263 research outputs found
A water-soluble form of porin from the mitochondrial outer membrane of Neurospora crassa
Mitochondrial porin, the outer membrane pore-forming protein, was isolated in the presence of detergents and converted into a water- soluble form. This water-soluble porin existed under nondenaturing conditions as a mixture of dimers and oligomers. The proportion of dimers increased with decreasing porin concentration during conversion. Water-soluble porin inserted spontaneously into artificial bilayers as did detergent-solubilized porin. Whereas the latter form had no specific requirements for the lipid composition of the bilayer, water- soluble porin inserted only into membranes containing a sterol, and only in the presence of very low concentrations of Triton X-100 (0.001% w/v) in the solution bathing the bilayer. The channels formed by water- soluble porin were indistinguishable from those formed by detergent- purified porin with respect to specific conductance and voltage dependence of conductance. Water-soluble porin bound tightly in a saturable fashion to isolated mitochondria. The bound form was readily accessible to added protease, indicating its presence on the mitochondrial surface. The number of binding sites was in the range of 5-10 pmol/mg of mitochondrial protein. Water-soluble porin apparently binds to a site on the assembly pathway of the porin precursor, since mitochondria whose binding sites were saturated with the water-soluble form did not import porin precursor synthesized in a cell-free system
Patient Perspectives on Osseointegration: A National Survey of Veterans with Upper Limb Amputation
INTRODUCTION: Osseointegrated (OI) prostheses have a unique benefit-risk profile among prosthetic alternatives and have been marketed in the United States under a Humanitarian Device Exemption since 2015. Information about upper limb prosthesis user perspectives on benefits and risks, prosthesis-user subpopulations for whom OI is most acceptable, and outcomes that matter most to patients could help inform clinical and regulatory decision-making. Recent 21st Century Cures legislation expanded the role of patient experience data in the decision-making process of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, recognizing that patient perspectives may be informative to regulators.
OBJECTIVE: To better understand prosthesis user perspectives about the benefits and risks associated with upper limb OI prostheses.
DESIGN: Patient perspective survey.
SETTING: Telephone administration.
PARTICIPANTS: National sample of veterans with upper limb loss.
INTERVENTIONS: NA MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Benefit-risk survey developed for this study.
RESULTS: Twenty-eight percent of unilateral and 13% of bilateral amputees were willing to consider osseointegration surgery. Multivariate logistic regression models [OR; 95% CI] showed that transhumeral amputation level [OR 1.40; 1.01-1.98] was associated with greater willingness to consider surgery, whereas older age [OR 0.17; 0.09-0.32] and higher VR-12 Mental Component Summary [OR 0.53; 0.35-0.81] were associated with less willingness. Having a durable/reliable device, the ability to do more activities, and having a comfortable device were rated as very important or somewhat important by 98% or more for every risk condition.
CONCLUSIONS: Persons who were older, had transradial amputation (compared to transhumeral), and those who had better mental functioning were less willing to consider this surgery. Respondents who were willing to consider surgery indicated that the most important potential benefits were obtaining a durable/reliable device, the ability to do more activities, and having a comfortable device. Most were willing to accept one or more risks of surgery, with long-term risks including chronic pain, loss of nerve function, or device failure considered the most unacceptable.
LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: III. has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA
Collapse of a molecular cloud core to stellar densities: the radiative impact of stellar core formation on the circumstellar disc
We present results from the first three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamical
calculations to follow the collapse of a molecular cloud core beyond the
formation of the stellar core. We find the energy released by the formation of
the stellar core, within the optically-thick first hydrostatic core, is
comparable to the binding energy of the disc-like first core. This heats the
inner regions of the disc, drives a shock wave through the disc, dramatically
decreases the accretion rate on to the stellar core, and launches a temporary
bipolar outflow perpendicular to the rotation axis that travels in excess of 50
AU into the infalling envelope. This outburst may assist the young protostar in
launching a conventional magnetic jet. Furthermore, if these events are cyclic,
they may provide a mechanism for intense bursts of accretion separated by long
periods of relatively quiescent accretion which can potentially solve both the
protostellar luminosity problem and the apparent age spread of stars in young
clusters. Such outbursts may also provide a formation mechanism for the
chondrules found in meteorites, with the outflow transporting them to large
distances in the circumstellar disc.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS Letters. 6 pages, 4 figures. Animations can be
found at http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/mbate/Animations/Stellar
Advancing academic careers through formal professional mentorship: The Research Scholars Mentorship Program (RSMP)
Mentorship is an essential component of professional development for young and emerging scholars. In partnership with the Kellogg Health Scholars Program, the American Academy of Health Behavior (AAHB) developed the 12-month Research Scholars Mentorship Program (RSMP) as a mechanism to facilitate high-quality mentorship interactions among junior and seasoned investigators within the Academy. This article provides a rationale, history, and description of the RSMP, as well as the collective scholarly achievements of the Cohorts and future directions. To date, 44 Pairs have initiated or completed the program. Products written and submitted by the Pairs during the 12-month mentorship period have included grants (n = 21), peer-reviewed manuscripts (n = 64), and book chapters (n = 2). Additionally, Pairs have collaborated to initiate new studies (n = 10) and develop new courses (n = 1). AAHB’s commitment to mentorship and professional development fueled the development of the RSMP to foster inclusive scholarship, expand membership, and promote productivity. The 12-month RSMP is a model for formal mentorship within professional organizations in that it facilitates Mentee-Mentor Pairs to enhance their professional and research trajectories through the execution of processes and development of products
The growth and hydrodynamic collapse of a protoplanet envelope
We have conducted three-dimensional self-gravitating radiation hydrodynamical
models of gas accretion onto high mass cores (15-33 Earth masses) over hundreds
of orbits. Of these models, one case accretes more than a third of a Jupiter
mass of gas, before eventually undergoing a hydrodynamic collapse. This
collapse causes the density near the core to increase by more than an order of
magnitude, and the outer envelope to evolve into a circumplanetary disc. A
small reduction in the mass within the Hill radius (R_H) accompanies this
collapse as a shock propagates outwards. This collapse leads to a new
hydrostatic equilibrium for the protoplanetary envelope, at which point 97 per
cent of the mass contained within the Hill radius is within the inner 0.03 R_H
which had previously contained less than 40 per cent. Following this collapse
the protoplanet resumes accretion at its prior rate. The net flow of mass
towards this dense protoplanet is predominantly from high latitudes, whilst at
the outer edge of the circumplanetary disc there is net outflow of gas along
the midplane. We also find a turnover of gas deep within the bound envelope
that may be caused by the establishment of convection cells.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
On the fragmentation criteria of self-gravitating protoplanetary discs
We investigate the fragmentation criterion in massive self-gravitating discs.
We present new analysis of the fragmentation conditions which we test by
carrying out global three-dimensional numerical simulations. Whilst previous
work has placed emphasis on the cooling timescale in units of the orbital
timescale, \beta , we find that at a given radius the surface mass density
(i.e. disc mass and profile) and star mass also play a crucial role in
determining whether a disc fragments or not as well as where in the disc
fragments form. We find that for shallow surface mass density profiles (p<2,
where \Sigma \propto R^{-p}), fragments form in the outer regions of the disc.
However for steep surface mass density profiles (p \gtrsim 2), fragments form
in the inner regions of a disc. In addition, we also find that the critical
value of the cooling timescale in units of the orbital timescale found in
previous simulations is only applicable to certain disc surface mass density
profiles and for particular disc radii and is not a general rule for all discs.
We find an empirical fragmentation criteria between the cooling timescale in
units of the orbital timescale, \beta , the surface mass density, the star mass
and the radius.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRAS. 15 pages, 18 figure
Recommended from our members
The regulatory and transcriptional landscape associated with carbon utilization in a filamentous fungus.
Filamentous fungi, such as Neurospora crassa, are very efficient in deconstructing plant biomass by the secretion of an arsenal of plant cell wall-degrading enzymes, by remodeling metabolism to accommodate production of secreted enzymes, and by enabling transport and intracellular utilization of plant biomass components. Although a number of enzymes and transcriptional regulators involved in plant biomass utilization have been identified, how filamentous fungi sense and integrate nutritional information encoded in the plant cell wall into a regulatory hierarchy for optimal utilization of complex carbon sources is not understood. Here, we performed transcriptional profiling of N. crassa on 40 different carbon sources, including plant biomass, to provide data on how fungi sense simple to complex carbohydrates. From these data, we identified regulatory factors in N. crassa and characterized one (PDR-2) associated with pectin utilization and one with pectin/hemicellulose utilization (ARA-1). Using in vitro DNA affinity purification sequencing (DAP-seq), we identified direct targets of transcription factors involved in regulating genes encoding plant cell wall-degrading enzymes. In particular, our data clarified the role of the transcription factor VIB-1 in the regulation of genes encoding plant cell wall-degrading enzymes and nutrient scavenging and revealed a major role of the carbon catabolite repressor CRE-1 in regulating the expression of major facilitator transporter genes. These data contribute to a more complete understanding of cross talk between transcription factors and their target genes, which are involved in regulating nutrient sensing and plant biomass utilization on a global level
On the convergence of the critical cooling timescale for the fragmentation of self-gravitating discs
We carry out simulations of gravitationally unstable discs using a Smoothed
Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) code and a grid-based hydrodynamics code, FARGO,
to understand the previous non-convergent results reported by Meru & Bate
(2011a). We obtain evidence that convergence with increasing resolution occurs
with both SPH and FARGO and in both cases we find that the critical cooling
timescale is larger than previously thought. We show that SPH has a first-order
convergence rate while FARGO converges with a second-order rate. We show that
the convergence of the critical cooling timescale for fragmentation depends
largely on the numerical viscosity employed in both SPH and FARGO. With SPH,
particle velocity dispersion may also play a role. We show that reducing the
dissipation from the numerical viscosity leads to larger values of the critical
cooling time at a given resolution. For SPH, we find that the effect of the
dissipation due to the numerical viscosity is somewhat larger than had
previously been appreciated. In particular, we show that using a quadratic term
in the SPH artificial viscosity (beta_{SPH}) that is too low appears to lead to
excess dissipation in gravitationally unstable discs, which may affect any
results that sensitively depend on the thermodynamics, such as disc
fragmentation. We show that the two codes converge to values of the critical
cooling timescale, beta_{crit} > 20 (for a ratio of specific heats of
gamma=5/3), and perhaps even as large as beta_{crit} \approx 30. These are
approximately 3-5 times larger than has been found by most previous studies.
This is equivalent to a maximum gravitational stress that a disc can withstand
without fragmenting of alpha_{GI,crit} \approx 0.013-0.02, which is much
smaller than the values typically used in the literature. It is therefore
easier for self-gravitating discs to fragment than has been concluded from most
past studies.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRAS. 26 pages, 17 figure
On the accumulation of planetesimals near disc gaps created by protoplanets
We have performed three-dimensional two-fluid (gas-dust) hydrodynamical
models of circumstellar discs with embedded protoplanets (3 - 333 M\oplu) and
small solid bodies (radii 10cm to 10m). We find that high mass planets (\gtrsim
Saturn mass) open sufficiently deep gaps in the gas disc such that the density
maximum at the outer edge of the gap can very efficiently trap metre-sized
solid bodies. This allows the accumulation of solids at the outer edge of the
gap as solids from large radii spiral inwards to the trapping region. This
process of accumulation occurs fastest for those bodies that spiral inwards
most rapidly, typically metre-sized boulders, whilst smaller and larger objects
will not migrate sufficiently rapidly in the discs lifetime to benefit from the
process. Around a Jupiter mass planet we find that bound clumps of solid
material, as large as several Earth masses, may form, potentially collapsing
under self-gravity to form planets or planetesimals. These results are in
agreement with Lyra et al. (2009), supporting their finding that the formation
of a second generation of planetesimals or of terrestrial mass planets may be
triggered by the presence of a high mass planet.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
- …