Monitorización cuantitativa por citometría de flujo de la invasión de células epiteliales por Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Current methods for evaluating mycobacterial invasion of target cells pose technical difficulties including a long turn-around time. Thus, new methodologies must be developed that allow rapid and reliable monitoring of host cell invasion. Here, the invasion of A549 cell line by SYBR safe-labeled Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) H37Rv was assessed by flow cytometry and was expressed as the percentage of cells infected by M. tuberculosis. Over a third of A549 cells were invaded by M. tuberculosis, two hours after infection. The specificity of the invasion was confirmed in assays using red blood cells as target cells and Escherichia coli as the non-invasive bacterial control. These findings show that invasion of pulmonary epithelial cells by M. tuberculosis can rapidly and quantitatively be assessed with a great sensitivity by flow cytometric detection of SYBR safe-labeled M. tuberculosis

Contenido de minerales en grano, harina y salvado de variedades de quinua.

Se comparan el contenido proteínico de la quinua con la cebada, maíz amarillo, maíz blanco y trigo. Para el efecto se determinan los elementos minerales: P, Ca, K, Mg, Na, Fe, Cu, Mn y Zn para 15 variedades de quinua cultivadas en los países andinos. La determinación se hizo en los 3 estratos: grano, harina y salvado. Los porcentajes de P en el grano, fluctuaron entre 0.62 a 0.33 por ciento con promedio de 0.47 por ciento para las 15 variedades. El Ca varió en el grano entre 0.39 a 0.14 por ciento con promedio 0.19 por ciento, siendo estos contenidos superiores a los reportados para los otros granos. Los contenidos promedios de K y Mg para el grano, fueron 0.87 y 0.26 oscilando entre 1.98 a 0.50 por ciento para el K y 0.46 a 0.13 para el Mg, siendo suficientes, en una dieta balanceada para humanos y llenando los requerimientos para ganado bovino. En cuanto a Na, Fe, Cu, Mn y Zn, a excepción del Na los valores se encuentran por encima de los reportados para cebada, maíz y trigo. En cuanto a los 3 estratos, los mayores niveles de minerales en todas las variedades lo presentó el salvado con relación a las cantidades encontradas para grano y harina. Comparando el contenido de minerales y saponina de estas mismas variedades, se observó una relación inversaQuinua-Amaranthus caudatu

Subtle alterations in cerebrovascular reactivity in mild cognitive impairment detected by graph theoretical analysis and not by the standard approach.

There is growing support that cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) in response to a vasodilatory challenge, also defined as the cerebrovascular reserve, is reduced in Alzheimer's disease dementia. However, this is less clear in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The current standard analysis may not reflect subtle abnormalities in CVR. In this study, we aimed to investigate vasodilatory-induced changes in the topology of the cerebral blood flow correlation (CBF javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@6894b36 ) network to study possible network-related CVR abnormalities in MCI. For this purpose, four CBF javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@389286d6 networks were constructed: two using CBF SPECT data at baseline and under the vasodilatory challenge of acetazolamide (ACZ), obtained from a group of 26 MCI patients; and two equivalent networks from a group of 26 matched cognitively normal controls. The mean strength of association ( javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@58a7138c ) and clustering coefficient ( javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@5f56d60d ) were used to evaluate ACZ-induced changes on the topology of CBF javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@13cae62a networks. We found that cognitively normal adults and MCI patients show different patterns of javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@3fc266b3 and javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@5f9929b4 changes. The observed differences included the medial prefrontal cortices and inferior parietal lobe, which represent areas involved in MCI's cognitive dysfunction. In contrast, no substantial differences were detected by standard CVR analysis. These results suggest that graph theoretical analysis of ACZ-induced changes in the topology of the CBF javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@36167af4 networks allows the identification of subtle network-related CVR alterations in MCI, which couldn't be detected by the standard approach

An EST-SSR based genetic linkage map and identification of QTLs for anthracnose disease resistance in water yam (Dioscorea alata L.)

Open Access JournalWater yam (Dioscorea alata L.) is one of the most important food yams with wide geographical distribution in tropics. One of the major constraints to water yam production is anthracnose disease caused by a fungus, Colletotrichum gloesporioides (Penz.). There are no economically feasible solutions as chemical sprays or cultural practices, such as crop rotation are seldom convenient for smallholder farmers for sustainable control of the disease. Breeding for development of durable genetic resistant varieties is known to offer lasting solution to control endemic disease threats to crop production. However, breeding for resistance to anthracnose has been slow considering the biological constraints related to the heterozygous and vegetative propagation of the crop. The development of saturated linkage maps with high marker density, such as SSRs, followed by identification of QTLs can accelerate the speed and precision of resistance breeding in water yam. A total of 380 EST-SSRs were used to generate a saturated linkage map. About 60.19% of SSRs showed Mendelian segregation pattern, however, it had no effect on the construction of linkage map. All 380 EST-SSRs were mapped into 20 linkage groups covering a total length of 2559.66 cM, which agrees with the diploid nature (2n = 2x = 20) of the parents used in the cross. Majority of the markers were mapped on linkage group 1 comprising of 97 EST-SSRs. This is the first genetic linkage map of water yam constructed using EST-SSRs. QTL localization was based on phenotypic data collected over a 3-year period of inoculating the mapping population with the most virulent strain of C. gloeosporoides from West Africa. Using the mean permutation value of LOD scores as threshold value for declaring a putative QTL on all linkage groups, one QTL was consistently observed on linkage group (LG) 14 in all the three years and average score data. This QTL was found at position interval of 71.12 - 84.76 cM explaining 68.94% of the total phenotypic variation in the average score data. The high marker density allowed identification of QTLs and association for anthracnose disease, which could be validated in other mapping populations and used in marker-assisted breeding in D. alata improvement programmes

Systematic Investigation of Nucleon Knockout around 132Sn

Peer reviewe

Preparing for low surface brightness science with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory: a comparison of observable and simulated intracluster light fractions

Large scale structure and cosmolog

Anisotropic flow of charged hadrons, pions and (anti-)protons measured at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76 TeV

The elliptic, $v_2$, triangular, $v_3$, and quadrangular, $v_4$, azimuthal anisotropic flow coefficients are measured for unidentified charged particles, pions and (anti-)protons in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Results obtained with the event plane and four-particle cumulant methods are reported for the pseudo-rapidity range $|\eta|<0.8$ at different collision centralities and as a function of transverse momentum, $p_{\rm T}$, out to $p_{\rm T}=20$ GeV/$c$. The observed non-zero elliptic and triangular flow depends only weakly on transverse momentum for $p_{\rm T}>8$ GeV/$c$. The small $p_{\rm T}$ dependence of the difference between elliptic flow results obtained from the event plane and four-particle cumulant methods suggests a common origin of flow fluctuations up to $p_{\rm T}=8$ GeV/$c$. The magnitude of the (anti-)proton elliptic and triangular flow is larger than that of pions out to at least $p_{\rm T}=8$ GeV/$c$ indicating that the particle type dependence persists out to high $p_{\rm T}$.Comment: 16 pages, 5 captioned figures, authors from page 11, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/186

Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}} = 2.76 TeV

The inclusive transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) distributions of primary charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range $|\eta|<0.8$ as a function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the $p_{\rm T}$ range $0.15<p_{\rm T}<50$ GeV/$c$ for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%. The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm{AA}}$ using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision energy. We observe that the suppression of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles strongly depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most suppressed with $R_{\rm{AA}}\approx0.13$ at $p_{\rm T}=6$-7 GeV/$c$. Above $p_{\rm T}=7$ GeV/$c$, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification factor, which reaches $R_{\rm{AA}} \approx0.4$ for $p_{\rm T}>30$ GeV/$c$. In peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with $R_{\rm{AA}} \approx 0.7$ almost independently of $p_{\rm T}$. The measured nuclear modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284

Particle-yield modification in jet-like azimuthal di-hadron correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

The yield of charged particles associated with high-$p_{\rm T}$ trigger particles ($8 < p_{\rm T} < 15$ GeV/$c$) is measured with the ALICE detector in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV relative to proton-proton collisions at the same energy. The conditional per-trigger yields are extracted from the narrow jet-like correlation peaks in azimuthal di-hadron correlations. In the 5% most central collisions, we observe that the yield of associated charged particles with transverse momenta $p_{\rm T}> 3$ GeV/$c$ on the away-side drops to about 60% of that observed in pp collisions, while on the near-side a moderate enhancement of 20-30% is found.Comment: 15 pages, 2 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 10, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/350