Metabolism of plasmalogen III. Relative reactivities of acyl and alkenyl derivatives of glycerol-3-phosphorylcholine

1. (1) The alkenyl ether derivatives of phospholipids (plasmalogens) react at slower rates than the acyl analogs in several enzyme-catalyzed reactions.2. (2) Alkenylglycerol-3-phosphorylcholine is essentially inert as a substrate for acyl-CoA: phospholipid acyltransf erase. This result suggests that in vivo the 2-acyl substituent may be present before the alkenyl ether group is formed in the molecule.3. (3) Alkenyl acylglycerol 3-phosphorylcholine is essentially inert as a substrate for cabbage phospholipase D (EC 3.1.4.4.). This lack of reactivity allows a convenient separation of alkenyl acylglycerol 3-phosphorylcholine from its diacyl analog in naturally occurring mixtures.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32018/1/0000060.pd

A novel telomere biology disease-associated gastritis identified through a whole exome sequencing-driven approach

A whole exome sequencing (WES)-driven approach to uncover the etiology of unexplained inflammatory gastritides has been underutilized by surgical pathologists. Here, we discovered the pathobiology of an unusual chronic atrophic gastritis in two unrelated patients using this approach. The gastric biopsies were notable for an unusual pattern of gastritis with persistent dense inflammation, loss of both parietal and neuroendocrine cells in the oxyntic mucosa, and sparing of the antral mucosa. The patients were found to harbor pathogenic variants in telomeropathic genes (POT1 and DCLRE1B). Clonality testing for one of the patients showed evidence of evolving clonality of TCR-gene rearrangement. Both patients showed significantly decreased numbers of stem/progenitor cells by immunohistochemistry, which appears to be responsible for the development of mucosal atrophy. No such cases of unusual chronic atrophic gastritis in the setting of telomeropathy have been previously reported. The loss of stem/progenitor cells suggests that stem/progenitor cell exhaustion in the setting of telomere dysfunction is the likely mechanism for development of this unusual chronic atrophic gastritis. The results underscore the need for close monitoring of these gastric lesions, with special regard to their neoplastic potential. This combined WES-driven approach has promise to identify the cause and mechanism of other uncharacterized gastrointestinal inflammatory disorders

Using “Student Technology” in introductory physics: a comparison of three tools to study falling objects

Being able to facilitate effective hands‐on laboratory experiences in introductory physics courses is a challenging task, even when contemporary laboratory facilities, equipment, and new technologies for data collection and analysis are available. At institutions without adequate resources, especially those in developing countries, we have found that the problem of providing effective laboratory experiences is especially daunting for at least two reasons: 1) the lack of equipment and contemporary measuring devices; and 2) even at institutions that have some laboratory equipment, students who have access to cell phones with digital timing and video capabilities or inexpensive digital cameras are bored with trying to use “old‐fashioned” apparatus for measurements.Fil: Saraiva Da Rocha, Fábio. Universidade Federal do Pampa; BrasilFil: Fajardo, Fabio. Universidad Nacional de Colombia; ColombiaFil: Grisolía, Maricarmen. Universidad de Los Andes; VenezuelaFil: Benegas, Julio Ciro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis. Instituto de Matemática Aplicada de San Luis "Prof. Ezio Marchi". Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Ciencias Físico, Matemáticas y Naturales. Instituto de Matemática Aplicada de San Luis ; ArgentinaFil: Tchitnga, Robert. University of Dschang; CamerúnFil: Laws, Priscilla. Dickinson College; Estados Unido

Density estimation of sound-producing terrestrial animals using single automatic acoustic recorders and distance sampling

Financial support was provided by the NSF award #1345247 to D. Price, P. Hart, E. Stacy, and M. Takabayashi. ESG is funded by the Juan de la Cierva program from the Spanish Government (IJCI-2015-24947). TAM thanks partial support by CEAUL (funded by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, through the project UID/MAT/00006/2013). RJC is partially funded through the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of St. Andrews.Obtaining accurate information on the distribution, density, and abundance of animals is an important first step toward their conservation. Methodological approaches using automatic acoustic recorders for species that communicate acoustically are gaining increased interest because of their advantages over traditional sampling methods. In this study, we created and evaluated a protocol to estimate population density, which can be used to compute abundance of terrestrial sound-producing animals from single automatic acoustic recorders and using an automatic detection algorithm. The protocol uses cue rates from the target species, environmental conditions, and an estimate of the distance of the individual to the recorder based on the power of the received sound. We applied our protocol to estimate the density of a Hawaiian forest bird species (Hawaiˊi ˊAmakihi [Chlorodrepanis virens]) on the island of Hawaiˊi, USA. We validated our approach by comparing our density estimates with those calculated at the same stations using a traditional point-transect distance sampling method based on human observations. Overall density estimates based on recorded signals were lower than those based on human observations, but 95% confidence intervals of the two density estimates overlapped. This study presents a relatively simple but effective protocol for estimating animal density using single automatic acoustic recorders. Our protocol may easily be adapted to other sound-emitting terrestrial animals.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Macrophages in inflammatory multiple sclerosis lesions have an intermediate activation status

BACKGROUND: Macrophages play a dual role in multiple sclerosis (MS) pathology. They can exert neuroprotective and growth promoting effects but also contribute to tissue damage by production of inflammatory mediators. The effector function of macrophages is determined by the way they are activated. Stimulation of monocyte-derived macrophages in vitro with interferon-γ and lipopolysaccharide results in classically activated (CA/M1) macrophages, and activation with interleukin 4 induces alternatively activated (AA/M2) macrophages. METHODS: For this study, the expression of a panel of typical M1 and M2 markers on human monocyte derived M1 and M2 macrophages was analyzed using flow cytometry. This revealed that CD40 and mannose receptor (MR) were the most distinctive markers for human M1 and M2 macrophages, respectively. Using a panel of M1 and M2 markers we next examined the activation status of macrophages/microglia in MS lesions, normal appearing white matter and healthy control samples. RESULTS: Our data show that M1 markers, including CD40, CD86, CD64 and CD32 were abundantly expressed by microglia in normal appearing white matter and by activated microglia and macrophages throughout active demyelinating MS lesions. M2 markers, such as MR and CD163 were expressed by myelin-laden macrophages in active lesions and perivascular macrophages. Double staining with anti-CD40 and anti-MR revealed that approximately 70% of the CD40-positive macrophages in MS lesions also expressed MR, indicating that the majority of infiltrating macrophages and activated microglial cells display an intermediate activation status. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that, although macrophages in active MS lesions predominantly display M1 characteristics, a major subset of macrophages have an intermediate activation status

Creating a space for young women's voices: Using participatory 'video drama' in Uganda

This article draws upon research that explored the experiences of young women in relation to sexual health in Uganda with a view to enhancing gender-sensitive strategies. We have coined the phrase ‘participatory video drama’ to describe the exploratory methodology that the young women participants in our research used to present stories about their lives. The aim of this article is to suggest that ‘participatory video’ (PV) and ‘participatory video drama’ (PVD) are innovative methodological tools to utilise when working with participants who experience voicelessness in their everyday lives. We contribute to an emerging body of work around this methodology by suggesting that the process of PV provides a novel and engaging platform for participants to express their experiences. PVD further creates spaces for the performative exploration of embedded power relations and is therefore informative and has the potential to be transformatory and empowering

Genetic Dissection of a Supergene Implicates Tfap2a in Craniofacial Evolution of Threespine Sticklebacks

In nature, multiple adaptive phenotypes often coevolve and can be controlled by tightly linked genetic loci known as supergenes. Dissecting the genetic basis of these linked phenotypes is a major challenge in evolutionary genetics. Multiple freshwater populations of threespine stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) have convergently evolved two constructive craniofacial traits, longer branchial bones and increased pharyngeal tooth number, likely as adaptations to dietary differences between marine and freshwater environments. Prior QTL mapping showed that both traits are partially controlled by overlapping genomic regions on chromosome 21 and that a regulatory change in Bmp6 likely underlies the tooth number QTL. Here, we mapped the branchial bone length QTL to a 155 kb, eight-gene interval tightly linked to, but excluding the coding regions of Bmp6 and containing the candidate gene Tfap2a Further recombinant mapping revealed this bone length QTL is separable into at least two loci. During embryonic and larval development, Tfap2a was expressed in the branchial bone primordia, where allele specific expression assays revealed the freshwater allele of Tfap2a was expressed at lower levels relative to the marine allele in hybrid fish. Induced loss-of-function mutations in Tfap2a revealed an essential role in stickleback craniofacial development and show that bone length is sensitive to Tfap2a dosage in heterozygotes. Combined, these results suggest that closely linked but genetically separable changes in Bmp6 and Tfap2a contribute to a supergene underlying evolved skeletal gain in multiple freshwater stickleback populations

A 190 base pair, TGF-β responsive tooth and fin enhancer is required for stickleback Bmp6 expression

The ligands of the Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) family of developmental signaling molecules are often under the control of complex cis-regulatory modules and play diverse roles in vertebrate development and evolution. Here, we investigated the cis-regulatory control of stickleback Bmp6. We identified a 190bp enhancer ~2.5 kilobases 5' of the Bmp6 gene that recapitulates expression in developing teeth and fins, with a core 72bp sequence that is sufficient for both domains. By testing orthologous enhancers with varying degrees of sequence conservation from outgroup teleosts in transgenic reporter gene assays in sticklebacks and zebrafish, we found that the function of this regulatory element appears to have been conserved for over 250 million years of teleost evolution. We show that a predicted binding site for the TGFβ effector Smad3 in this enhancer is required for enhancer function and that pharmacological inhibition of TGFβ signaling abolishes enhancer activity and severely reduces endogenous Bmp6 expression. Finally, we used TALENs to disrupt the enhancer in vivo and find that Bmp6 expression is dramatically reduced in teeth and fins, suggesting this enhancer is necessary for expression of the Bmp6 locus. This work identifies a relatively short regulatory sequence that is required for expression in multiple tissues and, combined with previous work, suggests that shared regulatory networks control limb and tooth development