295 research outputs found
Information-Theoretic Single-Server PIR in the Shuffle Model
We revisit the problem of private information retrieval (PIR) in the shuffle model, where queries can be made anonymously by multiple clients. We present the first single-server PIR protocol in this model that has sublinear per-client communication and information-theoretic security. Moreover, following one-time preprocessing on the server side, our protocol only requires sublinear per-client computation. Concretely, for every , the protocol has communication and computation costs per (stateless) client, with statistical security, assuming that a size- database is simultaneously accessed by clients. This should be contrasted with the recent breakthrough result of Lin, Mook, and Wichs (STOC 2023) on doubly efficient PIR in the standard model, which is (inherently) limited to computational security
Rapid generation of endogenously driven transcriptional reporters in cells through CRISPR/Cas9
CRISPR/Cas9 technologies have been employed for genome editing to achieve gene knockouts and knock-ins in somatic cells. Similarly, certain endogenous genes have been tagged with fluorescent proteins. Often, the detection of tagged proteins requires high expression and sophisticated tools such as confocal microscopy and flow cytometry. Therefore, a simple, sensitive and robust transcriptional reporter system driven by endogenous promoter for studies into transcriptional regulation is desirable. We report a CRISPR/Cas9-based methodology for rapidly integrating a firefly luciferase gene in somatic cells under the control of endogenous promoter, using the TGFβ-responsive gene PAI-1. Our strategy employed a polycistronic cassette containing a non-fused GFP protein to ensure the detection of transgene delivery and rapid isolation of positive clones. We demonstrate that firefly luciferase cDNA can be efficiently delivered downstream of the promoter of the TGFβ-responsive gene PAI-1. Using chemical and genetic regulators of TGFβ signalling, we show that it mimics the transcriptional regulation of endogenous PAI-1 expression. Our unique approach has the potential to expedite studies on transcription of any gene in the context of its native chromatin landscape in somatic cells, allowing for robust high-throughput chemical and genetic screens
Drug allergy
Drug allergy encompasses a spectrum of immunologically-mediated hypersensitivity reactions with varying mechanisms and clinical presentations. This type of adverse drug reaction (ADR) not only affects patient quality of life, but may also lead to delayed treatment, unnecessary investigations, and even mortality. Given the myriad of symptoms associated with the condition, diagnosis is often challenging. Therefore, referral to an allergist experienced in the identification, diagnosis and management of drug allergy is recommended if a drug-induced allergic reaction is suspected. Diagnosis relies on a careful history and physical examination. In some instances, skin testing, graded challenges and induction of drug tolerance procedures may be required
Dissecting the roles of mass and environment quenching in galaxy evolution with EAGLE
We exploit the pioneering cosmological hydrodynamical simulation, EAGLE, to
study how the connection between halo mass (M_halo), stellar mass (M*) and
star-formation rate (SFR) evolves across redshift. Using Principal Component
Analysis we identify the key axes of correlation between these physical
quantities, for the full galaxy sample and split by satellite/central and
low/high halo mass. The first principal component of the z=0 EAGLE galaxy
population is a positive correlation between M_halo, M* and SFR. This component
is particularly dominant for central galaxies in low mass haloes. The second
principal component, most significant in high mass haloes, is a negative
correlation between M_halo and SFR, indicative of environmental quenching. For
galaxies above M*~10^10M_solar, however, the SFR is seen to decouple from the
M_halo-M* correlation; this result is found to be independent of environment,
suggesting that mass quenching effects are also in operation. We find extremely
good agreement between the EAGLE principal components and those of SDSS
galaxies; this lends confidence to our conclusions. Extending our study to
EAGLE galaxies in the range z=0-4, we find that, although the relative numbers
of galaxies in the different subsamples change, their principal components do
not change significantly with redshift. This indicates that the physical
processes that govern the evolution of galaxies within their dark matter haloes
act similarly throughout cosmic time. Finally, we present halo occupation
distribution model fits to EAGLE galaxies and show that one flexible
6-parameter functional form is capable of fitting a wide range of different
mass- and SFR-selected subsamples.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in MNRA
A Model-Based Bayesian Estimation of the Rate of Evolution of VNTR Loci in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Variable numbers of tandem repeats (VNTR) typing is widely used for studying the bacterial cause of tuberculosis. Knowledge of the rate of mutation of VNTR loci facilitates the study of the evolution and epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Previous studies have applied population genetic models to estimate the mutation rate, leading to estimates varying widely from around to per locus per year. Resolving this issue using more detailed models and statistical methods would lead to improved inference in the molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis. Here, we use a model-based approach that incorporates two alternative forms of a stepwise mutation process for VNTR evolution within an epidemiological model of disease transmission. Using this model in a Bayesian framework we estimate the mutation rate of VNTR in M. tuberculosis from four published data sets of VNTR profiles from Albania, Iran, Morocco and Venezuela. In the first variant, the mutation rate increases linearly with respect to repeat numbers (linear model); in the second, the mutation rate is constant across repeat numbers (constant model). We find that under the constant model, the mean mutation rate per locus is (95% CI: ,)and under the linear model, the mean mutation rate per locus per repeat unit is (95% CI: ,). These new estimates represent a high rate of mutation at VNTR loci compared to previous estimates. To compare the two models we use posterior predictive checks to ascertain which of the two models is better able to reproduce the observed data. From this procedure we find that the linear model performs better than the constant model. The general framework we use allows the possibility of extending the analysis to more complex models in the future
On Born approximation in black hole scattering
A massless field propagating on spherically symmetric black hole metrics such
as the Schwarzschild, Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m and Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m-de
Sitter backgrounds is considered. In particular, explicit formulae in terms of
transcendental functions for the scattering of massless scalar particles off
black holes are derived within a Born approximation. It is shown that the
conditions on the existence of the Born integral forbid a straightforward
extraction of the quasi normal modes using the Born approximation for the
scattering amplitude. Such a method has been used in literature. We suggest a
novel, well defined method, to extract the large imaginary part of quasinormal
modes via the Coulomb-like phase shift. Furthermore, we compare the numerically
evaluated exact scattering amplitude with the Born one to find that the
approximation is not very useful for the scattering of massless scalar,
electromagnetic as well as gravitational waves from black holes
Causes and Consequences of Genome Expansion in Fungi
Fungi display a large diversity in genome size and complexity, variation that is often considered to be adaptive. But because nonadaptive processes can also have important consequences on the features of genomes, we investigated the relationship of genetic drift and genome size in the phylum Ascomycota using multiple indicators of genetic drift. We detected a complex relationship between genetic drift and genome size in fungi: genetic drift is associated with genome expansion on broad evolutionary timescales, as hypothesized for other eukaryotes; but within subphyla over smaller timescales, the opposite trend is observed. Moreover, fungi and bacteria display similar patterns of genome degradation that are associated with initial effects of genetic drift. We conclude that changes in genome size within Ascomycota have occurred using two different routes: large-scale genome expansions are catalyzed by increasing drift as predicted by the mutation-hazard model of genome evolution and small-scale modifications in genome size are independent of drift
Chance and necessity in the genome evolution of endosymbiotic bacteria of insects
[EN] An open question in evolutionary biology is how does the selection¿drift balance determine the fates
of biological interactions. We searched for signatures of selection and drift in genomes of five
endosymbiotic bacterial groups known to evolve under strong genetic drift. Although most genes in
endosymbiotic bacteria showed evidence of relaxed purifying selection, many genes in these bacteria
exhibited stronger selective constraints than their orthologs in free-living bacterial relatives.
Remarkably, most of these highly constrained genes had no role in the host¿symbiont interactions
but were involved in either buffering the deleterious consequences of drift or other host-unrelated
functions, suggesting that they have either acquired new roles or their role became more central in
endosymbiotic bacteria. Experimental evolution of Escherichia coli under strong genetic drift
revealed remarkable similarities in the mutational spectrum, genome reduction patterns and gene
losses to endosymbiotic bacteria of insects. Interestingly, the transcriptome of the experimentally
evolved lines showed a generalized deregulation of the genome that affected genes encoding
proteins involved in mutational buffering, regulation and amino acid biosynthesis, patterns identical
to those found in endosymbiotic bacteria. Our results indicate that drift has shaped endosymbiotic
associations through a change in the functional landscape of bacterial genes and that the host had
only a small role in such a shiftThis work was supported by Science Foundation Ireland (12/IP/1637) and grants from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO-FEDER; BFU2012-36346 and BFU2015-66073-P) to MAF. DAP and CT were supported by Juan de la Cierva fellowships from MINECO (references: JCI-2011-11089 and JCA-2012-14056, respectively). DAP is supported by funds from the University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA.Sabater-Muñoz, B.; Toft, C.; Alvarez-Ponce, D.; Fares Riaño, MA. (2017). Chance and necessity in the genome evolution of endosymbiotic bacteria of insects. The ISME Journal. 11(6):1291-1304. https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.18S12911304116Aguilar-Rodriguez J, Sabater-Munoz B, Montagud-Martinez R, Berlanga V, Alvarez-Ponce D, Wagner A et al. (2016). The molecular chaperone DnaK is a source of mutational robustness. Genome Biol Evol 8: 2979–2991.Alvarez-Ponce D, Sabater-Munoz B, Toft C, Ruiz-Gonzalez MX, Fares MA . (2016). 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Global Metabolomic Profiling of Acute Myocarditis Caused by Trypanosoma cruzi Infection
© 2014 Gironès et al. Chagas disease is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi infection, being cardiomyopathy the more frequent manifestation. New chemotherapeutic drugs are needed but there are no good biomarkers for monitoring treatment efficacy. There is growing evidence linking immune response and metabolism in inflammatory processes and specifically in Chagas disease. Thus, some metabolites are able to enhance and/or inhibit the immune response. Metabolite levels found in the host during an ongoing infection could provide valuable information on the pathogenesis and/or identify deregulated metabolic pathway that can be potential candidates for treatment and being potential specific biomarkers of the disease. To gain more insight into those aspects in Chagas disease, we performed an unprecedented metabolomic analysis in heart and plasma of mice infected with T. cruzi. Many metabolic pathways were profoundly affected by T. cruzi infection, such as glucose uptake, sorbitol pathway, fatty acid and phospholipid synthesis that were increased in heart tissue but decreased in plasma. Tricarboxylic acid cycle was decreased in heart tissue and plasma whereas reactive oxygen species production and uric acid formation were also deeply increased in infected hearts suggesting a stressful condition in the heart. While specific metabolites allantoin, kynurenine and p-cresol sulfate, resulting from nucleotide, tryptophan and phenylalanine/tyrosine metabolism, respectively, were increased in heart tissue and also in plasma. These results provide new valuable information on the pathogenesis of acute Chagas disease, unravel several new metabolic pathways susceptible of clinical management and identify metabolites useful as potential specific biomarkers for monitoring treatment and clinical severity in patients.This work was supported by ‘‘Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación’’ (SAF2010-17833); ‘‘Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias’’ (PS09/00538 and PI12/00289); ‘‘Red de Investigación de Centros de Enfermedades Tropicales’’ (RICET RD12/0018/0004); European Union (HEALTH-FE-2008-22303, ChagasEpiNet);‘‘Universidad Autónoma de Madrid’’ and ‘‘Comunidad de Madrid’’ (CC08-UAM/SAL-4440/08); AECID Cooperation with Argentine (A/025417/09 and A/031735/10), Comunidad de Madrid (S-2010/BMD-2332) and ‘‘Fundación Ramón Areces’Peer Reviewe
Advances in nanocatalysts design for biofuels production
The exploitation of nanocatalysts, at the boundary between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, is tracking new efficient ways to produce renewable biofuels in environmentally friendly conditions. Their solid state makes them recyclable, and their nanomateric particle size enables high activities approaching those offered by homogeneous catalysts, as well as novel and unique catalytic behaviors not accessible to solids above the nanometer range. Furthermore, the use of magnetically active materials has led to the development of nanocatalysts easily recoverable through the application of magnetic fields. In this mini-review, latest achievements in the production of advanced biofuels using stable, highly active, cheap and reusable nanocatalysts are described. Specifically, biodiesel and high density fuels have been chosen as major topics of research for the design of catalytic nanomaterials
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