Ozone depletion events observed in the high latitude surface layer during the TOPSE aircraft program

During the Tropospheric Ozone Production about the Spring Equinox (TOPSE) aircraft program, ozone depletion events (ODEs) in the high latitude surface layer were investigated using lidar and in situ instruments. Flight legs of 100 km or longer distance were flown 32 times at 30 m altitude over a variety of regions north of 58° between early February and late May 2000. ODEs were found on each flight over the Arctic Ocean but their occurrence was rare at more southern latitudes. However, large area events with depletion to over 2 km altitude in one case were found as far south as Baffin Bay and Hudson Bay and as late as 22 May. There is good evidence that these more southern events did not form in situ but were the result of export of ozone‐depleted air from the surface layer of the Arctic Ocean. Surprisingly, relatively intact transport of ODEs occurred over distances of 900–2000 km and in some cases over rough terrain. Accumulation of constituents in the frozen surface over the dark winter period cannot be a strong prerequisite of ozone depletion since latitudes south of the Arctic Ocean would also experience a long dark period. Some process unique to the Arctic Ocean surface or its coastal regions remains unidentified for the release of ozone‐depleting halogens. There was no correspondence between coarse surface features such as solid ice/snow, open leads, or polynyas with the occurrence of or intensity of ozone depletion over the Arctic or subarctic regions. Depletion events also occurred in the absence of long‐range transport of relatively fresh “pollution” within the high latitude surface layer, at least in spring 2000. Direct measurements of halogen radicals were not made. However, the flights do provide detailed information on the vertical structure of the surface layer and, during the constant 30 m altitude legs, measurements of a variety of constituents including hydroxyl and peroxy radicals. A summary of the behavior of these constituents is made. The measurements were consistent with a source of formaldehyde from the snow/ice surface. Median NOx in the surface layer was 15 pptv or less, suggesting that surface emissions were substantially converted to reservoir constituents by 30 m altitude and that ozone production rates were small (0.15–1.5 ppbv/d) at this altitude. Peroxyacetylnitrate (PAN) was by far the major constituent of NOy in the surface layer independent of the ozone mixing ratio

Ribonucleoprotein Assembly Defects Correlate with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Severity and Preferentially Affect a Subset of Spliceosomal snRNPs

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a motor neuron disease caused by reduced levels of the survival motor neuron (SMN) protein. SMN together with Gemins2-8 and unrip proteins form a macromolecular complex that functions in the assembly of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) of both the major and the minor splicing pathways. It is not known whether the levels of spliceosomal snRNPs are decreased in SMA. Here we analyzed the consequence of SMN deficiency on snRNP metabolism in the spinal cord of mouse models of SMA with differing phenotypic severities. We demonstrate that the expression of a subset of Gemin proteins and snRNP assembly activity are dramatically reduced in the spinal cord of severe SMA mice. Comparative analysis of different tissues highlights a similar decrease in SMN levels and a strong impairment of snRNP assembly in tissues of severe SMA mice, although the defect appears smaller in kidney than in neural tissue. We further show that the extent of reduction in both Gemin proteins expression and snRNP assembly activity in the spinal cord of SMA mice correlates with disease severity. Remarkably, defective SMN complex function in snRNP assembly causes a significant decrease in the levels of a subset of snRNPs and preferentially affects the accumulation of U11 snRNP—a component of the minor spliceosome—in tissues of severe SMA mice. Thus, impairment of a ubiquitous function of SMN changes the snRNP profile of SMA tissues by unevenly altering the normal proportion of endogenous snRNPs. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that SMN deficiency affects the splicing machinery and in particular the minor splicing pathway of a rare class of introns in SMA

Reactive nitrogen, ozone and ozone production in the Arctic troposphere and the impact of stratosphere-troposphere exchange

We use aircraft observations obtained during the Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS) mission to examine the distributions and source attributions of O 3 and NO y in the Arctic and sub-Arctic region. Using a number of marker tracers, we distinguish various air masses from the background troposphere and examine their contributions to NO x, O 3, and O 3 production in the Arctic troposphere. The background Arctic troposphere has a mean O 3 of ∼60 ppbv and NO x of ∼25 pptv throughout spring and summer with CO decreasing from ∼145 ppbv in spring to ∼100 ppbv in summer. These observed mixing ratios are not notably different from the values measured during the 1988 ABLE-3A and the 2002 TOPSE field campaigns despite the significant changes in emissions and stratospheric ozone layer in the past two decades that influence Arctic tropospheric composition. Air masses associated with stratosphere-troposphere exchange are present throughout the mid and upper troposphere during spring and summer. These air masses, with mean O 3 concentrations of 140-160 ppbv, are significant direct sources of O 3 in the Arctic troposphere. In addition, air of stratospheric origin displays net O 3 formation in the Arctic due to its sustainable, high NO x (75 pptv in spring and 110 pptv in summer) and NO y (∼800 pptv in spring and ∼1100 pptv in summer). The air masses influenced by the stratosphere sampled during ARCTAS-B also show conversion of HNO 3 to PAN. This active production of PAN is the result of increased degradation of ethane in the stratosphere-troposphere mixed air mass to form CH 3CHO, followed by subsequent formation of PAN under high NO x conditions. These findings imply that an adequate representation of stratospheric NO y input, in addition to stratospheric O 3 influx, is essential to accurately simulate tropospheric Arctic O 3, NO x and PAN in chemistry transport models. Plumes influenced by recent anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions observed during ARCTAS show highly elevated levels of hydrocarbons and NO y (mostly in the form of NO x and PAN), but do not contain O 3 higher than that in the Arctic tropospheric background except some aged biomass burning plumes sampled during spring. Convection and/or lightning influences are negligible sources of O 3 in the Arctic troposphere but can have significant impacts in the upper troposphere in the continental sub-Arctic during summer. © 2011 Author(s)

Adult Bone Marrow Neural Crest Stem Cells and Mesenchymal Stem Cells are not able to Replace Lost Neurons in Acute MPTP-lesioned Mice

Adult bone marrow stroma contains multipotent stem cells (BMSC) that are a mixed population of mesenchymal and neural-crest derived stem cells. Both cells are endowed with in vitro multi-lineage differentiation abilities, then constituting an attractive and easy-available source of material for cell therapy in neurological disorders. Whereas the in vivo integration and differentiation of BMSC in neurons into the central nervous system is currently matter of debate, we report here that once injected into the striatum of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-treated mice, pure populations of either bone marrow neural crest stem cells (NCSC) or mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) survived only transiently into the lesioned brain. Moreover, they do not migrate through the brain tissue, neither modify their initial phenotype, while no recovery of the dopaminergic system integrity was observed. Consequently, we tend to conclude that MSC/NCSC are not able to replace lost neurons in acute MPTP-lesioned dopaminergic system through a suitable integration and/or differentiation process. Altogether with recent data, it appears that neuroprotective, neurotrophic and anti-inflammatory features characterizing BMSC are of greater interest as regards CNS lesions management

Observation-based modeling of ozone chemistry in the Seoul metropolitan area during the Korea-United States Air Quality Study (KORUS-AQ)

The Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) has a population of 24 million and frequently experiences unhealthy levels of ozone (O3). In this work, measurements taken during the Korea-United States Air Quality Study (KORUS-AQ, 2016) are used to explore regional gradients in O3 and its chemical precursors, and an observationally-constrained 0-D photochemical box model is used to quantify key aspects of O3 production including its sensitivity to precursor gases. Box model performance was evaluated by comparing modeled concentrations of select secondary species to airborne measurements. These comparisons indicate that the steady state assumption used in 0-D box models cannot describe select intermediate species, highlighting the importance of having a broad suite of trace gases as model constraints. When fully constrained, aggregated statistics of modeled O3 production rates agreed with observed changes in O3, indicating that the box model was able to represent the majority of O3 chemistry. Comparison of airborne observations between urban Seoul and a downwind receptor site reveal a positive gradient in O3 coinciding with a negative gradient in NOx, no gradient in CH2O, and a slight positive gradient in modeled rates of O3 production. Together, these observations indicate a radical-limited (VOC-limited) O3 production environment in the SMA. Zero-out simulations identified C7+ aromatics as the dominant VOC contributors to O3 production, with isoprene and anthropogenic alkenes making smaller but appreciable contributions. Simulations of model sensitivity to decreases in NOx produced results that were not spatially uniform, with large increases in O3 production predicted for urban Seoul and decreases in O3 production predicted for far-outlying areas. The policy implications of this work are clear: Effective O3 mitigation strategies in the SMA must focus on reducing local emissions of C7+ aromatics, while reductions in NOx emissions may increase O3 in some areas but generally decrease the regional extent of O3 exposure

Nitrogen oxides and PAN in plumes from boreal fires during ARCTAS-B and their impact on ozone: An integrated analysis of aircraft and satellite observations

We determine enhancement ratios for NOx, PAN, and other NO y species from boreal biomass burning using aircraft data obtained during the ARCTAS-B campaign and examine the impact of these emissions on tropospheric ozone in the Arctic. We find an initial emission factor for NO x of 1.06 g NO per kg dry matter (DM) burned, much lower than previous observations of boreal plumes, and also one third the value recommended for extratropical fires. Our analysis provides the first observational confirmation of rapid PAN formation in a boreal smoke plume, with 40% of the initial NOx emissions being converted to PAN in the first few hours after emission. We find little clear evidence for ozone formation in the boreal smoke plumes during ARCTAS-B in either aircraft or satellite observations, or in model simulations. Only a third of the smoke plumes observed by the NASA DC8 showed a correlation between ozone and CO, and ozone was depleted in the plumes as often as it was enhanced. Special observations from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) also show little evidence for enhanced ozone in boreal smoke plumes between 15 June and 15 July 2008. Of the 22 plumes observed by TES, only 4 showed ozone increasing within the smoke plumes, and even in those cases it was unclear that the increase was caused by fire emissions. Using the GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry model, we show that boreal fires during ARCTAS-B had little impact on the median ozone profile measured over Canada, and had little impact on ozone within the smoke plumes observed by TES. © 2010 Author(s)