220 research outputs found

    Emergence of stationary multimodality under two-timescaled dichotomic noise

    Get PDF
    We study a linear Langevin dynamics driven by an additive non-Markovian symmetrical dichotomic noise. It is shown that when the statistics of the time intervals between noise transitions is characterized by two well differentiated timescales, the stationary distribution may develop multimodality (bi- and trimodality). The underlying effects that lead to a probability concentration in different points include intermittence and also a dynamical locking of realizations. Our results are supported by numerical simulations as well as by an exact treatment obtained from a Markovian embedding of the full dynamics, which leads to a third-order differential equation for the stationary distribution.Fil: Budini, Adrian Adolfo. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; ArgentinaFil: Mc Hardy, Isaias. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Nizama Mendoza, Marco Alfredo. Universidad Nacional del Comahue; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; ArgentinaFil: Caceres Garcia Faure, Manuel Osvaldo. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentin

    Soft situational strategic planning (SSSP): a method and case study of its application in a Brazilian municipality

    Get PDF
    Municipal government planning is challenging in the extreme being characterised by ill-structured and messy problems, the complexity of which is compounded by often conflicting views and priorities of multiple stakeholders. In South America, Situational Strategic Planning (SSP) is a wide spread method of such planning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a proposed multi-methodological approach, Soft Situational Strategic Planning (SSSP) in a South American municipal government. SSSP is a variant of SSP enhanced with elements of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) and Strategic Choice Approach (SCA). Through an action research case study in a Brazilian municipality, we implemented SSSP through a strategic planning cycle. The findings suggest that SSSP complement the SSP process regarding the implementation and monitoring of strategy. The application also indicated that SSSP has the potential to make government planning processes more structured for policy makers

    Development of Parkinsonism following exposure to aripiprazole: two case reports

    Get PDF
    which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction: Aripiprazole is a novel atypical neuroleptic used in the treatment of psychosis. A few recent studies have demonstrated an association between the use of aripiprazole and an exacerbation of Parkinsonism, although this relationship is poorly defined. To our knowledge, this is the first case series describing an onset of Parkinsonism in patients without prior history of Parkinson’s diseas

    A Conceptual Framework Based on Maturana’s Ontology of the Observer to Explore the Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology

    Get PDF
    © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. This paper explores Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) through the lenses of a theoretical framework that incorporates key concepts from Maturana’s Ontology of the Observer (OoO) with the view of complementing Checkland’s SSM application process. We outline and examine paradigmatic compatibility between: Checkland’s ontological position (reality is problematic/chaotic) together with his interpretivist epistemology (multiple perceptions enrich the ever-changing reality); and Maturana’s OoO (we are immersed in the praxis of living in an ontological multi-universe). We argue that OoO resonates with key SSM theoretical underpinnings. After establishing compatibility between these two influential systems thinkers, we advance a conceptual framework in which Checkland’s SSM learning process is re-visited through a the framework grounded on Maturana’s OoO. The proposed framework illustrates how key ideas drawn from Maturana’s OoO can shed light into the way in which some of the main SSM devices (i.e.: Root definitions, Conceptual model) are used in the SSM process. By doing that, SSM is enriched and becomes more flexible as the stakeholders involved are placed within the domain of constitutive ontologies from which, a deeper dialogue can be promoted in a domain of coexistence in mutual acceptance. We argue that this is a suitable way to have more flexible and holistic views for a SSM intervention in particular to promote the learning process and debating proposed changes amongst the stakeholders involved. The proposed framework, when applied, may enhance the power of SSM learning process and when adopted can have substantial implications to complement the SSM process

    Conserved YKL-40 changes in mice and humans after postoperative delirium

    Get PDF
    Delirium is a common postoperative neurologic complication among older adults. Despite its prevalence (14%–50%) and likely association with inflammation, the exact mechanisms that underpin postoperative delirium are unclear. This project aimed to characterize systemic and central nervous system (CNS) inflammatory changes following surgery in mice and humans. Matched plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from the “Investigating Neuroinflammation Underlying Postoperative Brain Connectivity Changes, Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction, Delirium in Older Adults” (INTUIT; NCT03273335) study were compared to murine endpoints. Delirium-like behavior was evaluated in aged mice using the 5-Choice Serial Reaction Time Test (5-CSRTT). Using a well established orthopedic surgical model in the FosTRAP reporter mouse we detected neuronal changes in the prefrontal cortex, an area implicated in attention, but notably not in the hippocampus. In aged mice, plasma interleukin-6 (IL-6), chitinase-3-like protein 1 (YKL-40), and neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels increased after orthopedic surgery, but hippocampal YKL-40 expression was decreased. Given the growing evidence for a YKL-40 role in delirium and other neurodegenerative conditions, we assayed human plasma and CSF samples. Plasma YKL-40 levels were similarly increased after surgery, with a trend toward a greater postoperative plasma YKL-40 increase in patients with delirium. However, YKL-40 levels in CSF decreased following surgery, which paralleled the findings in the mouse brain. Finally, we confirmed changes in the blood-brain barrier (BBB) as early as 9 h after surgery in mice, which warrants more detailed and acute evaluations of BBB integrity following surgery in humans. Together, these results provide a nuanced understanding of neuroimmune interactions underlying postoperative delirium in mice and humans, and highlight translational biomarkers to test potential cellular targets and mechanisms

    Exploring the potential of phone call data to characterize the relationship between social network and travel behavior

    Full text link
    [EN] Social network contacts have significant influence on individual travel behavior. However, transport models rarely consider social interaction. One of the reasons is the difficulty to properly model social influence based on the limited data available. Non-conventional, passively collected data sources, such as Twitter, Facebook or mobile phones, provide large amounts of data containing both social interaction and spatiotemporal information. The analysis of such data opens an opportunity to better understand the influence of social networks on travel behavior. The main objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between travel behavior and social networks using mobile phone data. A huge dataset containing billions of registers has been used for this study. The paper analyzes the nature of co-location events and frequent locations shared by social network contacts, aiming not only to provide understanding on why users share certain locations, but also to quantify the degree in which the different types of locations are shared. Locations have been classified as frequent (home, work and other) and non-frequent. A novel approach to identify co-location events based on the intersection of users' mobility models has been proposed. Results show that other locations different from home and work are frequently associated to social interaction. Additionally, the importance of non-frequent locations in co-location events is shown. Finally, the potential application of the data analysis results to improve activity-based transport models and assess transport policies is discussed.The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no 318367 (EUNOIA project) and no 611307 (INSIGHT project). The work of ML has been funded under the PD/004/2013 project, from the Conselleria de Educacion, Cultura y Universidades of the Government of the Balearic Islands and from the European Social Fund through the Balearic Islands ESF operational program for 2013-2017.Picornell Tronch, M.; Ruiz Sánchez, T.; Lenormand, M.; Ramasco, JJ.; Dubernet, T.; Frías-Martínez, E. (2015). Exploring the potential of phone call data to characterize the relationship between social network and travel behavior. Transportation. 42(4):647-668. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-015-9594-1S647668424Ahas, R., Aasa, A., Silm, S., Tiru, M.: Daily rhythms of suburban commuters’ movements in the tallinn metropolitan area: case study with mobile positioning data. Transp. Res. Part C 18, 45–54 (2010)Arentze, T.,Timmermans, H. J.: social networks, social interactions and activity-travel behavior: a framework for micro-simulation. Paper presented at the 85th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D. C., Jan 2006 (2006)Arentze, T., Timmermans, H.: Social networks, social interactions, and activity-travel behavior: a framework for microsimulation. Environ. Plan. 35, 1012–1027 (2008)Axhausen, K.W.: Social networks and travel: some hypotheses. In: Donaghy, K.P., Poppelreuter, S., Rudinger, G. (eds.) Social Aspects of Sustainable Transport: Transatlantic Perspectives, pp. 90–108. Ashgate, Aldershot (2005)Bagrow, J.P., Lin, Y.-R.: Mesoscopic structure and social aspects of human mobility. PLoS One 7(5), 1–11 (2012)Bar-Gera, H.: Evaluation of a cellular phone-based system for measurements of traffic speeds and travel times: a case study from israel. Transp. Res. Part C 15(2007), 380–391 (2007)Becker, R.A., Cáceres, R., Hanson, K., Loh, J.M., Urbanek, S., Varshavsky, A., Volinsky, C.: A tale of one city: using cellular network data for urban planning. Pervasive Comput. IEEE 10(4), 18–26 (2011)Brockmann, D., Hufnagel, L., Geisel, T.: The scaling laws of human travel. Nature 439, 462 (2006)Caceres, N., Wideberg, J.P., Benitez, F.G.: Deriving origin–destination data from a mobile phone network. IET Intell. Transp. Syst. 1(1), 5–26 (2007)Caceres, N., Wideberg, J.P., Benitez, F.G.: Review of traffic data estimations extracted from cellular networks. IET Intell. Transp. Syst. 2(3), 179–192 (2008)Caceres, N., Romero, L.M., Benitez, F.G., Castillo, J.M.D.: Traffic flow estimation models using cellular phone data. IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst. 13(3), 1430–1441 (2012)Calabrese, F., Pereira, F. C., Lorenzo, G. D., Liu, L., Ratti, C.: The geography of taste: analyzing cell-phone mobility and social events. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing (2010)Calabrese, F., Smoreda, Z., Blondel, V.D., Ratti, C.: Interplay between telecommunications and face-to-face interactions: a study using mobile phone data. PLoS One 6(7), e20814 (2011a). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020814Calabrese, F., Lorenzo, G.D., Liu, L., Ratti, C.: Estimating origin-destination flows using mobile phone location data. Pervasive Comput. IEEE 10(4), 36–44 (2011b)Carrasco, J.A., Miller, E.J.: Exploring the propensity to perform social activities: social networks approach. Transportation 33, 463–480 (2006)Carrasco, J.A., Hogan, B., Wellman, B., Miller, E.J.: Collecting social network data to study social activity-travel behaviour: an egocentric approach. Environ. Plan. B 35(6), 961–980 (2008a)Carrasco, J.A., Hogan B., Wellman B., Miller E. J.: Agency in social activity and ICT interactions: The role of social networks in time and space, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie (J. Eco. Soc. Geogr.), 99(5), 562–583 (2008b)Carrasco, J.A., Miller, E.J., Wellman, B.: How far and with whom do people socialize? Empirical evidence about the distance between social network members. Transp. Res. Rec. 2076, 114–122 (2008b)Carrasco, J.A., Miller, E.J.: The social dimension in action: a multilevel, personal networks model of social activity frequency. Transp. Res. Part A 43(1), 90–104 (2009)Chen, C., Mei, Y.: Does distance still matter in facilitating social ties? The roles of mobility patterns and the built environment. Presented at 93rd TRB annual meeting (2014)Cho E., Myers S.A., Leskovek J.: Friendship and mobility: user movement in location-based social networks. In: KDD ‘11 Proceedings of the 17th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 1082–1090 (2011)Clifton, K.J.: The social context of travel behavior. In: Zmud, J., et al. (eds.) Transport Survey Methods: Best Practice for Decision Making, pp. 441–448. Emerald Press, London (2013)Do T., Gatica-Perez D.: Contextual conditional models for smartphone-based human mobility prediction. In: Proceedings ACM International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, Pittsburgh, Sept (2012)Doyle, J., Hung, P., Kelly, D., Mcloone, S., Farrell, R.: Utilising mobile phone billing records for travel mode discovery. ISSC 2011, Trinity College Dublin, June (2011)Dubernet, T., Axhausen K. W.: Solution concepts for the simulation of household-level joint descision making in multi-agent travel simulation tools, paper presented at the 14th Swiss Transport Research Conference (STRC), Ascona (2014)Dugundji, E., Walker, J.: Discrete choice with social and spatial network interdependencies: an empirical example using mixed GEV models with field and “panel” effects. Transp. Res. Rec. 1921, 70–78 (2005)Eagle, N., Pentland, A., Lazer, D.: Inferring social network structure using mobile phone data. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (PNAS) 106(36), 15274–15278 (2009)González, M.C., Hidalgo, C.A., Barabási, A.-L.: Understanding individual human mobility patterns. Nature 453(2008), 779–782 (2008)Gould, J.: Cell phone enabled travel surveys: the medium moves the message. In: Zmud, J., et al. (eds.) Transport Survey Methods: Best Practice for Decision Making, pp. 51–70. Emerald Press, Bingley (2013)Habib, K.N., Carrasco, J.A.: Investigating the role of social networks in start time and duration of activities: a trivariate simultaneous econometric model. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2230, 1–8 (2011)Hackney, Jeremy K., Kay W. Axhausen: An agent model of social network and travel behavior interdependence. Paper presented at the 11th international conference on Travel Behaviour Research, Kyoto, Aug (2006)Hackney, J., Marchal, F.: A model for coupling multi-agent social interactions and traffic simulation, in: TRB 2009 annual meeting (2009)Hackney, J., Marchal, F.: A coupled multi-agent microsimulation of social interactions and transportation behavior. Transp. Res. Part A 45, 296–309 (2011)Horni, A.: Destination choice modeling of discretionary activities in transport microsimulations, Ph.D. Thesis, ETH Zurich, Zurich (2013)Isaacman, S.,Becker, R., Caceres, R., Kobourov, S., Martonosi, M., Rowland, J., Varshavsky, A.: Identifying important places in people’s lives from cellular network data. In: Procedings International Conference on Pervasive Computing, San Francisco, June (2011)Lane, N.D., Miluzzo, E., Lu, H., Peebles, D., Choudhury, T., Campbell, A.T.: A survey of mobile phone sensing. Commun. Mag. IEEE 48(9), 140–150 (2010)Lazer, D., Pentland, A., Adamic, L., Aral, S., Barabasi, A.-L., Brewer, D., Christakis, N., Contractor, N., Fowler, J., Gutmann, M., Jebara, T., King, G., Macy, M., Roy, D., Van Alstyne, M.: Computational Social Science. Science 323, 721 (2009)Ma, H., Ronald, N., Arentze, T.A., Timmermans, H.J.P.: New credit mechanism for semicooperative agent-mediated joint activity-travel scheduling. Transp. Res. Rec. 2230, 104–110 (2011)Ma, H., Arentze, T. A., Timmermans, H. J. P.: Incorporating selfishness and altruism into dynamic joint activity-travel scheduling. Paper presented at the 13th international conference on Travel Behaviour Research (IATBR), Toronto, July (2012)Marchal, F., Nagel, K.: Allowed cooperative agents in a microsimulation to share information with each other about activity locations and about other agents, in order to optimize trip chains (2006)Molin, E.J.E., Arentze, T.A., Timmermans, H.J.P.: Social activities and travel demands : a model-based analysis of social-network data. Transp. Res. Rec. 2082, 168–175 (2007)Moore, J., Carrasco, J.A., Tudela, A.: Exploring the links between personal networks, time use, and the spatial distribution of social contacts. Transportation 40(4), 773–788 (2013)Onnela, J.-P., Saramaki, J., Hyvonen, J., Szabo, G., Lazer, D., et al.: Structure and tie strengths in mobile communication networks. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104, 7332–7336 (2007)Páez, A., Scott, D.M.: Social influence on travel behavior: a simulation example of the decision to telecommute. Environ. Plan. A 39(3), 647–665 (2007)Phithakkitnukoon, S., Calabrese, F., Smoreda, Z., Ratti, C.: Out of sight out of mind: how our mobile social network changes during migration. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Social Computing, pp. 515–520. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2011)Phithakkitnukoon, S., Smoreda, Z., Olivier, P.: Socio-geography of human mobility: a study using longitudinal mobile phone data. PLoS One 7(6), e39253 (2012). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039253Ronald, N.A., Arentze, T.A., Timmermans, H.J.P.: Modeling social interactions between individuals for joint activity scheduling. Transp. Res. Part B 46, 276–290 (2012a)Ronald, N.A., Dignum, V., Jonker, C., Arentze, T.A., Timmermans, H.J.P.: On the engineering of agent-based simulations of social activities with social networks. Inf. Softw. Technol. 54(6), 625–638 (2012b)Rose, G.: Mobile phones as traffic probes: practices, prospects and issues. Transp. Rev. 26(3), 275–291 (2006)Sharmeen, F., Arentze, T., Timmermans, H.: A multilevel path analysis of social network dynamics and the mutual interdependencies between face-to-face and ICT modes of social interaction in the context of life-cycle events. In: Roorda, M.J., Miller, E.J. (eds.) Travel Behaviour Research: Current Foundations, Future Prospects, pp. 411–432. Lulu Press, Toronto (2013)Sharmeen, F., Arentze, T.A., Timmermans, H.J.P.: Dynamics of face-to-face social interaction frequency: role of accessibility, urbanization, changes in geographical distance and path dependence. J. Transp. Geogr. 34, 211–220 (2014)Silm, S., Ahas, R.: The seasonal variability of population in estonian municipalities. Environ. Plan. A 42, 2527–2546 (2010)Silvis, J., Niemeier, D., D’Souza, R.: Social networks and travel behavior: report from an integrated travel diary. Paper presented at the 11th international conference on Travel Behaviour Research, Kyoto, Aug (2006)Sobolevsky, S., Szell, M., Campari, R., Couronné, T., Smoreda, Z., et al.: Delineating geographical regions with networks of human interactions in an extensive set of countries. PLoS One 8(12), e81707 (2013)Sohn, K., Kim, D.: Dynamic origin–destination flow estimation using cellular communication system. IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol. 57(5), 2703–2713 (2008)Song, C., Koren, T., Wang, P., Barabási, A.-L.: Modelling the scaling properties of human mobility. Nat. Phys. 6(2010), 818–823 (2010a)Song, C., Qu, Z., Blumm, N., Barabási, L.-L.: Limits of predictability in human mobility. Science 327(5968), 1018–1021 (2010b)Steenbruggen, J., Borzacchiello, M.T., Nijkamp, P., Scholten, H.: Mobile phone data from gsm networks for traffic parameter and urban spatial pattern assessment: A review of applications and opportunities. GeoJournal 78, 223–243 (2011). doi: 10.1007/s10708-011-9413-yVan den Berg, P., Arentze, T., Timmermans, H.J.P.: A path analysis of social networks, telecommunication and social activity–travel patterns. Transp. Res. Part C 26(2013), 256–268 (2013)Wang, H., Calabrese, F., Lorenzo, G. D., Ratti, C.: Transportation mode inference from anonymized and aggregated mobile phone call detail records. In: 13th international IEEE annual conference on intelligent transportation systems, 318–323 (2010)White, J. and Wells, I.: Extracting origin destination information from mobile phone data. Road transport information and Control, 19–21 Mar (2002)Yim, Y.: The state of cellular probes. California PATH Working Paper, UCB-ITS-PRR-2003-25 (2003)Ythier, J., Walker, J.L., Bierlaire, M.: The influence of social contacts and communication use on travel behavior: a smartphone-based study. In: Transportation Research Board annual meeting (2013

    Determining a cost effective intervention response to HIV/AIDS in Peru

    Get PDF
    BACKGROUND: The HIV epidemic in Peru is still regarded as concentrated -- sentinel surveillance data shows greatest rates of infection in men who have sex with men, while much lower rates are found in female sex workers and still lower in the general population. Without an appropriate set of preventive interventions, continuing infections could present a challenge to the sustainability of the present programme of universal access to treatment. Determining how specific prevention and care strategies would impact on the health of Peruvians should be key in reshaping the national response. METHODS: HIV/AIDS prevalence levels for risk groups with sufficient sentinel survey data were estimated. Unit costs were calculated for a series of interventions against HIV/AIDS which were subsequently inputted into a model to assess their ability to reduce infection transmission rates. Interventions included: mass media, voluntary counselling and testing; peer counselling for female sex workers; peer counselling for men who have sex with men; peer education of youth in-school; condom provision; STI treatment; prevention of mother to child transmission; and highly active antiretroviral therapy. Impact was assessed by the ability to reduce rates of transmission and quantified in terms of cost per DALY averted. RESULTS: Results of the analysis show that in Peru, the highest levels of HIV prevalence are found in men who have sex with men. Cost effectiveness varied greatly between interventions ranging from peer education of female commercial sex workers at US55uptoUS 55 up to US 5,928 (per DALY averted) for prevention of mother to child transmission. CONCLUSION: The results of this work add evidence-based clarity as to which interventions warrant greatest consideration when planning an intervention response to HIV in Peru. Cost effectiveness analysis provides a necessary element of transparency when facing choices about priority setting, particularly when the country plans to amplify its response through new interventions partly funded by the GFATM

    Re-localization of Cellular Protein SRp20 during Poliovirus Infection: Bridging a Viral IRES to the Host Cell Translation Apparatus

    Get PDF
    Poliovirus IRES-mediated translation requires the functions of certain canonical as well as non-canonical factors for the recruitment of ribosomes to the viral RNA. The interaction of cellular proteins PCBP2 and SRp20 in extracts from poliovirus-infected cells has been previously described, and these two proteins were shown to function synergistically in viral translation. To further define the mechanism of ribosome recruitment for the initiation of poliovirus IRES-dependent translation, we focused on the role of the interaction between cellular proteins PCBP2 and SRp20. Work described here demonstrates that SRp20 dramatically re-localizes from the nucleus to the cytoplasm of poliovirus-infected neuroblastoma cells during the course of infection. Importantly, SRp20 partially co-localizes with PCBP2 in the cytoplasm of infected cells, corroborating our previous in vitro interaction data. In addition, the data presented implicate the presence of these two proteins in viral translation initiation complexes. We show that in extracts from poliovirus-infected cells, SRp20 is associated with PCBP2 bound to poliovirus RNA, indicating that this interaction occurs on the viral RNA. Finally, we generated a mutated version of SRp20 lacking the RNA recognition motif (SRp20ΔRRM) and found that this protein is localized similar to the full length SRp20, and also partially co-localizes with PCBP2 during poliovirus infection. Expression of this mutated version of SRp20 results in a ∼100 fold decrease in virus yield for poliovirus when compared to expression of wild type SRp20, possibly via a dominant negative effect. Taken together, these results are consistent with a model in which SRp20 interacts with PCBP2 bound to the viral RNA, and this interaction functions to recruit ribosomes to the viral RNA in a direct or indirect manner, with the participation of additional protein-protein or protein-RNA interactions

    Resveratrol, by Modulating RNA Processing Factor Levels, Can Influence the Alternative Splicing of Pre-mRNAs

    Get PDF
    Alternative pre-mRNA splicing defects can contribute to, or result from, various diseases, including cancer. Aberrant mRNAs, splicing factors and other RNA processing factors have therefore become targets for new therapeutic interventions. Here we report that the natural polyphenol resveratrol can modulate alternative splicing in a target-specific manner. We transfected minigenes of several alternatively spliceable primary mRNAs into HEK293 cells in the presence or absence of 1, 5, 20 and 50 µM resveratrol and measured exon levels by semi-quantitative PCR after separation by agarose gel electrophoresis. We found that 20 µg/ml and 50 µg/ml of resveratrol affected exon inclusion of SRp20 and SMN2 pre-mRNAs, but not CD44v5 or tau pre-mRNAs. By Western blotting and immunofluorescence we showed that this effect may be due to the ability of resveratrol to change the protein level but not the localization of several RNA processing factors. The processing factors that increased significantly were ASF/SF2, hnRNPA1 and HuR, but resveratrol did not change the levels of RBM4, PTBP1 and U2AF35. By means of siRNA-mediated knockdown we depleted cells of SIRT1, regarded as a major target of resveratrol, and showed that the effect on splicing was not dependent on SIRT1. Our results suggest that resveratrol might be an attractive small molecule to treat diseases in which aberrant splicing has been implicated, and justify more extensive research on the effects of resveratrol on the splicing machinery
    corecore