The proteome of neural stem cells from adult rat hippocampus

BACKGROUND: Hippocampal neural stem cells (HNSC) play an important role in cerebral plasticity in the adult brain and may contribute to tissue repair in neurological disease. To describe their biological potential with regard to plasticity, proliferation, or differentiation, it is important to know the cellular composition of their proteins, subsumed by the term proteome. RESULTS: Here, we present for the first time a proteomic database for HNSC isolated from the brains of adult rats and cultured for 10 weeks. Cytosolic proteins were extracted and subjected to two-dimensional gel electrophoresis followed by protein identification through mass spectrometry, database search, and gel matching. We could map about 1141 ± 209 (N = 5) protein spots for each gel, of which 266 could be identified. We could group the identified proteins into several functional categories including metabolism, protein folding, energy metabolism and cellular respiration, as well as cytoskeleton, Ca(2+ )signaling pathways, cell cycle regulation, proteasome and protein degradation. We also found proteins belonging to detoxification, neurotransmitter metabolism, intracellular signaling pathways, and regulation of DNA transcription and RNA processing. CONCLUSIONS: The HNSC proteome database is a useful inventory which will allow to specify changes in the cellular protein expression pattern due to specific activated or suppressed pathways during differentiation or proliferation of neural stem cells. Several proteins could be identified in the HNSC proteome which are related to differentiation and plasticity, indicating activated functional pathways. Moreover, we found a protein for which no expression has been described in brain cells before

Recent Advances in Nanotechnology Applied to Biosensors

In recent years there has been great progress the application of nanomaterials in biosensors. The importance of these to the fundamental development of biosensors has been recognized. In particular, nanomaterials such as gold nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, magnetic nanoparticles and quantum dots have been being actively investigated for their applications in biosensors, which have become a new interdisciplinary frontier between biological detection and material science. Here we review some of the main advances in this field over the past few years, explore the application prospects, and discuss the issues, approaches, and challenges, with the aim of stimulating a broader interest in developing nanomaterial-based biosensors and improving their applications in disease diagnosis and food safety examination

Comparison of evolutionary algorithms in gene regulatory network model inference

Background: The evolution of high throughput technologies that measure gene expression levels has created a data base for inferring GRNs (a process also known as reverse engineering of GRNs). However, the nature of these data has made this process very di±cult. At the moment, several methods of discovering qualitative causal relationships between genes with high accuracy from microarray data exist, but large scale quantitative analysis on real biological datasets cannot be performed, to date, as existing approaches are not suitable for real microarray data which are noisy and insu±cient. Results: This paper performs an analysis of several existing evolutionary algorithms for quantitative gene regulatory network modelling. The aim is to present the techniques used and o®er a comprehensive comparison of approaches, under a common framework. Algorithms are applied to both synthetic and real gene expression data from DNA microarrays, and ability to reproduce biological behaviour, scalability and robustness to noise are assessed and compared. Conclusions: Presented is a comparison framework for assessment of evolutionary algorithms, used to infer gene regulatory networks. Promising methods are identi¯ed and a platform for development of appropriate model formalisms is established

Kankō to shokuhin

L'opera è stata realizzata all'interno delle attività del Centro di Eccellenza della Ricerca Osservatorio linguistico permanente dell'italiano diffuso fra stranieri e delle lingue immigrate in Italia, dell'Università per Stranieri di Siena, linea di ricerca “Lingua-cultura, economia italiana in Estremo Oriente”

Characteristics of soft x-ray emissions from Au plasmas generated with various driving laser pulse durations

X-ray microscope using water window X-rays (2.3-4.4 nm) emitted from laser plasmas enables us to observe nanoscale structures of living cells. For higher spatial resolution without blurring, we need bright X-ray source with a pulse duration of less than a few nanosecond. As a promising X-ray source, we have focused on laser produced gold plasmas that emit continuum radiation in water-window wavelengths. In this study, by using Nd-YAG laser systems (1064 nm) with pulse durations of 7 ns, 400 ps and 10 ps, characteristics of the laser plasmas were investigated. The target with a thickness of 0.3 mm was irradiated by the laser beams focused using a convex lens (100 mm). For spatial resolved X-ray measurement, a grazing incidence spectrometer (?at ?eld grating, 2400 grooves/mm) with a toroidal mirror was used. A pinhole camera with an aperture of 10 ?m observed 2D plasma emission image. Two photodetectors were installed to measure the X-ray pulse duration and its energy with respect to the laser incident angle. Compared with these measurements, dependence of the plasma properties on laser pulse duration was examined. We also evaluated the conversion e?ciency from laser to water-window X-rays.DPP19 Meeting of The American Physical Societ

Involvement of RAD9-Dependent Damage Checkpoint Control in Arrest of Cell Cycle, Induction of Cell Death, and Chromosome Instability Caused by Defects in Origin Recognition Complex in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Perturbation of origin firing in chromosome replication is a possible cause of spontaneous chromosome instability in multireplicon organisms. Here, we show that chromosomal abnormalities, including aneuploidy and chromosome rearrangement, were significantly increased in yeast diploid cells with defects in the origin recognition complex. The cell cycle of orc1-4/orc1-4 temperature-sensitive mutant was arrested at the G(2)/M boundary, after several rounds of cell division at the restrictive temperature. However, prolonged incubation of the mutant cells at 37°C led to abrogation of G(2) arrest, and simultaneously the cells started to lose viability. A sharp increase in chromosome instability followed the abrogation of G(2) arrest. In orc1-4/orc1-4 rad9Δ/rad9Δ diploid cells grown at 37°C, G(2) arrest and induction of cell death were suppressed, while chromosome instability was synergistically augmented. These findings indicated that DNA lesions caused by a defect in Orc1p function trigger the RAD9-dependent checkpoint control, which ensures genomic integrity either by stopping the cell cycle progress until lesion repair, or by inducing cell death when the lesion is not properly repaired. At semirestrictive temperatures, orc2-1/orc2-1 diploid cells demonstrated G(2) arrest and loss of cell viability, both of which require RAD9-dependent checkpoint control. However, chromosome instability was not induced in orc2-1/orc2-1 cells, even in the absence of the checkpoint control. These data suggest that once cells lose the damage checkpoint control, perturbation of origin firing can be tolerated by the cells. Furthermore, although a reduction in origin-firing capacity does not necessarily initiate chromosome instability, the Orc1p possesses a unique function, the loss of which induces instability in the chromosome

The Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form as a predictor of nursing home mortality in Japan: A 30-month longitudinal study

Objectives: We examined whether the Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA (R)-SF) predicted mortality in 367 nursing home residents (82% women; mean age = 84.4 +/- 8.5 years) in Japan. Measurements: We examined participants' basic characteristics (sex, age, height, weight, and medical history), the Barthel index (BI), clinical dementia rating (CDR), and six items of the MNA (R)-SF. The association between the MNA (R)-SF and 30-month mortality was assessed using a Cox proportional regression analysis. Results: During the study, 157 (42.8%) participants died. MNA (R)-SF scores in the Survival group were significantly higher than in the Death group (9.4 +/- 2.1 vs. 8.4 +/- 2.3, respectively; p < .001). After adjusting for age, sex, history of aspiration pneumonia, BI, and CDR, MNA (R)-SF scores were significantly associated with 30-month mortality (hazard ratio: 0.89, 95% confidence interval: 0.82-0.97, p = .005). Conclusion: The MNA (R)-SF was an effective predictor of mortality among nursing home residents in Japan, even after adjusting for potential confounders. These results indicate that periodically evaluating nutritional status using the MNA (R)-SF, and nutritional interventions according to status, may result in maintenance and improvement of nutritional status, as well as lead to reduced mortality