAIC convened an open community workshop, Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions: Scoping directions for new research with the goal of fostering new collaborations and identifying knowledge gaps and high-priority science questions to formulate a US SOLAS Science Plan. Based on presentations and discussions at the workshop, the OAIC and workshop participants have developed this US SOLAS Science Plan. The first part of the workshop and this Science Plan were purposefully designed around the five themes of the SOLAS Decadal Science Plan (2015-2025) (Brévière et al., 2016) to provide a common set of research priorities and ensure a more cohesive US contribution to international SOLAS.This report was developed with federal support of NSF (OCE-1558412) and NASA (NNX17AB17G).This report was developed with federal support of NSF (OCE-1558412) and NASA (NNX17AB17G)

US SOLAS Science Report

The Surface Ocean – Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) (http://www.solas-int.org/) is an international research initiative focused on understanding the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere that are critical elements of climate and global biogeochemical cycles. Following the release of the SOLAS Decadal Science Plan (2015-2025) (Brévière et al., 2016), the Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction Committee (OAIC) was formed as a subcommittee of the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Scientific Steering Committee to coordinate US SOLAS efforts and activities, facilitate interactions among atmospheric and ocean scientists, and strengthen US contributions to international SOLAS. In October 2019, with support from OCB, the OAIC convened an open community workshop, Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions: Scoping directions for new research with the goal of fostering new collaborations and identifying knowledge gaps and high-priority science questions to formulate a US SOLAS Science Plan. Based on presentations and discussions at the workshop, the OAIC and workshop participants have developed this US SOLAS Science Plan. The first part of the workshop and this Science Plan were purposefully designed around the five themes of the SOLAS Decadal Science Plan (2015-2025) (Brévière et al., 2016) to provide a common set of research priorities and ensure a more cohesive US contribution to international SOLAS.This report was developed with federal support of NSF (OCE-1558412) and NASA (NNX17AB17G)

Matrix Metalloproteinase Gene Delivery for Liver Fibrosis

The resolution of advanced liver fibrosis has been recently recognized to be possible, if the causative stimuli are successfully removed. However, whether complete resolution from cirrhosis, the end stage of liver fibrosis, can be achieved is still questionable. Delivery of interstitial collagenases, such as matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1, in the liver could be an attractive strategy to treat advanced hepatic fibrosis from the view point that the imbalance between too few interstitial collagenases and too many of their inhibitors is the main obstacle to the resolution from fibrosis. Remodeling of hepatic extracellular matrix by delivered interstitial collagenases also facilitates the disappearance of activated hepatic stellate cells, the main matrix-producing cells in the liver, and promotes the proliferation of hepatocytes. This review will focus on the impact of the gene delivery of MMPs for the treatment of advanced liver fibrosis while discussing other current therapeutic strategies for liver fibrosis, and on the need for the development of a safe and effective delivery system of MMPs

What to consider when pseudohypoparathyroidism is ruled out: IPPSD and differential diagnosis

Background: Pseudohypoparathyroidism (PHP) is a rare disease whose phenotypic features are rather difficult to identify in some cases. Thus, although these patients may present with the Albright''s hereditary osteodystrophy (AHO) phenotype, which is characterized by small stature, obesity with a rounded face, subcutaneous ossifications, mental retardation and brachydactyly, its manifestations are somewhat variable. Indeed, some of them present with a complete phenotype, whereas others show only subtle manifestations. In addition, the features of the AHO phenotype are not specific to it and a similar phenotype is also commonly observed in other syndromes. Brachydactyly type E (BDE) is the most specific and objective feature of the AHO phenotype, and several genes have been associated with syndromic BDE in the past few years. Moreover, these syndromes have a skeletal and endocrinological phenotype that overlaps with AHO/PHP. In light of the above, we have developed an algorithm to aid in genetic testing of patients with clinical features of AHO but with no causative molecular defect at the GNAS locus. Starting with the feature of brachydactyly, this algorithm allows the differential diagnosis to be broadened and, with the addition of other clinical features, can guide genetic testing. Methods: We reviewed our series of patients (n = 23) with a clinical diagnosis of AHO and with brachydactyly type E or similar pattern, who were negative for GNAS anomalies, and classify them according to the diagnosis algorithm to finally propose and analyse the most probable gene(s) in each case. Results: A review of the clinical data for our series of patients, and subsequent analysis of the candidate gene(s), allowed detection of the underlying molecular defect in 12 out of 23 patients: five patients harboured a mutation in PRKAR1A, one in PDE4D, four in TRPS1 and two in PTHLH. Conclusions: This study confirmed that the screening of other genes implicated in syndromes with BDE and AHO or a similar phenotype is very helpful for establishing a correct genetic diagnosis for those patients who have been misdiagnosed with "AHO-like phenotype" with an unknown genetic cause, and also for better describing the characteristic and differential features of these less common syndromes