4,865 research outputs found
Functional Evolution of a cis-Regulatory Module
Lack of knowledge about how regulatory regions evolve in relation to their structure–function may limit the utility of comparative sequence analysis in deciphering cis-regulatory sequences. To address this we applied reverse genetics to carry out a functional genetic complementation analysis of a eukaryotic cis-regulatory module—the even-skipped stripe 2 enhancer—from four Drosophila species. The evolution of this enhancer is non-clock-like, with important functional differences between closely related species and functional convergence between distantly related species. Functional divergence is attributable to differences in activation levels rather than spatiotemporal control of gene expression. Our findings have implications for understanding enhancer structure–function, mechanisms of speciation and computational identification of regulatory modules
A Finite Element Test Bed for Diffraction Tomography
Finite element analysis methods have been successfully applied to the study of ultrasonic wave propagation in elastic solids [1–4]. As a natural part of such numerical solutions. displacements are predicted for every node of the spatial discretization describing the solids geometry and at every instant of time in the temporal discretization used to define the pulse propagation through the material. All of the data constitute a solution to the forward problem and can be used to visualize wavefront propagation and interactions with defects, thus predicting displacement signals at any point in or on the solid
Characterization of the monocyte-specific esterase (MSE) gene
Carboxylic esterases are widely distributed in hematopoietic cells. Monocytes express the esterase isoenzyme (termed 'monocyte-specific esterase', MSE) that can be inhibited by NaF in the alpha-naphthyl acetate cytochemical staining. We examined the expression of MSE in normal cells and primary and cultured leukemia-lymphoma cells. The MSE protein was demonstrated by isoelectric focusing (IEF); MSE mRNA expression was investigated by Northern blotting and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The following samples were positive for MSE protein and Northern mRNA expression: 20/24 monocytic, 4/32 myeloid, and 1/20 erythroid-megakaryocytic leukemia cell lines, but none of the 112 lymphoid leukemia or lymphoma cell lines; of the normal purified cell populations only the monocytes were positive whereas, T, B cells, and granulocytes were negative; of primary acute (myelo) monocytic leukemia cells (CD14-positive, FAB M4/M5 morphology) 14/20 were Northern mRNA and 11/14 IEF protein positive. RT-PCR revealed MSE expression in 29/49 Northern-negative lymphoid leukemia-lymphoma cell lines. The RT-PCR signals in monocytic cell lines were on average 50-fold stronger than the mostly weak trace expression in lymphoid specimens. On treatment with various biomodulators, only all-trans retinoic acid significantly upregulated MSE message and protein levels but could not induce new MSE expression in several leukemia cell lines; lipopolysaccharide and interferon-gamma increased MSE expression in normal monocytes. Analysis of DNA methylation with sensitive restriction enzymes showed no apparent regulation of gene expression by differential methylation; the MSE gene is evolutionarily conserved among mammalian species; the half-life of the human MSE transcripts was about 5-6 h. The extent of MSE expression varied greatly among different monocytic leukemia samples. However, the MSE overexpression in a significant number of specimens was not associated with gene amplification, gross structural rearrangements or point mutations within the cDNA region. Taken together, the results suggest that MSE expression is not absolutely specific for, but strongly associated with cells of the monocytic lineage; MSE is either not expressed at all or expressed at much lower levels in cells from other lineages. The biological significance, if any, of rare MSE messages in lymphoid cells detectable only by the hypersensitive RT-PCR remains unclear. Further studies on the regulation of this gene and on the physiological function of the enzyme will no doubt be informative with respect to its striking overexpression in some malignant cells and to a possible role in the pathobiology of monocytic leukemias
On osp(2|2) conformal field theories
We study the conformal field theories corresponding to current superalgebras
and . We construct the free field
realizations, screen currents and primary fields of these current superalgebras
at general level . All the results for are new, and the
results for the primary fields of also seem to be new. Our
results are expected to be useful in the supersymmetric approach to Gaussian
disordered systems such as random bond Ising model and Dirac model.Comment: LaTex file 20 pages; Title changed and modifications mad
On the Wake Structure in Streaming Complex Plasmas
The theoretical description of complex (dusty) plasmas requires multiscale
concepts that adequately incorporate the correlated interplay of streaming
electrons and ions, neutrals, and dust grains. Knowing the effective dust-dust
interaction, the multiscale problem can be effectively reduced to a
one-component plasma model of the dust subsystem. The goal of the present
publication is a systematic evaluation of the electrostatic potential
distribution around a dust grain in the presence of a streaming plasma
environment by means of two complementary approaches: (i) a high precision
computation of the dynamically screened Coulomb potential from the dynamic
dielectric function, and (ii) full 3D particle-in-cell simulations, which
self-consistently include dynamical grain charging and non-linear effects. The
applicability of these two approaches is addressed
The Effect of Focusing and Caustics on Exit Phenomena in Systems Lacking Detailed Balance
We study the trajectories followed by a particle subjected to weak noise when
escaping from the domain of attraction of a stable fixed point. If detailed
balance is absent, a _focus_ may occur along the most probable exit path,
leading to a breakdown of symmetry (if present). The exit trajectory
bifurcates, and the exit location distribution may become `skewed'
(non-Gaussian). The weak-noise asymptotics of the mean escape time are strongly
affected. Our methods extend to the study of skewed exit location distributions
in stochastic models without symmetry.Comment: REVTEX macros (latest version). Two accompanying PS figures, one of
which is large (over 600K unpacked
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Functional Evolution of a <i>cis-</i>Regulatory Module
Lack of knowledge about how regulatory regions evolve in relation to their structure–function may limit the utility of comparative sequence analysis in deciphering cis-regulatory sequences. To address this we applied reverse genetics to carry out a functional genetic complementation analysis of a eukaryotic cis-regulatory module—the even-skipped stripe 2 enhancer—from four Drosophila species. The evolution of this enhancer is non-clock-like, with important functional differences between closely related species and functional convergence between distantly related species. Functional divergence is attributable to differences in activation levels rather than spatiotemporal control of gene expression. Our findings have implications for understanding enhancer structure–function, mechanisms of speciation and computational identification of regulatory modules.</p
Social creatures: model animal systems for studying the neuroendocrine mechanisms of social behaviour
Work was supported by grants awarded to ML (BBSRC BB/S000224/1), OJB (BO 1958/8-2, GRK 2174), KEB (Wellcome Trust 109614/Z/15/Z, MRC MR/N004574/1), AJ (BBSRC BB/S000801) and GL (Israel Science Foundation #1511/16; United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation #2017325; Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases, Richard F. Goodman Yale/Weizmann Exchange Program and Estate of Emile Mimran).The interaction of animals with conspecifics, termed social behaviour, has a major impact on the survival of many vertebrate species. Neuropeptide hormones modulate the underlying physiology that governs social interactions, and many findings concerning the neuroendocrine mechanisms of social behaviours have been extrapolated from animal models to humans. Neurones expressing neuropeptides show similar distribution patterns within the hypothalamic nucleus, even when evolutionarily distant species are compared. During evolution, hypothalamic neuropeptides and releasing hormones have retained not only their structures, but also their biological functions, including their effects on behaviour. Here, we review the current understanding of the mechanisms of social behaviours in several classes of animals, such as worms, insects and fish, as well as laboratory, wild and domesticated mammals.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Resonant tunneling and the multichannel Kondo problem: the quantum Brownian motion description
We study mesoscopic resonant tunneling as well as multichannel Kondo problems
by mapping them to a first-quantized quantum mechanical model of a particle
moving in a multi-dimensional periodic potential with Ohmic dissipation. From a
renormalization group analysis, we obtain phase diagrams of the quantum
Brownian motion model with various lattice symmetries. For a symmorphic
lattice, there are two phases at T=0: a localized phase in which the particle
is trapped in a potential minimum, and a free phase in which the particle is
unaffected by the periodic potential. For a non-symmorphic lattice, however,
there may be an additional intermediate phase in which the particle is neither
localized nor completely free. The fixed point governing the intermediate phase
is shown to be identical to the well-known multichannel Kondo fixed point in
the Toulouse limit as well as the resonance fixed point of a quantum dot model
and a double-barrier Luttinger liquid model. The mapping allows us to compute
the fixed-poing mobility of the quantum Brownian motion model exactly,
using known conformal-field-theory results of the Kondo problem. From the
mobility, we find that the peak value of the conductance resonance of a
spin-1/2 quantum dot problem is given by . The scaling form of the
resonance line shape is predicted
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