9,772 research outputs found
Functional modelling of planar cell polarity: an approach for identifying molecular function.
RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.BACKGROUND: Cells in some tissues acquire a polarisation in the plane of the tissue in addition to apical-basal polarity. This polarisation is commonly known as planar cell polarity and has been found to be important in developmental processes, as planar polarity is required to define the in-plane tissue coordinate system at the cellular level. RESULTS: We have built an in-silico functional model of cellular polarisation that includes cellular asymmetry, cell-cell signalling and a response to a global cue. The model has been validated and parameterised against domineering non-autonomous wing hair phenotypes in Drosophila. CONCLUSIONS: We have carried out a systematic comparison of in-silico polarity phenotypes with patterns observed in vivo under different genetic manipulations in the wing. This has allowed us to classify the specific functional roles of proteins involved in generating cell polarity, providing new hypotheses about their specific functions, in particular for Pk and Dsh. The predictions from the model allow direct assignment of functional roles of genes from genetic mosaic analysis of Drosophila wings
A Candidate Protoplanet in the Taurus Star Forming Region
HST/NICMOS images of the class I protostar TMR-1 (IRAS04361+2547) reveal a
faint companion with 10.0" = 1400 AU projected separation. The central
protostar is itself resolved as a close binary with 0.31" = 42 AU separation,
surrounded by circumstellar reflection nebulosity. A long narrow filament seems
to connect the protobinary to the faint companion TMR-1C, suggesting a physical
association. If the sources are physically related then we hypothesize that
TMR-1C has been ejected by the protobinary. If TMR-1C has the same age and
distance as the protobinary then current models indicate its flux is consistent
with a young giant planet of several Jovian masses.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, Accepted by Astrophysical Journal Letters,
Related information is available at http://www.extrasolar.co
Studies of CMB structure at Dec=40. II: Analysis and cosmological interpretation
We present a detailed analysis of the cosmic microwave background structure
in the Tenerife Dec=+40 degrees data. The effect of local atmospheric
contributions on the derived fluctuation amplitude is considered, resulting in
an improved separation of the intrinsic CMB signal from noise. Our analysis
demonstrates the existence of common structure in independent data scans at 15
and 33 GHz. For the case of fluctuations described by a Gaussian
auto-correlation function, a likelihood analysis of our combined results at 15
and 33 GHz implies an intrinsic rms fluctuation level of 48^{+21}_{-15} uK on a
coherence scale of 4 degrees; the equivalent analysis for a
Harrison-Zel'dovitch model gives a power spectrum normalisation of Q_{rms-ps} =
22^{+10}_{-6} uK. The fluctuation amplitude is seen to be consistent at the 68%
confidence level with that reported for the COBE two-year data for primordial
fluctuations described by a power law model with a spectral index in the range
1.0 \le n \le 1.6. This limit favours the large scale CMB anisotropy being
dominated by scalar fluctuations rather than tensor modes from a gravitational
wave background. The large scale Tenerife and COBE results are considered in
conjunction with observational results from medium scale experiments in order
to place improved limits on the fluctuation spectral index; we find n=1.10 +/-
0.10 assuming standard CDM with H_{0}=50 kms^{-1}Mpc^{-1}.Comment: 10 pages LaTeX, including 8 PostScript figures. Accepted for
publication in MNRA
Elliptic aspects of statistical mechanics on spheres
Our earlier results on the temperature inversion properties and the
ellipticisation of the finite temperature internal energy on odd spheres are
extended to orbifold factors of odd spheres and then to other thermodynamic
quantities, in particular to the specific heat. The behaviour under modular
transformations is facilitated by the introduction of a modular covariant
derivative and it is shown that the specific heat on any odd sphere can be
expressed in terms of just three functions. It is also shown that the free
energy on the circle can be written elliptically.Comment: 22 pages. JyTe
A kinetic core model of the glucose-stimulated insulin secretion network of pancreatic β cells
The construction and characterization of a core kinetic model of the glucose-stimulated insulin secretion system (GSIS) in pancreatic β cells is described. The model consists of 44 enzymatic reactions, 59 metabolic state variables, and 272 parameters. It integrates five subsystems: glycolysis, the TCA cycle, the respiratory chain, NADH shuttles, and the pyruvate cycle. It also takes into account compartmentalization of the reactions in the cytoplasm and mitochondrial matrix. The model shows expected behavior in its outputs, including the response of ATP production to starting glucose concentration and the induction of oscillations of metabolite concentrations in the glycolytic pathway and in ATP and ADP concentrations. Identification of choke points and parameter sensitivity analysis indicate that the glycolytic pathway, and to a lesser extent the TCA cycle, are critical to the proper behavior of the system, while parameters in other components such as the respiratory chain are less critical. Notably, however, sensitivity analysis identifies the first reactions of nonglycolytic pathways as being important for the behavior of the system. The model is robust to deletion of malic enzyme activity, which is absent in mouse pancreatic β cells. The model represents a step toward the construction of a model with species-specific parameters that can be used to understand mouse models of diabetes and the relationship of these mouse models to the human disease state. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00335-007-9011-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users
Elliptic Phases: A Study of the Nonlinear Elasticity of Twist-Grain Boundaries
We develop an explicit and tractable representation of a twist-grain-boundary
phase of a smectic A liquid crystal. This allows us to calculate the
interaction energy between grain boundaries and the relative contributions from
the bending and compression deformations. We discuss the special stability of
the 90 degree grain boundaries and discuss the relation of this structure to
the Schwarz D surface.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Hydrogen gas and its role in cell signalling
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from CAB International via the DOI in this record. Hydrogen gas (H2) was once thought to be inert in biological systems but it has now become apparent that exposure of a wide range of organisms, including animals and plants, to H2or hydrogen-rich water has beneficial effects. It is involved in plant development, and alleviation of stress and illness, such as reperfusion injury. Here, an overview of how H2interacts with organisms is given
Thermodynamic equilibrium and its stability for Microcanonical systems described by the Sharma-Taneja-Mittal entropy
It is generally assumed that the thermodynamic stability of equilibrium state
is reflected by the concavity of entropy. We inquire, in the microcanonical
picture, on the validity of this statement for systems described by the
bi-parametric entropy of Sharma-Taneja-Mittal. We analyze
the ``composability'' rule for two statistically independent systems, A and B,
described by the entropy with the same set of the deformed
parameters. It is shown that, in spite of the concavity of the entropy, the
``composability'' rule modifies the thermodynamic stability conditions of the
equilibrium state. Depending on the values assumed by the deformed parameters,
when the relation holds (super-additive systems), the concavity
conditions does imply the thermodynamics stability. Otherwise, when the
relation holds (sub-additive systems), the concavity
conditions does not imply the thermodynamical stability of the equilibrium
state.Comment: 13 pages, two columns, 1 figure, RevTex4, version accepted on PR
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