Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) EST and SSR marker development, annotation, and transferability.

Orchardgrass, or cocksfoot [Dactylis glomerata (L.)], has been naturalized on nearly every continent and is a commonly used species for forage and hay production. All major cultivated varieties of orchardgrass are autotetraploid, and few tools or information are available for functional and comparative genetic analyses and improvement of the species. To improve the genetic resources for orchardgrass, we have developed an EST library and SSR markers from salt, drought, and cold stressed tissues. The ESTs were bi-directionally sequenced from clones and combined into 17,373 unigenes. Unigenes were annotated based on putative orthology to genes from rice, Triticeae grasses, other Poaceae, Arabidopsis, and the non-redundant database of the NCBI. Of 1,162 SSR markers developed, approximately 80% showed amplification products across a set of orchardgrass germplasm, and 40% across related Festuca and Lolium species. When orchardgrass subspecies were genotyped using 33 SSR markers their within-accession similarity values ranged from 0.44 to 0.71, with Mediterranean accessions having a higher similarity. The total number of genotyped bands was greater for tetraploid accessions compared to diploid accessions. Clustering analysis indicated grouping of Mediterranean subspecies and central Asian subspecies, while the D. glomerata ssp. aschersoniana was closest related to three cultivated varieties

Colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor blockade prevents fractionated whole-brain irradiation-induced memory deficits

Background: Primary central nervous system (CNS) neoplasms and brain metastases are routinely treated with whole-brain radiation. Long-term survival occurs in many patients, but their quality of life is severely affected by the development of cognitive deficits, and there is no treatment to prevent these adverse effects. Neuroinflammation, associated with activation of brain-resident microglia and infiltrating monocytes, plays a pivotal role in loss of neurological function and has been shown to be associated with acute and long-term effects of brain irradiation. Colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF-1R) signaling is essential for the survival and differentiation of microglia and monocytes. Here, we tested the effects of CSF-1R blockade by PLX5622 on cognitive function in mice treated with three fractions of 3.3 Gy whole-brain irradiation. Methods: Young adult C57BL/6J mice were given three fractions of 3.3 Gy whole-brain irradiation while they were on diet supplemented with PLX5622, and the effects on periphery monocyte accumulation, microglia numbers, and neuronal functions were assessed. Results: The mice developed hippocampal-dependent cognitive deficits at 1 and 3 months after they received fractionated whole-brain irradiation. The impaired cognitive function correlated with increased number of periphery monocyte accumulation in the CNS and decreased dendritic spine density in hippocampal granule neurons. PLX5622 treatment caused temporary reduction of microglia numbers, inhibited monocyte accumulation in the brain, and prevented radiation-induced cognitive deficits. Conclusions: Blockade of CSF-1R by PLX5622 prevents fractionated whole-brain irradiation-induced memory deficits. Therapeutic targeting of CSF-1R may provide a new avenue for protection from radiation-induced memory deficits

Methotrexate promotes platelet apoptosis via JNK-mediated mitochondrial damage: Alleviation by N-acetylcysteine and N-acetylcysteine amide

Thrombocytopenia in methotrexate (MTX)-treated cancer and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients connotes the interference of MTX with platelets. Hence, it seemed appealing to appraise the effect of MTX on platelets. Thereby, the mechanism of action of MTX on platelets was dissected. MTX (10 μM) induced activation of pro-apoptotic proteins Bid, Bax and Bad through JNK phosphorylation leading to Îm dissipation, cytochrome c release and caspase activation, culminating in apoptosis. The use of specific inhibitor for JNK abrogates the MTX-induced activation of pro-apoptotic proteins and downstream events confirming JNK phosphorylation by MTX as a key event. We also demonstrate that platelet mitochondria as prime sources of ROS which plays a central role in MTX-induced apoptosis. Further, MTX induces oxidative stress by altering the levels of ROS and glutathione cycle. In parallel, the clinically approved thiol antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and its derivative N-acetylcysteine amide (NACA) proficiently alleviate MTX-induced platelet apoptosis and oxidative damage. These findings underpin the dearth of research on interference of therapeutic drugs with platelets, despite their importance in human health and disease. Therefore, the use of antioxidants as supplementary therapy seems to be a safe bet in pathologies associated with altered platelet functions. © 2015 Paul et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

A purely algebraic construction of a gauge and renormalization group invariant scalar glueball operator

This paper presents a complete algebraic proof of the renormalizability of the gauge invariant $d=4$ operator $F_{\mu\nu}^2(x)$ to all orders of perturbation theory in pure Yang-Mills gauge theory, whereby working in the Landau gauge. This renormalization is far from being trivial as mixing occurs with other $d=4$ gauge variant operators, which we identify explicitly. We determine the mixing matrix $Z$ to all orders in perturbation theory by using only algebraic arguments and consequently we can uncover a renormalization group invariant by using the anomalous dimension matrix $\Gamma$ derived from $Z$. We also present a future plan for calculating the mass of the lightest scalar glueball with the help of the framework we have set up.Comment: 17 page

Low-Energy Brane-World Effective Actions and Partial Supersymmetry Breaking

As part of a programme for the general study of the low-energy implications of supersymmetry breaking in brane-world scenarios, we study the nonlinear realization of supersymmetry which occurs when breaking N=2 to N=1 supergravity. We consider three explicit realizations of this supersymmetry breaking pattern, which correspond to breaking by one brane, by one antibrane or by two (or more) parallel branes. We derive the minimal field content, the effective action and supersymmetry transformation rules for the resulting N=1 theory perturbatively in powers of kappa = 1/M_{Planck}. We show that the way the massive gravitino and spin-1 fields assemble into N=1 multiplets implies the existence of direct brane-brane contact interactions at order O(kappa). This result is contrary to the O(kappa^2) predicted by the sequestering scenario but in agreement with recent work of Anisimov et al. Our low-energy approach is model independent and is a first step towards determining the low-energy implications of more realistic brane models which completely break all supersymmetries.Comment: Latex, 29 Page

Nonlinear Realization of N=2 Superconformal Symmetry and Brane Effective Actions

Due to the incompatibility of the nonlinear realization of superconformal symmetry and dilatation symmetry with the dilaton as the compensator field, in the present paper it shows an alternative mechanism of spontaneous breaking the N=2 superconformal symmetry to the N=0 case. By using the approach of nonlinear transformations it is found that it leads to a space-filling brane theory with Weyl scale W(1,3) symmetry. The dynamics of the resulting Weyl scale invariant brane, along with that of other Nambu-Goldstone fields, is derived in terms of the building blocks of the vierbein and the covariant derivative from the Maurer-Cartan oneforms. A general coupling of the matter fields localized on the brane world volume to these NG fields is also constructed.Comment: 22 pages, more references and comments are adde

B_c meson rare decays in the light-cone quark model

We investigate the rare decays $B_c \rightarrow D_s(1968) \ell \bar{\ell}$ and $B_c\rightarrow D_s^*(2317) \ell \bar{\ell}$ in the framework of the light-cone quark model (LCQM). The transition form factors are calculated in the space-like region and then analytically continued to the time-like region via exponential parametrization. The branching ratios and longitudinal lepton polarization asymmetries (LPAs) for the two decays are given and compared with each other. The results are helpful to investigating the structure of $B_c$ meson and to testing the unitarity of CKM quark mixing matrix. All these results can be tested in the future experiments at the LHC.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, version accepted for publication in EPJ

Has the evolution of complexity in the amphibian papilla influenced anuran speciation rates?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72375/1/j.1420-9101.2006.01079.x.pd

Measurement of the Nucleon Structure Function F2 in the Nuclear Medium and Evaluation of its Moments

We report on the measurement of inclusive electron scattering off a carbon target performed with CLAS at Jefferson Laboratory. A combination of three different beam energies 1.161, 2.261 and 4.461 GeV allowed us to reach an invariant mass of the final-state hadronic system W~2.4 GeV with four-momentum transfers Q2 ranging from 0.2 to 5 GeV2. These data, together with previous measurements of the inclusive electron scattering off proton and deuteron, which cover a similar continuous two-dimensional region of Q2 and Bjorken variable x, permit the study of nuclear modifications of the nucleon structure. By using these, as well as other world data, we evaluated the F2 structure function and its moments. Using an OPE-based twist expansion, we studied the Q2-evolution of the moments, obtaining a separation of the leading-twist and the total higher-twist terms. The carbon-to-deuteron ratio of the leading-twist contributions to the F2 moments exhibits the well known EMC effect, compatible with that discovered previously in x-space. The total higher-twist term in the carbon nucleus appears, although with large systematic uncertainites, to be smaller with respect to the deuteron case for n<7, suggesting partial parton deconfinement in nuclear matter. We speculate that the spatial extension of the nucleon is changed when it is immersed in the nuclear medium.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figure

Time-integrated luminosity recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e+e- collider

This article is the Preprint version of the final published artcile which can be accessed at the link below.We describe a measurement of the time-integrated luminosity of the data collected by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- collider at the ϒ(4S), ϒ(3S), and ϒ(2S) resonances and in a continuum region below each resonance. We measure the time-integrated luminosity by counting e+e-→e+e- and (for the ϒ(4S) only) e+e-→μ+μ- candidate events, allowing additional photons in the final state. We use data-corrected simulation to determine the cross-sections and reconstruction efficiencies for these processes, as well as the major backgrounds. Due to the large cross-sections of e+e-→e+e- and e+e-→μ+μ-, the statistical uncertainties of the measurement are substantially smaller than the systematic uncertainties. The dominant systematic uncertainties are due to observed differences between data and simulation, as well as uncertainties on the cross-sections. For data collected on the ϒ(3S) and ϒ(2S) resonances, an additional uncertainty arises due to ϒ→e+e-X background. For data collected off the ϒ resonances, we estimate an additional uncertainty due to time dependent efficiency variations, which can affect the short off-resonance runs. The relative uncertainties on the luminosities of the on-resonance (off-resonance) samples are 0.43% (0.43%) for the ϒ(4S), 0.58% (0.72%) for the ϒ(3S), and 0.68% (0.88%) for the ϒ(2S).This work is supported by the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physiquedes Particules (France), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (The Netherlands), the Research Council of Norway, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie IEF program (European Union) and the A.P. Sloan Foundation (USA)