Female Scent Signals Enhances Male Resistance to Influenza

Scent of receptive females as signal to reproduction stimulate male mice to olfactory search of a potential breeding partner^1, 2^. This searching behavior is coupled with infection risk due to bacterial contamination of the fecal and urine scent marks^4^. The theoretical consideration of host evolution under inevitable parasitic pressures, including helminthes, bacteria, virus etc., predicts adaptations that help protect against parasites associated with breeding^7^. In this study, we propose that acceptation of female signals by male mice leads to adaptive redistribution of immune defense directed to protection against respiratory infection risks. Our results reveal migration of macrophages and neutrophils to upper airways upon exposure to female odor stimulus resulting in increased resistance to influenza virus in male mice. Contrary to widely accepted immunosuppressive function of female sexual signals, our data provide the first demonstration of the adaptive immunological response to female odor stimulus through induction of nonspecific immune response in upper airways

The nonenzymatic template-directed ligation of oligonucleotides

International audienceThe nonenzymatic template-directed ligation of oligonucleotides containing 2',3'-cyclic phosphate was investigated in the presence of divalent cations. Ligation of the oligonucleotides readily occurred in the presence of Mg2+, Mn2+, Co2+, Zn2+, Pb2+. Efficacy of the metal ion catalysts inversely correlated with pKa values of the metal-bound water molecules. The intermolecular transesterification reaction yielded at least 95% of 2',5'-phosphodiester bonds independently on the nature of the metal ion. Relatively high reaction yields (up to 15%) suggest, that RNA fragmentation to oligonucleotides with 2',3'-cyclic phosphates, followed by reactions of those oligonucleotides could provide a source of new RNA molecules under prebiotic conditions

Female Scent Signals Enhance the Resistance of Male Mice to Influenza

Background: The scent from receptive female mice functions as a signal, which stimulates male mice to search for potential mating partners. This searching behavior is coupled with infection risk due to sniffing both scent marks as well as nasal and anogenital areas of females, which harbor bacteria and viruses. Consideration of host evolution under unavoidable parasitic pressures, including helminthes, bacteria, viruses, etc., predicts adaptations that help protect hosts against the parasites associated with mating. Methods and Findings: We propose that the perception of female signals by BALB/c male mice leads to adaptive redistribution of the immune defense directed to protection against respiratory infection risks. Our results demonstrate migration of macrophages and neutrophils to the upper airways upon exposure to female odor stimuli, which results in an increased resistance of the males to experimental influenza virus infection. This moderate leukocyte intervention had no negative effect on the aerobic performance in male mice. Conclusions: Our data provide the first demonstration of the adaptive immunological response to female odor stimul

Modeling of the high-resolution optical-coherence diagnostics of bi-refringent biological tissues

We present a computer model of the polarization-sensitive interference diagnostics of the bi-refringent biological media, with a particular example of the lamella of eye cornea. The diagnostic procedure employs the modified Mach–Zehnder interferometer with controllable phase retardation of the reference wave, separate observation of the orthogonal linearly-polarized interference signals, and evaluation of the phases and amplitudes of their variable (AC) components. The data obtained permit to determine the mean refractive index as well as the difference between the extraordinary and ordinary refractive indices, which, in turn, indicates the optical axis and the collagen fibers’ orientation in the lamella. The modelled procedure enables the sample structure diagnostics with the longitudinal and lateral resolution ∼100 nm and ∼1.8 μm, correspondingly. In particular, it permits a reliable detection and quantitative characterization of a thin (<100 nm) near-surface layer where the mean refractive index differs by less than 1% from that in the main volume (due to the different orientation of the collagen fibers). The diagnostic approach, developed in the paper, can be useful in various problems of structure characterization of optically-anisotropic biological tissues

Site-Selective Artificial Ribonucleases: Oligonucleotide Conjugates Containing Multiple Imidazole Residues in the Catalytic Domain

Design of site-selective artificial ribonucleases (aRNases) is one of the most challenging tasks in RNA targeting. Here, we designed and studied oligonucleotide-based aRNases containing multiple imidazole residues in the catalytic part and systematically varied structure of cleaving constructs. We demonstrated that the ribonuclease activity of the conjugates is strongly affected by the number of imidazole residues in the catalytic part, the length of a linker between the catalytic imidazole groups of the construct and the oligonucleotide, and the type of anchor group, connecting linker structure and the oligonucleotide. Molecular modeling of the most active aRNases showed that preferable orientation(s) of cleaving constructs strongly depend on the structure of the anchor group and length of the linker. The inclusion of deoxyribothymidine anchor group significantly reduced the probability of cleaving groups to locate near the cleavage site, presumably due to a stacking interaction with the neighbouring nucleotide residue. Altogether the obtained results show that dynamics factors play an important role in site-specific RNA cleavage. Remarkably high cleavage activity was displayed by the conjugates with the most flexible and extended cleaving construct, which presumably provides a better opportunity for imidazole residues to be correctly positioned in the vicinity of scissile phosphodiester bond

Modified siRNA effectively silence inducible immunoproteasome subunits in NSO cells

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. and Société française de biochimie et biologie Moléculaire (SFBBM). All rights reserved.The pathogenesis of autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases involves overexpression of inducible subunits of the immunoproteasome. However, the clinical application of inhibitors to inducible subunits of the immunoproteasome has been limited due to systemic toxicity. Here, we designed siRNAs that efficiently silence LMP2, LMP7 and MECL-1 gene expression. Inducible subunits of the immunoproteasome are complex siRNA targets because they have a long half-life; therefore, we introduced 2′-O-methyl modifications into nuclease-sensitive sites. This led to 90-95% silencing efficiency and prolonged silencing, eliminating the need for multiple transfections. Furthermore, we showed that in the absence of transfection reagent, siRNAs with lipophilic residues were able to penetrate cells more effectively and decrease the expression of inducible immunoproteasome subunits by 35% after 5 days. These results show that siRNA targeted to inducible immunoproteasome subunits have great potential for the development of novel therapeutics for autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases

Applied software space-frequency processing of graphic information for standardization of printing materials of packaging products

We have proposed a new polarimetric method of Stokes pola-rimetry, which is more informative in terms of representing opti-cally inhomogeneous structures by spatially coherent filtering.Запропоновано новий метод Стокс поляриметрії, який єбільш інформативним у плані представлення оптичнонеоднорідних структур шляхом просторово-когерент-ної фільтрації

Applied Fourier programming for metrological control of printing materials of packaging products

In our manuscript, the materials of analytical substantiation and experimental verification of a new method of digital Fourier processing of polarization images of optically anisotropic polymer layers are presented.Наведено матеріали аналітичного огляду та експериментального застосування нового поляриметричного методу Фур’є алгоритмічної обробки поляризаційних зображень оптично неоднорідних мереж полімерних шарів