Involvement of etfA gene during CaCO3 precipitation in Bacillus subtilis biofilm

The eftA gene in Bacillus subtilis has been suggested to be involved in the oxidation/reduction reactions during fatty acid metabolism. Interestingly etfA deletion in B. subtilis results in impairment in CaCO3 precipitation on the biofilm. Comparisons between the wild type B. subtilis 168 and its etfA mutant during in vitro CaCO3 crystal precipitation (calcite) revealed changes in phospholipids membrane composition with accumulation of up to 10% of anteiso-C17:0 and 11% iso-C17:0 long fatty acids. Ca2+ nucleation sites such as dipicolinic acid and teichoic acids seem to contribute to the CaCO3 precipitation. etfA mutant strain showed up to 40% less dipicolinic acid accumulation compared with B. subtilis 168, while a B. subtilis mutant impaired in teichoic acids synthesis was unable to precipitate CaCO3. In addition, B. subtilis etfA mutant exhibited acidity production leading to atypical flagella formation and inducing extensive lateral growth on the biofilm when grown on 1.4% agar. From the ecological point of view, this study shows a number of physiological aspects that are involved in CaCO3 organomineralization on biofilms

Survival Rate, Fracture Strength and Failure Mode of Ceramic Implant Abutments After Chewing Simulation

The aim of this study was to compare titanium-reinforced ZrO2 and pure Al2O3 abutments regarding their outcome after chewing simulation and static loading. Forty-eight standard diameter implants with an external hexagon were divided into three groups of 16 implants each and restored with three different types of abutments (group A: ZrO2 abutments with titanium inserts; group B: densely sintered high-purity Al2O3 abutments; group C: titanium abutments). All abutments were fixated on the implants with gold-alloy screws at 32 Ncm torque, and metal crowns were adhesively cemented onto the abutments. The specimens were exposed to 1.2 million cycles in a chewing simulator. Surviving specimens were subsequently loaded until fracture in a static testing device. Fracture loads (N) and fracture modes were recorded. A Wilcoxon Rank test to compare fracture loads among the 3 groups and a Fisher exact test to detect group differences in fracture modes were used for statistical evaluation (

Coping strategies, stress, physical activity and sleep in patients with unexplained chest pain

BACKGROUND: The number of patients suffering from unexplained chest pain (UCP) is increasing. Intervention programmes are needed to reduce the chest pain and suffering experienced by these patients and effective preventive strategies are also required to reduce the incidence of these symptoms. The aim of this study was to describe general coping strategies in patients with UCP and examine the relationships between coping strategies, negative life events, sleep problems, physical activity, stress and chest pain intensity. METHOD: The sample consisted of 179 patients younger than 70 years of age, who were evaluated for chest pain at the emergency department daytime Monday through Friday and judged by a physician to have no organic cause for their chest pain. The study had a cross-sectional design. RESULTS: Emotive coping was related to chest pain intensity (r = 0.17, p = 0.02). Women used emotive coping to a greater extent than did men (p = 0.05). In the multivariate analysis was shown that physical activity decreased emotive coping (OR 0.13, p < 0.0001) while sex, age, sleep, mental strain at work and negative life events increased emotive coping. Twenty-seven percent of the patients had sleep problems 8 to14 nights per month or more. Permanent stress at work during the last year was reported by 18% of the patients and stress at home by 7%. Thirty-five percent of the patients were worried often or almost all the time about being rushed at work and 23% were worried about being unable to keep up with their workload. Concerning total life events, 20% reported that a close relative had had a serious illness and 27% had reasons to be worried about a close relative. CONCLUSION: Our results indicated that patients with more intense UCP more often apply emotive coping in dealing with their pain. Given that emotive coping was also found to be related to disturbed sleep, negative life events, mental strain at work and physical activity, it may be of value to help these patients to both verbalise their emotions and to become cognizant of the influence of such factors on their pain experience

Economic Impacts of Non-Native Forest Insects in the Continental United States

Reliable estimates of the impacts and costs of biological invasions are critical to developing credible management, trade and regulatory policies. Worldwide, forests and urban trees provide important ecosystem services as well as economic and social benefits, but are threatened by non-native insects. More than 450 non-native forest insects are established in the United States but estimates of broad-scale economic impacts associated with these species are largely unavailable. We developed a novel modeling approach that maximizes the use of available data, accounts for multiple sources of uncertainty, and provides cost estimates for three major feeding guilds of non-native forest insects. For each guild, we calculated the economic damages for five cost categories and we estimated the probability of future introductions of damaging pests. We found that costs are largely borne by homeowners and municipal governments. Wood- and phloem-boring insects are anticipated to cause the largest economic impacts by annually inducing nearly $1.7 billion in local government expenditures and approximately$830 million in lost residential property values. Given observations of new species, there is a 32% chance that another highly destructive borer species will invade the U.S. in the next 10 years. Our damage estimates provide a crucial but previously missing component of cost-benefit analyses to evaluate policies and management options intended to reduce species introductions. The modeling approach we developed is highly flexible and could be similarly employed to estimate damages in other countries or natural resource sectors

Does Global Warming Increase Establishment Rates of Invasive Alien Species? A Centurial Time Series Analysis

BACKGROUND: The establishment rate of invasive alien insect species has been increasing worldwide during the past century. This trend has been widely attributed to increased rates of international trade and associated species introductions, but rarely linked to environmental change. To better understand and manage the bioinvasion process, it is crucial to understand the relationship between global warming and establishment rate of invasive alien species, especially for poikilothermic invaders such as insects. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We present data that demonstrate a significant positive relationship between the change in average annual surface air temperature and the establishment rate of invasive alien insects in mainland China during 1900-2005. This relationship was modeled by regression analysis, and indicated that a 1 °C increase in average annual surface temperature in mainland China was associated with an increase in the establishment rate of invasive alien insects of about 0.5 species year⁻¹. The relationship between rising surface air temperature and increasing establishment rate remained significant even after accounting for increases in international trade during the period 1950-2005. Moreover, similar relationships were detected using additional data from the United Kingdom and the contiguous United States. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings suggest that the perceived increase in establishments of invasive alien insects can be explained only in part by an increase in introduction rate or propagule pressure. Besides increasing propagule pressure, global warming is another driver that could favor worldwide bioinvasions. Our study highlights the need to consider global warming when designing strategies and policies to deal with bioinvasions

A theory of first order dissipative superfluid dynamics

We determine the most general form of the equations of relativistic superfluid hydrodynamics consistent with Lorentz invariance, time-reversal invariance, the Onsager principle and the second law of thermodynamics at first order in the derivative expansion. Once parity is violated, either because the $U(1)$ symmetry is anomalous or as a consequence of a different parity-breaking mechanism, our results deviate from the standard textbook analysis of superfluids. Our general equations require the specification of twenty parameters (such as the viscosity and conductivity). In the limit of small relative superfluid velocities we find a seven parameter set of equations. In the same limit, we have used the AdS/CFT correspondence to compute the parity odd contributions to the superfluid equations of motion for a generic holographic model and have verified that our results are consistent.Comment: v1: 84+1 pages; v2: a sign error corrected, and the assumption of time-reversal invariance made explici

Global Transcriptome Profiling of the Pine Shoot Beetle, Tomicus yunnanensis (Coleoptera: Scolytinae)

Background: The pine shoot beetle Tomicus yunnanensis (Coleoptera: Scolytinae) is an economically important pest of Pinus yunnanensis in southwestern China. Developed resistance to insecticides due to chemical pesticides being used for a long time is a factor involved in its serious damage, which poses a challenge for management. In addition, highly efficient adaptation to divergent environmental ecologies results in this pest posing great potential threat to pine forests. However, the molecular mechanisms remain unknown as only limited nucleotide sequence data for this species is available. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this study, we applied next generation sequencing (Illumina sequencing) to sequence the adult transcriptome of T. yunnanensis. A total of 51,822,230 reads were obtained. They were assembled into 140,702 scaffolds, and 60,031 unigenes. The unigenes were further functionally annotated with gene descriptions, Gene Ontology (GO), Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genome (KEGG). In total, 80,932 unigenes were classified into GO, 13,599 unigenes were assigned to COG, and 33,875 unigenes were found in KO categories. A biochemical pathway database containing 219 predicted pathways was also created based on the annotations. In depth analysis of the data revealed a large number of genes related to insecticides resistance and heat shock protein genes associated with environmental stress. Conclusions/Significance: The results facilitate the investigations of molecular resistance mechanisms to insecticides an

Cross-translational studies in human and Drosophila identify markers of sleep loss

Inadequate sleep has become endemic, which imposes a substantial burden for public health and safety. At present, there are no objective tests to determine if an individual has gone without sleep for an extended period of time. Here we describe a novel approach that takes advantage of the evolutionary conservation of sleep to identify markers of sleep loss. To begin, we demonstrate that IL-6 is increased in rats following chronic total sleep deprivation and in humans following 30 h of waking. Discovery experiments were then conducted on saliva taken from sleep-deprived human subjects to identify candidate markers. Given the relationship between sleep and immunity, we used Human Inflammation Low Density Arrays to screen saliva for novel markers of sleep deprivation. Integrin αM (ITGAM) and Anaxin A3 (AnxA3) were significantly elevated following 30 h of sleep loss. To confirm these results, we used QPCR to evaluate ITGAM and AnxA3 in independent samples collected after 24 h of waking; both transcripts were increased. The behavior of these markers was then evaluated further using the power of Drosophila genetics as a cost-effective means to determine whether the marker is associated with vulnerability to sleep loss or other confounding factors (e.g., stress). Transcript profiling in flies indicated that the Drosophila homologues of ITGAM were not predictive of sleep loss. Thus, we examined transcript levels of additional members of the integrin family in flies. Only transcript levels of scab, the Drosophila homologue of Integrin α5 (ITGA5), were associated with vulnerability to extended waking. Since ITGA5 was not included on the Low Density Array, we returned to human samples and found that ITGA5 transcript levels were increased following sleep deprivation. These cross-translational data indicate that fly and human discovery experiments are mutually reinforcing and can be used interchangeably to identify candidate biomarkers of sleep loss