A Variation in the Cerebroside Sulfotransferase Gene is Linked to Exercise-Modified Insulin Resistance and to Type 2 Diabetes

Aims. The glycosphingolipid β-galactosylceramide-3-O-sulfate (sulfatide) is present in the secretory granules of the insulin producing β-cells and may act as a molecular chaperone of insulin. The final step in sulfatide synthesis is performed by cerebroside sulfotransferase (CST) (EC 2.8.2.11). The aim of this study was to investigate whether two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), rs2267161 located in an exon or rs42929 located in an intron, in the gene encoding CST are linked to type 2 diabetes (T2D). Methods. As a population survey, 265 male and female patients suffering from T2D and 291 gender matched controls were examined. Results. A higher proportion of T2D patients were heterozygous at SNP rs2267161 with both T (methionine) and C (valine) alleles present (49.8% versus 41.3%, P = .04). The calculated odd risk for T2D was 1.47 (1.01–2.15, P = .047). Among female controls, the homozygous CC individuals displayed lower insulin resistance measured by HOMA-IR (P = .05) than the C/T or TT persons; this was particularly prevalent in individuals who exercise (P = .03). Conclusion. Heterozygosity at SNP rs2267161 in the gene encoding the CST enzyme confers increased risk of T2D. Females with the CC allele showed lower insulin resistance

Cytotoxicity of Bacterial Metabolic Products, including Listeriolysin O, on Leukocyte Targets

Bacterial toxins can exhibit anticancer activities. Here we investigated the anticancer effects of the listeriolysin O toxin produced by Listeria monocytogenes. We found that supernatants of Listeria monocytogenes strains (wild type, 1189, and 1190) were cytotoxic to the Jurkat cell line and human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in a concentration-dependent manner. The supernatant of strain 1044, not producing listeriolysin O, was inactive. The supernatants of Listeria strains were also cytotoxic toward B cells of chronic leukemia patients, with no significant differences in activities between strains. We also tested supernatants of Bacillus subtilis strains BR1-90, BR1-S, and BR1-89 producing listeriolysin O. BR1-S and BR1-89 were cytotoxic to PBMC and to Jurkat cells, the latter being more sensitive to the supernatants. BR1-90 was not hemolytic or cytotoxic to PBMC, but was cytotoxic to Jurkat cells in the concentration range of 10–30%, suggesting that listeriolysin O is selectively effective against T cells. Overall, the response of human peripheral blood mononuclear and human leukemia cell lines to bacteria supernatants containing listeriolysin O depended on the bacteria strain, target cell type, and supernatant concentration

Magnetic field - temperature phase diagram of quasi-two-dimensional organic superconductor lambda-(BETS)_2 GaCl_4 studied via thermal conductivity

The thermal conductivity kappa of the quasi-two-dimensional (Q2D) organic superconductor lambda-(BETS)_2 GaCl_4 was studied in the magnetic field H applied parallel to the Q2D plane. The phase diagram determined from this bulk measurement shows notable dependence on the sample quality. In dirty samples the upper critical field H_{c2} is consistent with the Pauli paramagnetic limiting, and a sharp change is observed in kappa(H) at H_{c2 parallel}. In contrast in clean samples H_{c2}(T) shows no saturation towards low temperatures and the feature in kappa(H) is replaced by two slope changes reminiscent of second-order transitions. The peculiarity was observed below ~ 0.33T_c and disappeared on field inclination to the plane when the orbital suppression of superconductivity became dominant. This behavior is consistent with the formation of a superconducting state with spatially modulated order parameter in clean samples.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, new figure (Fig.5) and references added, title change

Anisotropy of magnetothermal conductivity in Sr2RuO4

The dependence of in-plane and interplane thermal conductivities of Sr2RuO4 on temperature, as well as magnetic field strength and orientation, is reported. We found no notable anisotropy in the thermal conductivity for the magnetic field rotation parallel to the conducting plane in the whole range of experimental temperatures and fields, except in the vicinity of the upper critical field Hc2, where the anisotropy of the Hc2 itself plays a dominant role. This finding imposes strong constraints on the possible models of superconductivity in Sr2RuO4 and supports the existence of a superconducting gap with a line of nodes running orthogonal to the Fermi surface cylinder.Comment: published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 4pages, 4 eps figures, LaTe

Multispectral image fusion for detecting land mines

This report details a system which fuses information contained in registered images from multiple sensors to reduce the effects of clutter and improve the ability to detect surface and buried land mines. The sensor suite currently consists of a camera that acquires images in six bands (400nm, 500nm, 600nm, 700nm, 800nm and 900nm). Past research has shown that it is extremely difficult to distinguish land mines from background clutter in images obtained from a single sensor. It is hypothesized, however, that information fused from a suite of various sensors is likely to provide better detection reliability, because the suite of sensors detects a variety of physical properties that are more separable in feature space. The materials surrounding the mines can include natural materials (soil, rocks, foliage, water, etc.) and some artifacts

Biological-effective versus conventional dose volume histograms correlated with late genitourinary and gastrointestinal toxicity after external beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer: a matched pair analysis

BACKGROUND: To determine whether the dose-volume histograms (DVH's) for the rectum and bladder constructed using biological-effective dose (BED-DVH's) better correlate with late gastrointestinal (GI) and genitourinary (GU) toxicity after treatment with external beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer than conventional DVH's (C-DVH's). METHODS: The charts of 190 patients treated with external beam radiotherapy with a minimum follow-up of 2 years were reviewed. Six patients (3.2%) were found to have RTOG grade 3 GI toxicity, and similarly 6 patients (3.2%) were found to have RTOG grade 3 GU toxicity. Average late C-DVH's and BED-DVH's of the bladder and rectum were computed for these patients as well as for matched-pair control patients. For each matched pair the following measures of normalized difference in the DVH's were computed: (a) δ(AUC )= (Area Under Curve [AUC] in grade 3 patient – AUC in grade 0 patient)/(AUC in grade 0 patient) and (b) δ(V60 )= (Percent volume receiving = 60 Gy [V60] in grade 3 patient – V60 in grade 0 patient)/(V60 in grade 0 patient). RESULTS: As expected, the grade 3 curve is to the right of and above the grade 0 curve for all four sets of average DVH's – suggesting that both the C-DVH and the BED-DVH can be used for predicting late toxicity. δ(AUC )was higher for the BED-DVH's than for the C-DVH's – 0.27 vs 0.23 (p = 0.036) for the rectum and 0.24 vs 0.20 (p = 0.065) for the bladder. δ(V60 )was also higher for the BED-DVH's than for the C-DVH's – 2.73 vs 1.49 for the rectum (p = 0.021) and 1.64 vs 0.71 (p = 0.021) for the bladder. CONCLUSIONS: When considering well-established dosimetric endpoints used in evaluating treatment plans, BED-DVH's for the rectum and bladder correlate better with late toxicity than C-DVH's and should be considered when attempting to minimize late GI and GU toxicity after external beam radiotherapy for prostate cancer

Resting-State Network Alterations Differ between Alzheimer's Disease Atrophy Subtypes

Several Alzheimer's disease (AD) atrophy subtypes were identified, but their brain network properties are unclear. We analyzed data from two independent datasets, including 166 participants (103 AD/63 controls) from the DZNE-longitudinal cognitive impairment and dementia study and 151 participants (121 AD/30 controls) from the AD neuroimaging initiative cohorts, aiming to identify differences between AD atrophy subtypes in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging intra-network connectivity (INC) and global and nodal network properties. Using a data-driven clustering approach, we identified four AD atrophy subtypes with differences in functional connectivity, accompanied by clinical and biomarker alterations, including a medio-temporal-predominant (S-MT), a limbic-predominant (S-L), a diffuse (S-D), and a mild-atrophy (S-MA) subtype. S-MT and S-D showed INC reduction in the default mode, dorsal attention, visual and limbic network, and a pronounced reduction of "global efficiency" and decrease of the "clustering coefficient" in parietal and temporal lobes. Despite severe atrophy in limbic areas, the S-L exhibited only marginal global network but substantial nodal network failure. S-MA, in contrast, showed limited impairment in clinical and cognitive scores but pronounced global network failure. Our results contribute toward a better understanding of heterogeneity in AD with the detection of distinct differences in functional connectivity networks accompanied by CSF biomarker and cognitive differences in AD subtypes