Allele specific expression analysis identifies regulatory variation associated with stress-related genes in the Mexican highland maize landrace Palomero Toluqueño.

BackgroundGene regulatory variation has been proposed to play an important role in the adaptation of plants to environmental stress. In the central highlands of Mexico, farmer selection has generated a unique group of maize landraces adapted to the challenges of the highland niche. In this study, gene expression in Mexican highland maize and a reference maize breeding line were compared to identify evidence of regulatory variation in stress-related genes. It was hypothesised that local adaptation in Mexican highland maize would be associated with a transcriptional signature observable even under benign conditions.MethodsAllele specific expression analysis was performed using the seedling-leaf transcriptome of an F1 individual generated from the cross between the highland adapted Mexican landrace Palomero Toluqueño and the reference line B73, grown under benign conditions. Results were compared with a published dataset describing the transcriptional response of B73 seedlings to cold, heat, salt and UV treatments.ResultsA total of 2,386 genes were identified to show allele specific expression. Of these, 277 showed an expression difference between Palomero Toluqueño and B73 alleles under benign conditions that anticipated the response of B73 cold, heat, salt and/or UV treatments, and, as such, were considered to display a prior stress response. Prior stress response candidates included genes associated with plant hormone signaling and a number of transcription factors. Construction of a gene co-expression network revealed further signaling and stress-related genes to be among the potential targets of the transcription factors candidates.DiscussionPrior activation of responses may represent the best strategy when stresses are severe but predictable. Expression differences observed here between Palomero Toluqueño and B73 alleles indicate the presence of cis-acting regulatory variation linked to stress-related genes in Palomero Toluqueño. Considered alongside gene annotation and population data, allele specific expression analysis of plants grown under benign conditions provides an attractive strategy to identify functional variation potentially linked to local adaptation

Weighted composition operators on Korenblum type spaces of analytic functions

[EN] We investigate the continuity, compactness and invertibility of weighted composition operators W-psi,W-phi: f -> psi(f circle phi) when they act on the classical Korenblum space A(-infinity) and other related Frechet or (LB)-spaces of analytic functions on the open unit disc which are defined as intersections or unions of weighted Banach spaces with sup-norms. Some results about the spectrum of these operators are presented in case the self-map phi has a fixed point in the unit disc. A precise description of the spectrum is obtained in this case when the operator acts on the Korenblum space.This research was partially supported by the research project MTM2016-76647-P and the grant BES-2017-081200.Gomez-Orts, E. (2020). Weighted composition operators on Korenblum type spaces of analytic functions. Revista de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales Serie A Matemáticas. 114(4):1-15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-020-00924-1S1151144Abramovich, Y.A., Aliprantis, C.D.: An invitation to operator theory. Graduate Studies in Mathematics. Amer. Math. Soc., 50 (2002)Albanese, A.A., Bonet, J., Ricker, W.J.: The Cesàro operator in the Fréchet spaces $$\ell ^{p+}$$ and $$L^{p-}$$. Glasgow Math. J. 59, 273–287 (2017)Albanese, A.A., Bonet, J., Ricker, W.J.: The Cesàro operator on Korenblum type spaces of analytic functions. Collect. Math. 69(2), 263–281 (2018)Albanese, A.A., Bonet, J., Ricker, W.J.: Operators on the Fréchet sequence spaces $$ces(p+), 1\le p\le \infty$$. Rev. R. Acad. Cienc. Exactas Fís. Nat. Ser. A Mat. RACSAM 113(2), 1533–1556 (2019)Albanese, A.A., Bonet, J., Ricker, W.J.: Linear operators on the (LB)-sequence spaces $$ces(p-), 1\le p\le \infty$$. Descriptive topology and functional analysis. II, 43–67, Springer Proc. Math. Stat., 286, Springer, Cham (2019)Arendt, W., Chalendar, I., Kumar, M., Srivastava, S.: Powers of composition operators: asymptotic behaviour on Bergman, Dirichlet and Bloch spaces. J. Austral. Math. Soc. 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1446788719000235Aron, R., Lindström, M.: Spectra of weighted composition operators on weighted Banach spaces of analytic funcions. Israel J. Math. 141, 263–276 (2004)Bierstedt, K.D., Summers, W.H.: Biduals of weighted Banach spaces of analytic functions. J. Austral. Math. Soc., Ser. A, 54(1), 70–79 (1993)Bonet, J.: A note about the spectrum of composition operators induced by a rotation. RACSAM 114, 63 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-020-00788-5Bonet, J., Domański, P., Lindström, M., Taskinen, J.: Composition operators between weighted Banach spaces of analytic functions. J. Austral. Math. Soc., Ser. A, 64(1), 101–118 (1998)Bourdon, P.S.: Essential angular derivatives and maximum growth of Königs eigenfunctions. J. Func. Anal. 160, 561–580 (1998)Bourdon, P.S.: Invertible weighted composition operators. Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 142(1), 289–299 (2014)Carleson, L., Gamelin, T.: Complex Dynamics. Springer, Berlin (1991)Cowen, C., MacCluer, B.: Composition Operators on Spaces of Analytic Functions. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL (1995)Contreras, M., Hernández-Díaz, A.G.: Weighted composition operators in weighted Banach spacs of analytic functions. J. Austral. Math. Soc., Ser. A 69, 41–60 (2000)Eklund, T., Galindo, P., Lindström, M.: Königs eigenfunction for composition operators on Bloch and $$H^\infty$$ spaces. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 445, 1300–1309 (2017)Hedenmalm, H., Korenblum, B., Zhu, K.: Theory of Bergman Spaces. Grad. Texts in Math. 199. Springer, New York (2000)Jarchow, H.: Locally Convex Spaces. Teubner, Stuttgart (1981)Kamowitz, H.: Compact operators of the form $$uC_{\varphi }$$. Pac. J. Math. 80(1) (1979)Korenblum, B.: An extension of the Nevanlinna theory. Acta Math. 135, 187–219 (1975)Köthe, G.: Topological Vector Spaces II. Springer, New York Inc (1979)Lusky, W.: On the isomorphism classes of weighted spaces of harmonic and holomophic functions. Stud. Math. 75, 19–45 (2006)Meise, R., Vogt, D.: Introduction to functional analysis. Oxford Grad. Texts in Math. 2, New York, (1997)Montes-Rodríguez, A.: Weighted composition operators on weighted Banach spaces of analytic functions. J. Lond. Math. Soc. 61(3), 872–884 (2000)Queffélec, H., Queffélec, M.: Diophantine Approximation and Dirichlet series. Hindustain Book Agency, New Delhi (2013)Shapiro, J.H.: Composition Operators and Classical Function Theory. Springer, New York (1993)Shields, A.L., Williams, D.L.: Bounded projections, duality and multipliers in spaces of analytic functions. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 162, 287–302 (1971)Zhu, K.: Operator Theory on Function Spaces, Math. Surveys and Monographs, Amer. Math. Soc. 138 (2007

Evaluation of the prophylactic use of mitomycin-C to inhibit haze formation after photorefractive keratectomy in high myopia: a prospective clinical study

BACKGROUND: To study the effect of prophylactic application of mitomycin-C on haze formation in photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) for high myopia. METHODS: Fifty-four eyes of 28 myopic patients were enrolled in this prospective study. All eyes were operated by PRK followed by 0.02% mitomycin-C application for two minutes and washed with 20 ml normal saline afterwards. All eyes were examined thoroughly on the first 7 days and one month after surgery; 48 eyes (88.9%) at 3 and 6 months postoperatively. Hanna grading (in the scale of 0 to 4+) was used for assessment of corneal haze. RESULTS: The mean spherical equivalent refraction (SE) was -7.08 diopters (D) ± 1.11 (SD) preoperatively. Six months after surgery, 37 eyes (77.1%) achieved an uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) of 20/20 or better, all eyes had a UCVA of 20/40 or better and 45 (93.7%) eyes had an SE within ± 1.00D. One month postoperatively, 2 eyes (3.7%) had grade 0.5+ of haze, while at 3 and 6 months after surgery no visited eye had haze at all. All eyes had a best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of 20/40 or better and there were no lost lines in BCVA by 6 months after surgery. In spatial frequencies of 6 and 12 cycles per degree contrast sensitivity had decreased immediately after PRK and it had increased 1.5 lines by the 6(th )postoperative month compared to the preoperative data. CONCLUSIONS: The results show the efficacy of mitomycin-C in preventing corneal haze after treatment of high myopia with PRK. This method- PRK + mitomycin-C – can be considered an alternative treatment for myopic patients whose corneal thicknesses are inadequate for laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK). However, the results should be confirmed in longer follow-ups

Will Patients Benefit from Regionalization of Gynecologic Cancer Care?

OBJECTIVE: Patient chances for cure and palliation for a variety of malignancies may be greatly affected by the care provided by a treating hospital. We sought to determine the effect of volume and teaching status on patient outcomes for five gynecologic malignancies: endometrial, cervical, ovarian and vulvar carcinoma and uterine sarcoma. METHODS: The Florida Cancer Data System dataset was queried for all patients undergoing treatment for gynecologic cancers from 1990-2000. RESULTS: Overall, 48,981 patients with gynecologic malignancies were identified. Endometrial tumors were the most common, representing 43.2% of the entire cohort, followed by ovarian cancer (30.9%), cervical cancer (20.8%), vulvar cancer (4.6%), and uterine sarcoma (0.5%). By univariate analysis, although patients treated at high volume centers (HVC) were significantly younger, they benefited from an improved short-term (30-day and/or 90-day) survival for cervical, ovarian and endometrial cancers. Multivariate analysis (MVA), however, failed to demonstrate significant survival benefit for gynecologic cancer patients treated at teaching facilities (TF) or HVC. Significant prognostic factors at presentation by MVA were age over 65 (HR = 2.6, p<0.01), African-American race (HR = 1.36, p<0.01), and advanced stage (regional HR = 2.08, p<0.01; advanced HR = 3.82, p<0.01, respectively). Surgery and use of chemotherapy were each significantly associated with improved survival. CONCLUSION: No difference in patient survival was observed for any gynecologic malignancy based upon treating hospital teaching or volume status. Although instances of improved outcomes may occur, overall further regionalization would not appear to significantly improve patient survival

Attributable mortality to radon exposure in Galicia, Spain. Is it necessary to act in the face of this health problem?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Radon is the second risk factor for lung cancer after tobacco consumption and therefore it is necessary to know the burden of disease due to its exposure. The objective of this study is to estimate radon-attributable lung cancer mortality in Galicia, a high emission area located at the Northwest Spain.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A prevalence-based attribution method was applied. Prevalence of tobacco use and radon exposure were obtained from a previously published study of the same area. Attributable mortality was calculated for each of six possible risk categories, based on radon exposure and smoking status. Two scenarios were used, with 37 Bq/m³and 148 Bq/m³as the respective radon exposure thresholds. As the observed mortality we used lung cancer mortality for 2001 from the Galician mortality registry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mortality exclusively attributable to radon exposure ranged from 3% to 5% for both exposure thresholds, respectively. Attributable mortality to combined exposure to radon and smoking stood at around 22% for exposures above 148 Bq/m³. Applying the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action level, radon has a role in 25% of all lung cancers.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Although the estimates have been derived from a study with a relatively limited sample size, these results highlight the importance of radon exposure as a cause of lung cancer and its effect in terms of disease burden. Radon mitigation activities in the study area must therefore be enforced.</p

Disordered protein-graphene oxide co-assembly and supramolecular biofabrication of functional fluidic devices

Supramolecular chemistry offers an exciting opportunity to assemble materials with molecular precision. However, there remains an unmet need to turn molecular self-assembly into functional materials and devices. Harnessing the inherent properties of both disordered proteins and graphene oxide (GO), we report a disordered protein-GO co-assembling system that through a diffusion-reaction process and disorder-to-order transitions generates hierarchically organized materials that exhibit high stability and access to non-equilibrium on demand. We use experimental approaches and molecular dynamics simulations to describe the underlying molecular mechanism of formation and establish key rules for its design and regulation. Through rapid prototyping techniques, we demonstrate the system's capacity to be controlled with spatio-temporal precision into well-defined capillary-like fluidic microstructures with a high level of biocompatibility and, importantly, the capacity to withstand flow. Our study presents an innovative approach to transform rational supramolecular design into functional engineering with potential widespread use in microfluidic systems and organ-on-a-chip platforms

On a smoothed penalty-based algorithm for global optimization

This paper presents a coercive smoothed penalty framework for nonsmooth and nonconvex constrained global optimization problems. The properties of the smoothed penalty function are derived. Convergence to an ε -global minimizer is proved. At each iteration k, the framework requires the ε(k) -global minimizer of a subproblem, where ε(k)→ε . We show that the subproblem may be solved by well-known stochastic metaheuristics, as well as by the artificial fish swarm (AFS) algorithm. In the limit, the AFS algorithm convergence to an ε(k) -global minimum of the real-valued smoothed penalty function is guaranteed with probability one, using the limiting behavior of Markov chains. In this context, we show that the transition probability of the Markov chain produced by the AFS algorithm, when generating a population where the best fitness is in the ε(k)-neighborhood of the global minimum, is one when this property holds in the current population, and is strictly bounded from zero when the property does not hold. Preliminary numerical experiments show that the presented penalty algorithm based on the coercive smoothed penalty gives very competitive results when compared with other penalty-based methods.The authors would like to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the paper. This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundac¸ao para a Ci ˜ encia e Tecnologia within the projects UID/CEC/00319/2013 and ˆ UID/MAT/00013/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube

We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Protein disorder-order interplay to guide the growth of hierarchical mineralized structures

A major goal in materials science is to develop bioinspired functional materials based on the precise control of molecular building blocks across length scales. Here we report a protein-mediated mineralization process that takes advantage of disorder–order interplay using elastin-like recombinamers to program organic–inorganic interactions into hierarchically ordered mineralized structures. The materials comprise elongated apatite nanocrystals that are aligned and organized into microscopic prisms, which grow together into spherulite-like structures hundreds of micrometers in diameter that come together to fill macroscopic areas. The structures can be grown over large uneven surfaces and native tissues as acid-resistant membranes or coatings with tuneable hierarchy, stiffness, and hardness. Our study represents a potential strategy for complex materials design that may open opportunities for hard tissue repair and provide insights into the role of molecular disorder in human physiology and pathology