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Increased Hematopoietic Extracellular RNAs and Vesicles in the Lung during Allergic Airway Responses.
Extracellular RNAs (exRNAs) can be released by numerous cell types in vitro, are often protected within vesicles, and can modify recipient cell function. To determine how the composition and cellular sources of exRNAs and the extracellular vesicles (EVs) that carry them change in vivo during tissue inflammation, we analyzed bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from mice before and after lung allergen challenge. In the lung, extracellular microRNAs (ex-miRNAs) had a composition that was highly correlated with airway-lining epithelium. Using cell type-specific membrane tagging and single vesicle flow, we also found that 80% of detected vesicles were of epithelial origin. After the induction of allergic airway inflammation, miRNAs selectively expressed by immune cells, including miR-223 and miR-142a, increased and hematopoietic-cell-derived EVs also increased >2-fold. These data demonstrate that infiltrating immune cells release ex-miRNAs and EVs in inflamed tissues to alter the local extracellular environment
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Is Associated With Reduced Morbidity and Mortality in Porcine Circovirus Associated Disease
Porcine circovirus associated disease (PCVAD) is a term used to describe the multifactorial disease syndromes caused by porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV-2), which can be reproduced in an experimental setting through the co-infection of pigs with PCV-2 and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). The resulting PCVAD-affected pigs represent a subpopulation within the co-infected group. In co-infection studies, the presence of increased microbiome diversity is linked to a reduction in clinical signs. In this study, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) was investigated as a means to prevent PCVAD in pigs co-infected with PRRSV and PCV-2d. The sources of the FMT material were high-parity sows with a documented history of high health status and robust litter characteristics. The analysis of the donated FMT material showed the absence of common pathogens along with the presence of diverse microbial phyla and families. One group of pigs (n = 10) was administered the FMT while a control group (n = 10) was administered a sterile mock-transplant. Over the 42-day postinfection period, the FMT group showed fewer PCVAD-affected pigs, as evidenced by a significant reduction in morbidity and mortality in transplanted pigs, along with increased antibody levels. Overall, this study provides evidence that FMT decreases the severity of clinical signs following co-infection with PRRSV and PCV-2 by reducing the prevalence of PCVAD
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Is Associated With Reduced Morbidity and Mortality in Porcine Circovirus Associated Disease
Porcine circovirus associated disease (PCVAD) is a term used to describe the multi-factorial disease syndromes caused by porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV-2), which can be reproduced in an experimental setting through the co-infection of pigs with PCV-2 and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). The resulting PCVAD-affected pigs represent a subpopulation within the co-infected group. In co-infection studies, the presence of increased microbiome diversity is linked to a reduction in clinical signs. In this study, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) was investigated as a means to prevent PCVAD in pigs co-infected with PRRSV and PCV-2d. The sources of the FMT material were high-parity sows with a documented history of high health status and robust litter characteristics. The analysis of the donated FMT material showed the absence of common pathogens along with the presence of diverse microbial phyla and families. One group of pigs (n = 10) was administered the FMT while a control group (n = 10) was administered a sterile mock-transplant. Over the 42-day post-infection period, the FMT group showed fewer PCVAD-affected pigs, as evidenced by a significant reduction in morbidity and mortality in transplanted pigs, along with increased antibody levels. Overall, this study provides evidence that FMT decreases the severity of clinical signs following co-infection with PRRSV and PCV-2 by reducing the prevalence of PCVAD
Punk is just a state of mind: Exploring what punk means to older punk women
What does punk mean to older punk women? And how are such understandings interwoven with experiences of ageing and gender? The complexity in defining punk has been noted and it has been suggested that this complexity in part results from punk’s dislike of being labelled/categorised. Drawing upon interviews with 22 self-identifying older punk women, this article considers how they conceived punk as ‘a state of mind’, exploring the four shared punk values seen to comprise this: DIY, subversion, political consciousness and community. An unpacking of these values in terms of what they might ‘look like’ and how they are put into action by the women highlights the considerable roles ageing and gender play
The Dwarf Irregular/Wolf-Rayet Galaxy NGC4214: I. A New Distance, Stellar Content, and Global Parameters
We present the results of a detailed optical and near-IR study of the nearby
star-forming dwarf galaxy NGC4214. We discuss the stellar content, drawing
particular attention to the intermediate-age and/or old field stars, which are
used as a distance indicator. On images obtained with the Hubble Space
Telescope WFPC2 and NICMOS instruments in the equivalents of the V, R, I, J and
H bands, the galaxy is well resolved into stars. We achieve limiting magnitudes
of F814W ~27 in the WF chips and F110W ~25 in the NIC2. The optical and
near-infrared color-magnitude diagrams confirm a core-halo galaxy morphology:
an inner high surface-brightness young population within ~1.5' (~1 kpc) from
the center of the galaxy, where the stars are concentrated in bright complexes
along a bar-like structure; and a relatively low-surface-brightness, field-star
population extending out to at least 8' (7 kpc). The color-magnitude diagrams
of the core region show evidence of blue and red supergiants, main-sequence
stars, asymptotic giant branch stars and blue loop stars. We identify some
candidate carbon stars from their extreme near-IR color. The field-star
population is dominated by the "red tangle", which contains the red giant
branch. We use the I-band luminosity function to determine the distance based
on the tip-of-the-red-giant-branch method: 2.7\pm0.3 Mpc. This is much closer
than the values usually assumed in the literature, and we provide revised
distance dependent parameters such as physical size, luminosity, HI mass and
star-formation rate.Comment: 24 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in the July 2002 issue
of AJ. Version with high resolution figures is available at
http://www.astro.spbu.ru/staff/dio/preprints.htm
Two's Company, Three's a Crowd: Experimental Evaluation of the Evolutionary Maintenance of Trioecy in Mercurialis annua (Euphorbiaceae)
Trioecy is an uncommon sexual system in which males, females, and hermaphrodites co-occur as three clearly different gender classes. The evolutionary stability of trioecy is unclear, but would depend on factors such as hermaphroditic sex allocation and rates of outcrossing vs. selfing. Here, trioecious populations of Mercurialis annua are described for the first time. We examined the frequencies of females, males and hermaphrodites across ten natural populations and evaluated the association between the frequency of females and plant densities. Previous studies have shown that selfing rates in this species are density-dependent and are reduced in the presence of males, which produce substantially more pollen than hermaphrodites. Accordingly, we examined the evolutionary stability of trioecy using an experiment in which we (a) indirectly manipulated selfing rates by altering plant densities and the frequency of males in a fully factorial manner across 20 experimental plots and (b) examined the effect of these manipulations on the frequency of the three sex phenotypes in the next generation of plants. In the parental generation, we measured the seed and pollen allocations of hermaphrodites and compared them with allocations by unisexual plants. In natural populations, females occurred at higher frequencies in denser patches, a finding consistent with our expectations. Under our experimental conditions, however, no combination of plant densities and male frequencies was associated with increased frequencies of females. Our results suggest that the factors that regulate female frequencies in trioecious populations of M. annua are independent of those regulating male frequencies (density), and that the stable co-existence of all three sex phenotypes within populations is unlikely
Spitzer Reveals Evidence of Molecular Absorption in the Atmosphere of the Hot Neptune LTT 9779b
Non-rocky sub-Jovian exoplanets in high-irradiation environments are rare. LTT 9779b, also known as Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) object of interest (TOI) 193.01, is one of the few such planets discovered to date, and the first example of an ultrahot Neptune. The planet's bulk density indicates that it has a substantial atmosphere, so to investigate its atmospheric composition and shed further light on its origin, we obtained Spitzer InfraRed Array Camera secondary eclipse observations of LTT 9779b at 3.6 and 4.5 μm. We combined the Spitzer observations with a measurement of the secondary eclipse in the TESS bandpass. The resulting secondary eclipse spectrum strongly prefers a model that includes CO absorption over a blackbody spectrum, incidentally making LTT 9779b the first TESS exoplanet (and the first ultrahot Neptune) with evidence of a spectral feature in its atmosphere. We did not find evidence of a thermal inversion, at odds with expectations based on the atmospheres of similarly irradiated hot Jupiters. We also report a nominal dayside brightness temperature of 2305 ± 141 K (based on the 3.6 μm secondary eclipse measurement), and we constrained the planet's orbital eccentricity to e < 0.01 at the 99.7% confidence level. Together with our analysis of LTT 9779b's thermal phase curves reported in a companion paper, our results set the stage for similar investigations of a larger sample of exoplanets discovered in the hot-Neptune desert, investigations that are key to uncovering the origin of this population
Spitzer Reveals Evidence of Molecular Absorption in the Atmosphere of the Hot Neptune LTT 9979b
Non-rocky sub-jovian exoplanets in high irradiation environments are rare.
LTT 9979b, also known as TESS Object of Interest (TOI) 193.01, is one of the
few such planets discovered to date, and the first example of an ultra-hot
Neptune. The planet's bulk density indicates that it has a substantial
atmosphere, so to investigate its atmospheric composition and shed further
light on its origin, we obtained {\it Spitzer} IRAC secondary eclipse
observations of LTT 9979b at 3.6 and 4.5 m. We combined the {\it Spitzer}
observations with a measurement of the secondary eclipse in the {\it TESS}
bandpass. The resulting secondary eclipse spectrum strongly prefers a model
that includes CO absorption over a blackbody spectrum, incidentally making LTT
9979b the first {\it TESS} exoplanet (and the first ultra-hot Neptune) with
evidence of a spectral feature in its atmosphere. We did not find evidence of a
thermal inversion, at odds with expectations based on the atmospheres of
similarly-irradiated hot Jupiters. We also report a nominal dayside brightness
temperature of 2305 141 K (based on the 3.6 m secondary eclipse
measurement), and we constrained the planet's orbital eccentricity to at the 99.7 \% confidence level. Together with our analysis of LTT
9979b's thermal phase curves reported in a companion paper, our results set the
stage for similar investigations of a larger sample of exoplanets discovered in
the hot Neptune desert, investigations which are key to uncovering the origin
of this population.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures; accepted to ApJ Letter
The experimental power of FR900359 to study Gq-regulated biological processes.
Despite the discovery of heterotrimeric αβγ G proteins ∼25 years ago, their selective perturbation by cell-permeable inhibitors remains a fundamental challenge. Here we report that the plant-derived depsipeptide FR900359 (FR) is ideally suited to this task. Using a multifaceted approach we systematically characterize FR as a selective inhibitor of Gq/11/14 over all other mammalian Gα isoforms and elaborate its molecular mechanism of action. We also use FR to investigate whether inhibition of Gq proteins is an effective post-receptor strategy to target oncogenic signalling, using melanoma as a model system. FR suppresses many of the hallmark features that are central to the malignancy of melanoma cells, thereby providing new opportunities for therapeutic intervention. Just as pertussis toxin is used extensively to probe and inhibit the signalling of Gi/o proteins, we anticipate that FR will at least be its equivalent for investigating the biological relevance of Gq
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