Immunological and Physiological Differences Between Layer- and Broiler Chickens after Concurrent Intratracheal Administration of Lipopolysaccharide and Human Serum Albumin

Layers and broilers were concurrently intratracheally challenged with 0.5 mg Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and 0.1 mg Human Serum Albumin (HuSA) at 3 weeks of age. Specific total and isotype-specific (IgM, IgG, IgA) Antibody (Ab) responses to HuSA during 3 weeks following immunization, cellular in vitro mitogen responses to Concanavalin A (Con A) and specific cellular responses in vitro to different dosages of HuSA, blood serotonin (5-HT) levels, plasma Corticosterone (CORT) levels at 6 weeks of age and ex vivo nitric oxide (NO) production in the presence of LPS, respectively, were measured in all birds. Higher in vitro cellular responses to HuSA, but not Con A, were found in the broilers than in the layers. Also higher total, IgM and IgG antibody responses to HuSA were found in the broilers. Higher ex vivo NO production was found in the layers. A heavier spleen weight was found in the broilers, but relative spleen weight was higher in the layers. The broilers grew much heavier and also maintained a higher growth during the first 24 and 48 h after i.t. challenge with LPS and HuSA. No breed effect was found for body temperature responses after i.t. challenge. Blood 5-HT levels and plasma CORT levels were significantly higher in the layers. Number and type of significant correlations between 5-HT levels, cachectin response to LPS, antibody levels and cellular immunity differed between breeds. Our data suggest comparable immune responses to i.t. HuSA challenge in broilers and layers of similar age and confirm the earlier reported higher humoral immune response in broilers. On the other hand, the cachectin response to LPS differed between broilers and layers. Our results do not confirm the earlier reported higher cellular immune response of layers. Different significant relationships between physiological parameters in broilers and layers were found. Our results suggest that selection for enhanced growth does not necessarily affect specific immune competence of poultr

Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska

Residents of towns and villages in Arctic Alaska live on “the front line of climate change.” Some communities face immediate threats from erosion and flooding associated with thawing permafrost, increasing river flows, and reduced sea ice protection of shorelines. The term climigration, referring to migration caused by climate change, originally was coined for these places. Although initial applications emphasized the need for government relocation policies, it has elsewhere been applied more broadly to encompass unplanned migration as well. Some historical movements have been attributed to climate change, but closer study tends to find multiple causes, making it difficult to quantify the climate contribution. Clearer attribution might come from comparisons of migration rates among places that are similar in most respects, apart from known climatic impacts. We apply this approach using annual 1990–2014 time series on 43 Arctic Alaska towns and villages. Within-community time plots show no indication of enhanced out-migration from the most at-risk communities. More formally, there is no significant difference between net migration rates of at-risk and other places, testing several alternative classifications. Although climigration is not detectable to date, growing risks make either planned or unplanned movements unavoidable in the near future

Large‐scale hydro‐climatology of the terrestrial Arctic drainage system

The large‐scale hydro‐climatology of the terrestrial Arctic drainage system is examined, focusing on the period 1960 onward. Special attention is paid to the Ob, Yenisey, Lena, and Mackenzie watersheds, which provide the bulk of freshwater discharge to the Arctic Ocean. Station data are used to compile monthly gridded time series of gauge‐corrected precipitation (P). Gridded time series of precipitation minus evapotranspiration (P−ET) are calculated from the moisture flux convergence using NCEP reanalysis data. Estimates of ET are obtained as a residual. Runoff (R) is obtained from available discharge records. For long‐term water‐year means, P−ET for the Yenisey, Lena, and Mackenzie watersheds is 16–20% lower than the observed runoff. In the Ob watershed, the two values agree within 9%. Given the uncertainties in P−ET, we consider the atmospheric and surface water budgets to be reasonably closed. Compared to the other three basins, the mean runoff ratio (R/P) is lower in the Ob watershed, consistent with the high fraction of annual precipitation lost through ET. All basins exhibit summer maxima in P and minima in P−ET. Summer P−ET in the Ob watershed is negative due to high ET rates. For large domains in northern Eurasia, about 25% of July precipitation is associated with the recycling of water vapor evapotranspirated within each domain. This points to a significant effect of the land surface on the hydrologic regime. Variability in P and P−ET has generally clear associations with the regional atmospheric circulation. A strong link with the Urals trough is documented for the Ob. Relationships with indices of the Arctic Oscillation and other teleconnections are generally weak. Water‐year time series of runoff and P−ET are strongly correlated in the Lena watershed only, reflecting extensive permafrost. Cold‐season runoff has increased in the Yenisey and Lena watersheds. This is most pronounced in the Yenisey watershed, where runoff has also increased sharply in spring, decreased in summer, but has increased for the year as a whole. The mechanisms for these changes are not entirely clear. While they fundamentally relate to higher air temperatures, increased winter precipitation, and strong summer drying, we speculate links with changes in active layer thickness and thawing permafrost

The large‐scale freshwater cycle of the Arctic

This paper synthesizes our understanding of the Arctic\u27s large‐scale freshwater cycle. It combines terrestrial and oceanic observations with insights gained from the ERA‐40 reanalysis and land surface and ice‐ocean models. Annual mean freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean is dominated by river discharge (38%), inflow through Bering Strait (30%), and net precipitation (24%). Total freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic is dominated by transports through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (35%) and via Fram Strait as liquid (26%) and sea ice (25%). All terms are computed relative to a reference salinity of 34.8. Compared to earlier estimates, our budget features larger import of freshwater through Bering Strait and larger liquid phase export through Fram Strait. While there is no reason to expect a steady state, error analysis indicates that the difference between annual mean oceanic inflows and outflows (∼8% of the total inflow) is indistinguishable from zero. Freshwater in the Arctic Ocean has a mean residence time of about a decade. This is understood in that annual freshwater input, while large (∼8500 km3), is an order of magnitude smaller than oceanic freshwater storage of ∼84,000 km3. Freshwater in the atmosphere, as water vapor, has a residence time of about a week. Seasonality in Arctic Ocean freshwater storage is nevertheless highly uncertain, reflecting both sparse hydrographic data and insufficient information on sea ice volume. Uncertainties mask seasonal storage changes forced by freshwater fluxes. Of flux terms with sufficient data for analysis, Fram Strait ice outflow shows the largest interannual variability

Snowmass 2001: Jet Energy Flow Project

Conventional cone jet algorithms arose from heuristic considerations of LO hard scattering coupled to independent showering. These algorithms implicitly assume that the final states of individual events can be mapped onto a unique set of jets that are in turn associated with a unique set of underlying hard scattering partons. Thus each final state hadron is assigned to a unique underlying parton. The Jet Energy Flow (JEF) analysis described here does not make such assumptions. The final states of individual events are instead described in terms of flow distributions of hadronic energy. Quantities of physical interest are constructed from the energy flow distribution summed over all events. The resulting analysis is less sensitive to higher order perturbative corrections and the impact of showering and hadronization than the standard cone algorithms.Comment: REVTeX4, 13 pages, 6 figures; Contribution to the P5 Working Group on QCD and Strong Interactions at Snowmass 200

Activation of the STAT3/Acute Phase Response Factor Transcription Factor by Interleukin-5

The receptor for interleukin-5 (IL-5R) is composed of a unique a chain (IL-5Ra) expressed on eosinophils and basophils, associated with a bc subunit, which is shared by the receptors for IL-3 and granulocyte macrophagecolony stimulating factor. One of the molecular events activated via the IL-5R is the JAK/STAT signaling pathway. Recent reports have shown that IL-5 induces tyrosine phosphorylation of JAK2 followed by the subsequent cell type-specific activation of either STAT1a or STAT5. To identify additional STAT proteins activated by IL-5, we co-transfected the IL-5R with STAT cDNAs in COS cells. We found that IL-5 induces binding of STAT3 to the intercellular adhesion molecule-1 pIRE, and activates STAT3-dependent transcription. Moreover, endogenous STAT3 was tyrosine phosphorylated and activated in human IL-5-stimulated BaF3 cells ectopically expressing the human IL-5R (BaF3/IL5R). These data imply that multiple STAT proteins are involved in gene regulation by IL-5 in a cell type-specific manner. We further demonstrate using C-terminal truncations of the aand bc subunits of the IL-5R that the membrane-proximal regions of both subunits are required for STAT activation. Interestingly, a bc receptor mutant lacking intracellular tyrosine residues is able to mediate STAT3 activation, suggesting that tyrosine phosphorylation of the bc receptor is not essential for STAT3 activation

Differential Activation of Functionally Distinct STAT5 Proteins by IL-5 and GM-CSF During Eosinophil and Neutrophil Differentiation from Human CD34^+ Hematopoietic Stem Cells

Interleukin-5 (IL-5) and granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) are important cytokines for the proliferation, differentiation, and acti-vation of myeloid lineages. The JAK/STAT pathway is one of the signaling pathways implicated in mediating biological responses induced by these cytokines. Previous studies have demonstrated that these cytokines predomi-nantly activate an 80 kDa STAT5 isoform in mature granulocytes. To better understand the role of STAT pro-teins during growth and differentiation of granulocytes, we evaluated differentiation of human CD34^+ hematopoi-etic stem cells ex vivo toward eosinophils and neutrophils. Bandshift experiments showed that in an early stage of both differentiation pathways (14 days), the 94 kDa STAT5B protein was activated by both IL-5 (eosino-phil lineage) and GM-CSF (neutrophil lineage). How-ever, during maturation of both lineages (days 21 and 28), increased expression of a functionally distinct 80 kDa STAT5 isoform was observed, resulting in het-erodimer DNA-binding complexes containing both the 94 and 80 kDa STAT5 proteins. The finding that functionally distinct isoforms of STAT5 are activated during the early and late differentiation stages of granulocytes suggests that they might be involved in regulating different biological functions in these cells

Parallel tagged amplicon sequencing of transcriptome-based genetic markers for Triturus newts with the Ion Torrent next-generation sequencing platform

Next-generation sequencing is a fast and cost-effective way to obtain sequence data for nonmodel organisms for many markers and for many individuals. We describe a protocol through which we obtain orthologous markers for the crested newts (Amphibia: Salamandridae: Triturus), suitable for analysis of interspecific hybridization. We use transcriptome data of a single Triturus species and design 96 primer pairs that amplify c. 180 bp fragments positioned in 3-prime untranslated regions. Next, these markers are tested with uniplex PCR for a set of species spanning the taxonomical width of the genus Triturus. The 52 markers that consistently show a single band of expected length at gel electrophoreses for all tested crested newt species are then amplified in five multiplex PCRs (with a plexity of ten or eleven) for 132 individual newts: a set of 84 representing the seven (candidate) species and a set of 48 from a presumed hybrid population. After pooling multiplexes per individual, unique tags are ligated to link amplicons to individuals. Subsequently, individuals are pooled equimolar and sequenced on the Ion Torrent next-generation sequencing platform. A bioinformatics pipeline identifies the alleles and recodes these to a genotypic format. Next, we test the utility of our markers. baps allocates the 84 crested newt individuals representing (candidate) species to their expected (candidate) species, confirming the markers are suitable for species delineation. newhybrids, a hybrid index and hiest confirm the 48 individuals from the presumed hybrid population to be genetically admixed, illustrating the potential of the markers to identify interspecific hybridization. We expect the set of markers we designed to provide a high resolving power for analysis of hybridization in Triturus

STAT3ß, a Splice Variant of Transcription Factor STAT3, Is a Dominant Negative Regulator of Transcription

The 89-kDa STAT3 protein is a latent transcription factor which is activated in response to cytokines (interleukin (IL)-5 and -6) and growth factors (epidermal growth factor). Binding of IL-5 to its specific receptor activates JAK2 which leads to the tyrosine phosphorylation of STAT3 proteins. Here we report the cloning of a cDNA encoding a variant of the transcription factor STAT3 (named STAT3b) which was isolated by screening an eosinophil cDNA library. Compared to wild-type STAT3, STAT3b lacks an internal domain of 50 base pairs located near the C terminus. This splice product is a naturally occurring isoform of STAT3 and encodes a 80-kDa protein. We found by reconstitution of the human IL-5R in COS cells that like STAT3, STAT3bis phosphorylated on tyrosine and binds to the pIRE from the ICAM-1 promoter after IL-5 stimulation. However, STAT3b fails to activate a pIRE containing promoter in transient transfection assays. Instead, co-expression of STAT3binhibits the transactivation potential of STAT3. These results suggests that STAT3b functions as a negative regulator of transcription

Газификация промышленных отходов непрерывным лазерным излучением

Liposome-encapsulated corticosteroids have shown to exert strong beneficial effects in inflammatory diseases, such as arthritis and cancer. To extend the clinical applicability of these potent nanomedicines, the therapeutic effect of dexamethasone phosphate loaded long-circulating liposomes (LCL-DXP) was evaluated in animal models of multiple sclerosis (MS) and Crohn's disease (CD). In mice with experimental autoimmune encephalitis (EAE), a model for MS, treatment with LCL-DXP, but not free DXP, resulted in a decrease in disease activity when compared to PBS treated mice. In contrast, in mice with chronic DSS-induced colitis, a model for CD, treatment with LCL-DXP did not induce an improvement, but in fact worsened the fecal blood loss after treatment, indicating an aggravation of the disease. It is hypothesized that modulation of macrophage polarization towards a M2 phenotype underlies the efficacy of corticosteroid-based drug delivery systems, which is supported by the presented data. On the one hand, M1 polarized macrophages are part of the pathogenesis of MS; the modulation to M2-polarization by LCL-DXP is therefore beneficial. On the other hand, M1-polarized intestinal macrophages fulfill a protective and inflammation-suppressing role in intestinal homeostasis; changing their phenotype to M2 causes reduced protection to invading microorganisms, leading to a more severe intestinal inflammation. These findings therefore indicate that the interplay between the specific phenotype of macrophages and the specific inflammatory context of the inflammatory disease in question may be an important determining factor in the therapeutic applicability of liposomal corticosteroids in inflammatory disease