Genomic variation and population structure detected by single nucleotide polymorphism arrays in Corriedale, Merino and Creole sheep.

THE AIM OF THIS STUDY WAS TO INVESTIGATE THE GENETIC DIVERSITY WITHIN AND AMONG THREE BREEDS OF SHEEP: Corriedale, Merino and Creole. Sheep from the three breeds (Merino n = 110, Corriedale n = 108 and Creole n = 10) were genotyped using the Illumina Ovine SNP50 beadchip(®). Genetic diversity was evaluated by comparing the minor allele frequency (MAF) among breeds. Population structure and genetic differentiation were assessed using STRUCTURE software, principal component analysis (PCA) and fixation index (FST). Fixed markers (MAF = 0) that were different among breeds were identified as specific breed markers. Using a subset of 18,181 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), PCA and STUCTURE analysis were able to explain population stratification within breeds. Merino and Corriedale divergent lines showed high levels of polymorphism (89.4% and 86% of polymorphic SNPs, respectively) and moderate genetic differentiation (FST = 0.08) between them. In contrast, Creole had only 69% polymorphic SNPs and showed greater genetic differentiation from the other two breeds (FST = 0.17 for both breeds). Hence, a subset of molecular markers present in the OvineSNP50 is informative enough for breed assignment and population structure analysis of commercial and Creole breeds

The copper(II) and zinc(II) coordination mode of HExxH and HxxEH motif in small peptides: The role of carboxylate location and hydrogen bonding network

Copper(II) and zinc(II) complexes with two hexapeptides encompassing HExxH and HxxEH motif were characterized by means of a combined experimental and theoretical approach. Parallel tempering and density functional theory (DFT) investigations show the presence of different hydrogen bonding networks between the copper(II) and zinc(II) complexes with the two peptides, suggesting a significant contribution of these noncovalent interactions to the stability constant values. The glutamate carboxylate group has a direct role in metal ion binding. The location of this amino acid along the sequence of the investigated peptides is critical to determine thermodynamic and spectroscopic features of the copper(II) complex species, whereas is less relevant in the zinc(II) complexes formation. Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) characterization of the zinc(II) complex species show that in the [ZnH−2L] two deprotonated amide nitrogen atoms are involved in the metal coordination environment, an uncommon behavior in zinc(II) complexes for multi-histidine ligands

Creep of HfB2-based UHTCs up to 2000oC

Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are promising candidates for hypersonic applications as a consequence of their high melting points, in excess of 3000 ºC for ZrB2 and HfB2 UHTCs. The UHTCs community has traditionally focused on development of more oxidation-resistant UHTC composites as a consequence of poor oxidation resistance of monolithic UHTCs, which has led to the choice of SiC-reinforced MeB2 (where Me is Zr or Hf) as the baseline material for extreme environments. An overview of current understanding of high temperature creep of MeB2–based UHTCs will be described, discussing the following points: • Poor creep resistance of SiC-reinforced HfB2 and their structural instabilities. • Plastic behavior of HfB2 which deforms like an hcp-metal. • Plastic behavior of HfB2/2 wt.% La2O3 or how to maintain the creep resistance while improving the oxidation resistance. • New approaches to increase the creep resistance of HfB

A cortical mechanism linking saliency detection and motor reactivity in rhesus monkeys

: Sudden and surprising sensory events trigger neural processes that swiftly adjust behavior. To study the phylogenesis and the mechanism of this phenomenon, we trained two male rhesus monkeys to keep a cursor inside a visual target by exerting force on an isometric joystick. We examined the effect of surprising auditory stimuli on exerted force, scalp electroencephalographic (EEG) activity, and local field potentials (LFP) recorded from the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex. Auditory stimuli elicited (1) a biphasic modulation of isometric force: a transient decrease followed by a corrective tonic increase, and (2) EEG and LFP deflections dominated by two large negative-positive waves (N70 and P130). The EEG potential was maximal at the scalp vertex, highly reminiscent of the human 'vertex potential'. Electrocortical potentials and force were tightly coupled: the P130 amplitude predicted the magnitude of the corrective force increase, particularly in the LFPs recorded from deep rather than superficial cortical layers. These results disclose a phylogenetically-preserved cortico-motor mechanism supporting adaptive behavior in response to salient sensory events.Significance Statement Survival in the natural world depends on an animal's capacity to adapt ongoing behavior to unexpected events. To study the neural mechanisms underlying this capacity, we trained monkeys to apply constant force on a joystick while we recorded their brain activity from the scalp and, invasively, from the prefrontal cortex contralateral to the hand holding the joystick. Unexpected auditory stimuli elicited a biphasic force modulation: a transient reduction followed by a corrective adjustment. The same stimuli also elicited EEG and LFP responses, dominated by a biphasic wave that predicted the magnitude of the behavioral adjustment. These results disclose a phylogenetically-preserved cortico-motor mechanism supporting adaptive behavior in response to unexpected events

Exclusion of paternity based on a panel of 89 SNP markers in a sample of Corriedale and Merino sheep from Uruguay

The performance of an 89 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker panel for paternity exclusion was studied in populations of Corriedale and Merino sheep in Uruguay. Minor allele frequency (MAF) values of the markers ranged from 0.05 to 0.5 for Corriedale and from 0.08 to 0.5 for Merino. Using fewer than 50 markers, high probability values (0.9999) were achieved for excluding both parents and also when one of the parents was known. In the most common case of paternity exclusion, when only the genotype of a possible parent is given and the mother is unknown, achieving a probability value of 0.9999 involved almost all the markers for Merino and it was not possible to reach that level for Corriedale (maximum value = 0.9998). These results suggest that the panel could be useful with Corriedale and Merino populations. However, it may be insufficient to establish paternity in highly related populations. For that reason, development of an SNP panel for paternity exclusion under more complex situations is suggested

Mitochondrial Dynamics and VMP1-Related Selective Mitophagy in Experimental Acute Pancreatitis

Mitophagy and zymophagy are selective autophagy pathways early induced in acute pancreatitis that may explain the mild, auto limited, and more frequent clinical presentation of this disease. Adequate mitochondrial bioenergetics is necessary for cellular restoration mechanisms that are triggered during the mild disease. However, mitochondria and zymogen contents are direct targets of damage in acute pancreatitis. Cellular survival depends on the recovering possibility of mitochondrial function and efficient clearance of damaged mitochondria. This work aimed to analyze mitochondrial dynamics and function during selective autophagy in pancreatic acinar cells during mild experimental pancreatitis in rats. Also, using a cell model under the hyperstimulation of the G-coupled receptor for CCK (CCK-R), we aimed to investigate the mechanisms involved in these processes in the context of zymophagy. We found that during acute pancreatitis, mitochondrial O2 consumption and ATP production significantly decreased early after induction of acute pancreatitis, with a consequent decrease in the ATP/O ratio. Mitochondrial dysfunction was accompanied by changes in mitochondrial dynamics evidenced by optic atrophy 1 (OPA-1) and dynamin-related protein 1 (DRP-1) differential expression and ultrastructural features of mitochondrial fission, mitochondrial elongation, and mitophagy during the acute phase of experimental mild pancreatitis in rats. Mitophagy was also evaluated by confocal assay after transfection with the pMITO-RFP-GFP plasmid that specifically labels autophagic degradation of mitochondria and the expression and redistribution of the ubiquitin ligase Parkin1. Moreover, we report for the first time that vacuole membrane protein-1 (VMP1) is involved and required in the mitophagy process during acute pancreatitis, observable not only by repositioning around specific mitochondrial populations, but also by detection of mitochondria in autophagosomes specifically isolated with anti-VMP1 antibodies as well. Also, VMP1 downregulation avoided mitochondrial degradation confirming that VMP1 expression is required for mitophagy during acute pancreatitis. In conclusion, we identified a novel DRP1-Parkin1-VMP1 selective autophagy pathway, which mediates the selective degradation of damaged mitochondria by mitophagy in acute pancreatitis. The understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved to restore mitochondrial function, such as mitochondrial dynamics and mitophagy, could be relevant in the development of novel therapeutic strategies in acute pancreatitis.Fil: Vanasco, Virginia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Ropolo, Alejandro Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Grasso, Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Ojeda, Diego Sebastian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas en Retrovirus y Sida. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas en Retrovirus y Sida; ArgentinaFil: Garcia, Maria Noe. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Vico, Tamara Antonela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Orquera, Tamara. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Quarleri, Jorge Fabian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas en Retrovirus y Sida. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas en Retrovirus y Sida; ArgentinaFil: Alvarez, Silvia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Vaccaro, Maria Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad Medicina. Instituto de Bioquímica y Medicina Molecular; Argentin

An Innovative, Open, Interoperable Citizen Engagement Cloud Platform for Smart Government and Users' Interaction

This paper introduces an open, interoperable, and cloud-computing-based citizen engagement platform for the management of administrative processes of public administrations, which also increases the engagement of citizens. The citizen engagement platform is the outcome of a 3-year Italian national project called PRISMA (Interoperable cloud platforms for smart government). The aim of the project is to constitute a new model of digital ecosystem that can support and enable new methods of interaction among public administrations, citizens, companies, and other stakeholders surrounding cities. The platform has been defined by the media as a flexible (enable the addition of any kind of application or service) and open (enable access to open services) Italian "cloud" that allows public administrations to access to a vast knowledge base represented as linked open data to be reused by a stakeholder community with the aim of developing new applications ("Cloud Apps") tailored to the specific needs of citizens. The platform has been used by Catania and Syracuse municipalities, two of the main cities of southern Italy, located in the Sicilian region. The fully adoption of the platform is rapidly spreading around the whole region (local developers have already used available application programming interfaces (APIs) to create additional services for citizens and administrations) to such an extent that other provinces of Sicily and Italy in general expressed their interest for its usage. The platform is available online and, as mentioned above, is open source and provides APIs for full exploitation.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, journal pape

Photon mass and electrogenesis

We show that if photon possesses a tiny but non-vanishing mass the universe cannot be electrically neutral. Cosmological electric asymmetry could be generated either at an early stage by different evaporation rates of primordial black holes with respect to positively and negatively charged particles or by predominant capture of protons in comparison to electrons by heavy galactic black holes in contemporary universe. An impact of this phenomenon on the generation of large scale magnetic fields and on the universe acceleration is considered.Comment: 15 pages, no figures, text added, typos corrected, refs. improve

Cell Death Is Counteracted by Mitophagy in HIV-Productively Infected Astrocytes but Is Promoted by Inflammasome Activation Among Non-productively Infected Cells

Despite more than 30 years of extensive research efforts, a complete understanding of the neurological consequences of HIV central nervous system (CNS) infection remains elusive. HIV is not only able to establish a viral reservoir in the CNS but also to initiate manifestation of neurodegenerative diseases. These neurological disorders may arise because of virus-induced activation of the inflammasome in CNS cells, including astrocytes. Nevertheless, in some productive viral infection scenarios, selective autophagy may reduce inflammation through mitochondrial degradation (“mitophagy”) to counteract inflammasome activation. In this study, using cultured human astrocytes, we demonstrate that–depending on the HIV infection outcome–cells may resist death, or succumb by inflammasome activation when viral infection is productive or abortive, respectively. Cells productively infected with HIV were able to attenuate both mitochondrial ROS production and mitochondrial membrane potential dissipation, thus exhibiting cell death resistance. Interestingly, mitochondrial injury was counteracted by increasing the autophagic flux and by activating mitophagy. Conversely, astrocytes exposed to HIV in an abortive scenario showed prominent mitochondrial damage, inflammasome activation, and cell death. This bystander effect occurred after cell-to-cell contact with HIV-productively infected astrocytes. In summary, we demonstrate a tight functional crosstalk between viral infection mode, inflammasome activation, autophagy pathways and cell fate in the context of HIV infection. Moreover, mitophagy is crucial for cell death resistance in HIV-productively infected astrocytes, but its impairment may favor inflammasome-mediated cell death in abortively infected cells