Antimicrobial activity of supramolecular salts of gallium(III) and proflavine and the intriguing case of a trioxalate complex

The use of the gallium oxalate complex [Ga(ox)(3)](3-) as a building block in the formation of a drug-drug salt with the antimicrobial agent proflavine (PF) as its proflavinium cation (HPF+), namely [HPF](3)[Ga(ox)(3)]center dot 4H(2)O, is reported together with the preparation of the potassium salt K-3[Ga(ox)(3)] and the novel dimeric gallium(III) salt K-4[Ga-2(ox)(4)(mu-OH)(2)]center dot 2H(2)O. All compounds have been characterized by solid state methods, and their performance as antimicrobial agents has been evaluated by disk diffusion assay against the bacteria strains Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC27853, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC25923, and Escherichia coli ATCC25922. While the [HPF](3)[Ga(ox)(3)]center dot 4H(2)O drug-drug salt is effective against all three strains, the gallium oxalate salt K-3[Ga(ox)(3)] showed impressive selectivity towards P. aeruginosa, with little to no antimicrobial activity against the other two organisms. This work presents novel breakthroughs towards Ga based antimicrobial agents

Uncovering the Relationship between Sulphation Patterns and Conformation of Iduronic Acid in Heparan Sulphate

The L-iduronic acid (IdoA) residue is a critically important structural component in heparan sulphate polysaccharide for the biological functions. The pyranose ring of IdoA is present in 1C4-chair, 2SO-skew boat, and less frequently, in 4C1-chair conformations. Here, we analyzed the conformation of IdoA residue in eight hexasaccharides by NMR. The data demonstrate a correlation between the conformation of IdoA and sulphations in the surrounding saccharide residues. For the 2-O-sulpho IdoA residue, a high degree of sulphation on neighboring residues drives ring dynamics towards the 2SO-skew boat conformer. In contrast, the nonsulphated IdoA residue is pushed towards the 1C4-chair conformer when the neighboring residues are highly sulphated. Our data suggest that the conformation of IdoA is regulated by the sulphation pattern of nearby saccharides that is genetically controlled by the heparan sulphate biosynthetic pathway

'Earth Wind & Fire'

Exhibition curated at Griffin Gallery by Juan Bolivar and Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi bringing together London based artists and artists from the Contemporary school of Indigenous Australian Art. Exhibition accompanied by publication including texts from Juan Bolivar and Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi and Barry Schwabsky

The perception of cat stress by Italian owners

The welfare assessment of owned pet cats has been neglected in research. The aim of this study was to assess owners' perception and recognition of impaired welfare in their own cats. One hundred ninety-four cat owners were interviewed face-to-face by a veterinary behaviorist, completing a 42-item questionnaire. Most owners (71.1%/N = 138) correctly included both physical and psychological features within their definition of stress, but 9.8% (19) thought that stress had no consequences for the cat. When asked to rate the overall stress level of their own cats in a nonnumerical scale based on frequency, 56.7% (N = 110) chose low, 38.1% (N = 74) chose medium, and 5.2% (N = 10) chose high. Owners whose cats played little or not at all were more likely to rate the level of stress of their cats as high (90.0%) than to rate it as low or medium (33.2%/64; χ2 = 13.290; P < 0.001). Similarly, owners whose cats showed overgrooming were more likely to rate the level of stress of their cats as high (30.0%/58 vs. 7.6%/15; χ2 = 4.948; P = 0.015). The display of aggression or house soiling was not associated with the owner's rating of stress level. The number of signs recognized by respondents as potential indicators of stress in cats and the rating of the level of stress in their own cats were weakly correlated (ρ = 0.217; P = 0.002). This may be due to possible biases in the interviews as well as to an overall good welfare in the cat sample associated to a moderately good understanding of feline signs of stress in owners. A principal components analysis applied to the listed signs of stress identified 4 components which were termed: body posture, social avoidance, house soiling, and self-directed behavior. However, some of the signs that behaviorists regard as crucial in their anamnesis, such as scratching the furniture, freezing, mydriasis, and recurrent cystitis, were the least recognized signs of stress by cat owners. Only very prominent, common, or potentially disturbing behaviors such as excessive vocalization, posture with the ears back, and urinating out of the litter tray were regarded as potential signs of stress by more than two-thirds of owners. These findings suggest that owners tend to overlook certain signs and that owners' perception of stress partially depends on their false preconceptions about cat normal ethology (e.g., playfulness, social relationships, aggression, etc.). This ill-informed perception is likely to prevent owners from correctly indentifying, and intervening in, situations of poor welfare

Introductions over introductions: the genomic adulteration of an early genetically valuable alien species in the United Kingdom.

Invasive alien species are a major cause of biodiversity loss. Nevertheless, non-native species can also contribute to conservation objectives. In 1673, the red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa), a galliform native to southwest Europe, was introduced from France (A. r. rufa) into the UK for hunting purposes. Nowadays, hunters constantly supplement natural populations of A. rufa in its native range with stocks of captive-bred individuals. Such birds are usually genetically unscreened, and human-mediated hybridization with the exotic chukar (Alectoris chukar) has undermined genomic integrity of the species. Alectoris rufa in the UK has never been genetically investigated, and birds from East Anglian estates with no modern history of supplementation offer a potential genomic backup for the highly polluted native-range A. r. rufa. We genotyped modern and ancient (1824–1934) birds at the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) level to determine present and past kinship between East Anglian and native-range A. rufa. We used Short Tandem Repeats (STR) and Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers to identify A. rufa × A. chukar hybrids. The kinship of East Anglian birds with A. r. rufa was confirmed. No A. chukar introgression was found in ancient East Anglian A. rufa. Among modern partridges, we found birds with A. chukar mtDNA, and both STRs and RAPDs disclosed many A. rufa × A. chukar hybrids. While the genetic analysis pointed to the increase of diversity and decline of disparity over time within and among A. rufa populations, respectively, the conservation value of the resource historically introduced to the UK proved to have been quashed by three decades of recent releases of A. chukar and its A. rufa hybrids. © 2014, Springer International Publishing Switzerland