Loss of vesicular dopamine release precedes tauopathy in degenerative dopaminergic neurons in a Drosophila model expressing human tau.

While a number of genome-wide association studies have identified microtubule-associated protein tau as a strong risk factor for Parkinson's disease (PD), little is known about the mechanism through which human tau can predispose an individual to this disease. Here, we demonstrate that expression of human wild-type tau is sufficient to disrupt the survival of dopaminergic neurons in a Drosophila model. Tau triggers a synaptic pathology visualized by vesicular monoamine transporter-pHGFP that precedes both the age-dependent formation of tau-containing neurofibrillary tangle-like pathology and the progressive loss of DA neurons, thereby recapitulating the pathological hallmarks of PD. Flies overexpressing tau also exhibit progressive impairments of both motor and learning behaviors. Surprisingly, contrary to common belief that hyperphosphorylated tau could aggravate toxicity, DA neuron degeneration is alleviated by expressing the modified, hyperphosphorylated tau(E14). Together, these results show that impairment of VMAT-containing synaptic vesicle, released to synapses before overt tauopathy may be the underlying mechanism of tau-associated PD and suggest that correction or prevention of this deficit may be appropriate targets for early therapeutic intervention

International tourists purchase intention towards low-carbon tour packages / Teng-Yuan Hsiao, Pei-Ling Sung and Chia-Yun Lu

More attention hence has been paid to low-carbon economic theory to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and understand green development. Therefore, the concept of low-carbon tourism has become increasingly accepted. Also, travel agencies play a crucial role in promoting the concept of environmental protection and low-carbon tourism. In recent years, the importance of the tourism development has been emphasized in Taiwan. The government has developed various tourist policies, and the number of tourists in Taiwan has increased to more than 10 million in 2015. However, no studies have investigated the international tourists in Taiwan who purchased low-carbon tour packages provided by travel agencies. The present study, therefore, explored international tourists’ understanding of low-carbon tour packages in Taiwan, their purchase intention, and willingness to pay. The following results were revealed. First, international tourists in Taiwan exhibited a certain degree of understanding of low-carbon tour packages (M = 3.79). Second, the understanding of low-carbon tour packages significantly influenced purchase intention; particularly, tourists’ views about food and accommodation effectively predicted their purchase intention. Third, 34.5% of international tourists in Taiwan were willing to pay 5% more to purchase low-carbon tour packages, and 32.3% of international tourists in Taiwan were willing to pay 10% more to purchase low-carbon tour packages. That the results of this study can serve as a reference for the government and travel agencies to design and determine prices for low-carbon tour packages

Conserved charged amino acid residues in the extracellular region of sodium/iodide symporter are critical for iodide transport activity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Sodium/iodide symporter (NIS) mediates the active transport and accumulation of iodide from the blood into the thyroid gland. His-226 located in the extracellular region of NIS has been demonstrated to be critical for iodide transport in our previous study. The conserved charged amino acid residues in the extracellular region of NIS were therefore characterized in this study.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fourteen charged residues (Arg-9, Glu-79, Arg-82, Lys-86, Asp-163, His-226, Arg-228, Asp-233, Asp-237, Arg-239, Arg-241, Asp-311, Asp-322, and Asp-331) were replaced by alanine. Iodide uptake abilities of mutants were evaluated by steady-state and kinetic analysis. The three-dimensional comparative protein structure of NIS was further modeled using sodium/glucose transporter as the reference protein.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>All the NIS mutants were expressed normally in the cells and targeted correctly to the plasma membrane. However, these mutants, except R9A, displayed severe defects on the iodide uptake. Further kinetic analysis revealed that mutations at conserved positively charged amino acid residues in the extracellular region of NIS led to decrease NIS-mediated iodide uptake activity by reducing the maximal rate of iodide transport, while mutations at conserved negatively charged residues led to decrease iodide transport by increasing dissociation between NIS mutants and iodide.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This is the first report characterizing thoroughly the functional significance of conserved charged amino acid residues in the extracellular region of NIS. Our data suggested that conserved charged amino acid residues, except Arg-9, in the extracellular region of NIS were critical for iodide transport.</p

Biological Activities and Applications of Dioscorins, the Major Tuber Storage Proteins of Yam

AbstractYam tubers, a common tuber crop and an important traditional Chinese medicine in Taiwan, have many bioactive substances, including phenolic compounds, mucilage polysaccharides, steroidal saponins and proteins. Among the total soluble proteins, 80% of them are dioscorins. In the past two decades, many studies showed that dioscorins exhibited biological activities both in vitro and in vivo, including the enzymatic, antioxidant, antihypertensive, immunomodulatory, lectin activities and the protecting role on airway epithelial cells against allergens in vitro. Some of these activities are survived after chemical, heating process or enzymatic digestion. Despite of lacking the intact structural information and the detail action mechanisms in the cells, yam dioscorins are potential resources for developing as functional foods and interesting targets for food protein researchers

Comments on SUSY inflation models on the brane

In this paper we consider a class of inflation models on the brane where the dominant part of the inflaton scalar potential does not depend on the inflaton field value during inflation. In particular, we consider supernatural inflation, its hilltop version, A-term inflation, and supersymmetric (SUSY) D- and F-term hybrid inflation on the brane. We show that the parameter space can be broadened, the inflation scale generally can be lowered, and still possible to have the spectral index $n_s=0.96$.Comment: 7 page

Kinematically Blocked Curvaton

In this paper, we investigate the idea that the decay of a curvaton is kinematically blocked and show that the coupling constant for curvaton decay can be as large as ${\cal O}(1)$. We also find in this case the lower bound of the Hubble parameter at horizon exit from big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is H_\ast \gae 7.2 \times 10^{-9}M_P \sim 10^{10} {GeV}. Similar to conventional curvaton scenario, the nonlinear parameter can be as large as $f_{NL}=100$.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables; typos corrected, accepted for publication in MPL