Different forms of African cassava mosaic virus capsid protein within plants and virions

One geminiviral gene encodes the capsid protein (CP), which can appear as several bands after electrophoresis depending on virus and plant. African cassava mosaic virus-Nigeria CP in Nicotiana benthamiana, however, yielded one band (~ 30 kDa) in total protein extracts and purified virions, although its expression in yeast yielded two bands (~ 30, 32 kDa). Mass spectrometry of the complete protein and its tryptic fragments from virions is consistent with a cleaved start M1, acetylated S2, and partial phosphorylation at T12, S25 and S62. Mutants for additional potentially modified sites (N223A; C235A) were fully infectious and formed geminiparticles. Separation in triton acetic acid urea gels confirmed charge changes of the CP between plants and yeast indicating differential phosphorylation. If the CP gene alone was expressed in plants, multiple bands were observed like in yeast. A high turnover rate indicates that post-translational modifications promote CP decay probably via the ubiquitin-triggered proteasomal pathway

Sex-specific mortality forecasting for UK countries: a coherent approach

This paper introduces a gender specific model for the joint mortality projection of three countries (England and Wales combined, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) of the United Kingdom. The model, called 2-tier Augmented Common Factor model, extends the classical Lee and Carter [26] and Li and Lee [32] models, with a common time factor for the whole UK population, a sex specific period factor for males and females, and a specific time factor for each country within each gender. As death counts in each subpopulation are modelled directly, a Poisson framework is used. Our results show that the 2-tier ACF model improves the in-sample fitting compared to the use of independent LC models for each subpopulation or of independent Li and Lee models for each couple of genders within each country. Mortality projections also show that the 2-tier ACF model produces coherent forecasts for the two genders within each country and different countries within each gender, thus avoiding the divergence issues arising when independent projections are used. The 2-tier ACF is further extended to include a cohort term to take into account the faster improvements of the UK ‘golden generation’

The Princeton Protein Orthology Database (P-POD): A Comparative Genomics Analysis Tool for Biologists

Many biological databases that provide comparative genomics information and tools are now available on the internet. While certainly quite useful, to our knowledge none of the existing databases combine results from multiple comparative genomics methods with manually curated information from the literature. Here we describe the Princeton Protein Orthology Database (P-POD, http://ortholog.princeton.edu), a user-friendly database system that allows users to find and visualize the phylogenetic relationships among predicted orthologs (based on the OrthoMCL method) to a query gene from any of eight eukaryotic organisms, and to see the orthologs in a wider evolutionary context (based on the Jaccard clustering method). In addition to the phylogenetic information, the database contains experimental results manually collected from the literature that can be compared to the computational analyses, as well as links to relevant human disease and gene information via the OMIM, model organism, and sequence databases. Our aim is for the P-POD resource to be extremely useful to typical experimental biologists wanting to learn more about the evolutionary context of their favorite genes. P-POD is based on the commonly used Generic Model Organism Database (GMOD) schema and can be downloaded in its entirety for installation on one's own system. Thus, bioinformaticians and software developers may also find P-POD useful because they can use the P-POD database infrastructure when developing their own comparative genomics resources and database tools

InGaAs-Avalanche-Photodioden für bildgebende Verfahren im kurzwelligen Infrarot

High-sensitivity InGaAs-detectors for the short-wave infrared (SWIR) reveal a number of interesting properties which can be beneficially used in industrial process control or in defense and security applications. Manufactured as a high-resolution detector-array for an imaging technique, night-vision devices can be built to detect the natural night-glow radiation. Using infrared LEDs or lasers around 1.55 ?m wavelength, enclosed areas or remote objects can be illuminated or targeted. Furthermore, an exact distance information can be calculated from the time-of-flight of a pulsed laser signal using high-bandwidth and high-sensitivity detectors. Compared to visible light, short-wave infrared radiation enables a significantly improved vision through fog or smoke. Thanks to the relatively large bandgap of InGaAs, the devices can be operated with moderate or even without any cooling. Since for all these applications a very low photon flux has to be expected, avalanche-photodiodes (APDs) with an internal signal amplification are beneficial. The aim of this work was to build a high-resolution detector-array based on InGa- As/InAlAs-APDs for a high-sensitivity SWIR-camera. This way the internal signal amplification of the APDs can be utilized on camera-chip level. Here, the most challenging task was to realize an operating-voltage of the APDs below 20V bias and simultaneously a very low dark current. Due to consequent optimization of InGaAs/InAlAs-APD-structures, the first high resolution InGaAs/InAlAs-APD-array with 640 × 512 pixels could be demonstrated within this work. Implemented in a camera-setup, a gain of up to 8.5 on camera chip level could be achieved. The high operating-temperature of up to 260K can basically be realized with moderate cooling using thermoelectric devices. Bandedge and Monte-Carlo-simulations as well as electro-optical characterization of a variety of APDs enabled a significant optimization of the grading- and charge-layers of the APD structure. The optimized APDs reveal a gain of 10 at 18.5V whereas the dark-current density is as low as 2.5•10 -4 A/cm(2). This represents the lowest operating-voltage with a simultaneous low dark current, which has been published for the InGaAs/InAlAs and the InGaAs/InP-material system so far