141 research outputs found
Accelerated Growth Plate Mineralization and Foreshortened Proximal Limb Bones in Fetuin-A Knockout Mice
PMCID: PMC3473050This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Diamond magnetic microscopy of malarial hemozoin nanocrystals
Magnetic microscopy of malarial hemozoin nanocrystals was performed using
optically detected magnetic resonance imaging of near-surface diamond
nitrogen-vacancy centers. Hemozoin crystals were extracted from
--infected human blood cells and studied alongside
synthetic hemozoin crystals. The stray magnetic fields produced by individual
crystals were imaged at room temperature as a function of applied field up to
350 mT. More than 100 nanocrystals were analyzed, revealing the distribution of
their magnetic properties. Most crystals () exhibit a linear dependence
of stray field magnitude on applied field, confirming hemozoin's paramagnetic
nature. A volume magnetic susceptibility is inferred
using a magnetostatic model informed by correlated scanning electron microscopy
measurements of crystal dimensions. A small fraction of nanoparticles (4/82 for
-produced and 1/41 for synthetic) exhibit a saturation behavior
consistent with superparamagnetism. Translation of this platform to the study
of living malaria-infected cells may shed new light on hemozoin formation
dynamics and their interaction with antimalarial drugs.Comment: Main text: 8 pages and 5 figures, Supplemental Information: 9 pages
and 8 figure
Applying Genomic and Bioinformatic Resources to Human Adenovirus Genomes for Use in Vaccine Development and for Applications in Vector Development for Gene Delivery
Technological advances and increasingly cost-effect methodologies in DNA sequencing and computational analysis are providing genome and proteome data for human adenovirus research. Applying these tools, data and derived knowledge to the development of vaccines against these pathogens will provide effective prophylactics. The same data and approaches can be applied to vector development for gene delivery in gene therapy and vaccine delivery protocols. Examination of several field strain genomes and their analyses provide examples of data that are available using these approaches. An example of the development of HAdV-B3 both as a vaccine and also as a vector is presented
Pandemic Influenza and Hospital Resources
Even during the peak of a pandemic, all patients requiring intensive care can be served
Copper (I) selenocyanate (CuSeCN) as a novel hole-transport layer for transistors, organic solar cells, and light-emitting diodes
The synthesis and characterization of copper (I) selenocyanate (CuSeCN) and its application as a solution-processable hole-transport layer (HTL) material in transistors, organic light-emitting diodes, and solar cells are reported. Density-functional theory calculations combined with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are used to elucidate the electronic band structure, density of states, and microstructure of CuSeCN. Solution-processed layers are found to be nanocrystalline and optically transparent ( > 94%), due to the large bandgap of â„3.1 eV, with a valence band maximum located at -5.1 eV. Hole-transport analysis performed using field-effect measurements confirms the p-type character of CuSeCN yielding a hole mobility of 0.002 cm 2 V -1 s -1 . When CuSeCN is incorporated as the HTL material in organic light-emitting diodes and organic solar cells, the resulting devices exhibit comparable or improved performance to control devices based on commercially available poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate as the HTL. This is the first report on the semiconducting character of CuSeCN and it highlights the tremendous potential for further developments in the area of metal pseudohalides
A Network-Based Approach to Prioritize Results from Genome-Wide Association Studies
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are a valuable approach to understanding the genetic basis of complex traits. One of the challenges of GWAS is the translation of genetic association results into biological hypotheses suitable for further investigation in the laboratory. To address this challenge, we introduce Network Interface Miner for Multigenic Interactions (NIMMI), a network-based method that combines GWAS data with human protein-protein interaction data (PPI). NIMMI builds biological networks weighted by connectivity, which is estimated by use of a modification of the Google PageRank algorithm. These weights are then combined with genetic association p-values derived from GWAS, producing what we call âtrait prioritized sub-networks.â As a proof of principle, NIMMI was tested on three GWAS datasets previously analyzed for height, a classical polygenic trait. Despite differences in sample size and ancestry, NIMMI captured 95% of the known height associated genes within the top 20% of ranked sub-networks, far better than what could be achieved by a single-locus approach. The top 2% of NIMMI height-prioritized sub-networks were significantly enriched for genes involved in transcription, signal transduction, transport, and gene expression, as well as nucleic acid, phosphate, protein, and zinc metabolism. All of these sub-networks were ranked near the top across all three height GWAS datasets we tested. We also tested NIMMI on a categorical phenotype, Crohnâs disease. NIMMI prioritized sub-networks involved in B- and T-cell receptor, chemokine, interleukin, and other pathways consistent with the known autoimmune nature of Crohnâs disease. NIMMI is a simple, user-friendly, open-source software tool that efficiently combines genetic association data with biological networks, translating GWAS findings into biological hypotheses
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