186 research outputs found
Whole Genome Sequencing of Rhodotorula Mucilaginosa Isolated from the Chewing Stick (Distemonanthus benthamianus): insights into Rhodotorula Phylogeny, Mitogenome Dynamics and Carotenoid Biosynthesis
In industry, the yeast Rhodotorula mucilaginosa is commonly used for the production of carotenoids. The production of carotenoids is important because they are used as natural colorants in food and some carotenoids are precursors of retinol (vitamin A). However, the identification and molecular characterization of the carotenoid pathway/s in species belonging to the genus Rhodotorula is scarce due to the lack of genomic information thus potentially impeding effective metabolic engineering of these yeast strains for improved carotenoid production. In this study, we report the isolation, identification, characterization and the whole nuclear genome and mitogenome sequence of the endophyte R. mucilaginosa RIT389 isolated from Distemonanthus benthamianus, a plant known for its anti-fungal and antibacterial properties and commonly used as chewing sticks. The assembled genome of R. mucilaginosa RIT389 is 19 Mbp in length with an estimated genomic heterozygosity of 9.29%. Whole genome phylogeny supports the species designation of strain RIT389 within the genus in addition to supporting the monophyly of the currently sequenced Rhodotorula species. Further, we report for the first time, the recovery of the complete mitochondrial genome of R. mucilaginosa using the genome skimming approach. The assembled mitogenome is at least 7,000 bases larger than that of Rhodotorula taiwanensiswhich is largely attributed to the presence of large intronic regions containing open reading frames coding for homing endonuclease from the LAGLIDADG and GIY-YIG families. Furthermore, genomic regions containing the key genes for carotenoid production were identified in R. mucilaginosa RIT389, revealing differences in gene synteny that may play a role in the regulation of the biotechnologically important carotenoid synthesis pathways in yeasts
Equipping Health Professions Educators to Better Address Medical Misinformation
As part of a cooperative agreement with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Federal Award Identification Number [FAIN]: NU50CK000586), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) began a strategic initiative in 2022 both to increase confidence in COVID-19 vaccines and to address medical misinformation and mistrust through education in health professions contexts. Specifically, the AAMC solicited proposals for integrating competency-based, interprofessional strategies to mitigate health misinformation into new or existing curricula. Five Health Professions Education Curricular Innovations subgrantees received support from the AAMC in 2022 and reflected on the implementation of their ideas in a series of meetings over several months. Subgrantees included the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, the Maine Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine, and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. This paper comprises insights from each of the teams and overarching observations regarding the challenges and opportunities involved with leveraging health professions education to address medical misinformation and improve patient health
Calmodulin is responsible for Ca2+-dependent regulation of TRPA1 channels
TRPA1 is a Ca2+-permeable ion channel involved in many sensory disorders such as pain, itch and neuropathy. Notably, the function of TRPA1 depends on Ca2+, with low Ca2+ potentiating and high Ca2+ inactivating TRPA1. However, it remains unknown how Ca2+ exerts such contrasting effects. Here, we show that Ca2+ regulates TRPA1 through calmodulin, which binds to TRPA1 in a Ca2+-dependent manner. Calmodulin binding enhanced TRPA1 sensitivity and Ca2+-evoked potentiation of TRPA1 at low Ca2+, but inhibited TRPA1 sensitivity and promoted TRPA1 desensitization at high Ca2+. Ca2+-dependent potentiation and inactivation of TRPA1 were selectively prevented by disrupting the interaction of the carboxy-lobe of calmodulin with a calmodulin-binding domain in the C-terminus of TRPA1. Calmodulin is thus a critical Ca2+ sensor enabling TRPA1 to respond to diverse Ca2+ signals distinctly
Angular analysis of decays reconstructed in 2019, 2020, and 2021 Belle II data
We report on a Belle II measurement of the branching fraction
(), longitudinal polarization fraction (), and CP asymmetry
() of decays. We reconstruct decays in a
sample of SuperKEKB electron-positron collisions collected by the Belle II
experiment in 2019, 2020, and 2021 at the (4S) resonance and
corresponding to 190 fb of integrated luminosity. We fit the
distributions of the difference between expected and observed candidate
energy, continuum-suppression discriminant, dipion masses, and decay angles of
the selected samples, to determine a signal yield of events. The
signal yields are corrected for efficiencies determined from simulation and
control data samples to obtain $\mathcal{B}(B^+ \to \rho^+\rho^0) = [23.2^{+\
2.2}_{-\ 2.1} (\rm stat) \pm 2.7 (\rm syst)]\times 10^{-6}f_L = 0.943 ^{+\
0.035}_{-\ 0.033} (\rm stat)\pm 0.027(\rm syst)\mathcal{A}_{CP}=-0.069
\pm 0.068(\rm stat) \pm 0.060 (\rm syst)\mathcal{A}_{CP}B^+\to
\rho^+\rho^0$ decays reported by Belle II
Determination of from untagged decays using 2019-2021 Belle II data
We present an analysis of the charmless semileptonic decay , where , from 198.0 million pairs of
mesons recorded by the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB
electron-positron collider. The decay is reconstructed without identifying the
partner meson. The partial branching fractions are measured independently
for and as functions of
(momentum transfer squared), using 3896 and
5466 decays. The total branching fraction is
found to be for decays, where the uncertainties are statistical and
systematic, respectively. By fitting the measured partial branching fractions
as functions of , together with constraints on the nonperturbative
hadronic contribution from lattice QCD calculations, the magnitude of the
Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element , , is extracted. Here, the first uncertainty is
statistical, the second is systematic and the third is theoretical
Measurement of the branching fraction for the decay at Belle II
We report a measurement of the branching fraction of decays, where or
, using electron-positron collisions recorded at an energy at or near
the mass and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of
fb. The data was collected during 2019--2021 by the Belle II experiment
at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy collider. We reconstruct
candidates in the , , and
final states. The signal yields with statistical uncertainties are ,
, and for the decays , , and , respectively.
We measure the branching fractions of these decays for the entire range of the
dilepton mass, excluding the very low mass region to suppress the background and regions compatible with decays
of charmonium resonances, to be \begin{equation} {\cal B}(B \to
K^{\ast}(892)\mu^+\mu^-) = (1.19 \pm 0.31 ^{+0.08}_{-0.07}) \times 10^{-6},
{\cal B}(B \to K^{\ast}(892)e^+e^-) = (1.42 \pm 0.48 \pm 0.09)\times 10^{-6},
{\cal B}(B \to K^{\ast}(892)\ell^+\ell^-) = (1.25 \pm 0.30 ^{+0.08}_{-0.07})
\times 10^{-6}, \end{equation} where the first and second uncertainties are
statistical and systematic, respectively. These results, limited by sample
size, are the first measurements of branching
fractions from the Belle II experiment
Observation of decays using the 2019-2022 Belle II data sample
We present a measurement of the branching fractions of four decay modes. The measurement is based on data from
SuperKEKB electron-positron collisions at the resonance
collected with the Belle II detector and corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of . The event yields are extracted from fits
to the distributions of the difference between expected and observed meson
energy to separate signal and background, and are efficiency-corrected as a
function of the invariant mass of the system. We find the branching
fractions to be: where the first uncertainty is statistical and
the second systematic. These results include the first observation of
, , and decays and a significant improvement in the precision
of compared to previous measurements
Measurement of the branching fractions and asymmetries of and decays in 2019-2021 Belle II data
We determine the branching fractions and asymmetries
of the decays and . The results are based on a data set containing 198
million bottom-antibottom meson pairs corresponding to an integrated luminosity
of recorded by the Belle II detector in energy-asymmetric
electron-positron collisions at the resonance. We measure
, , , and , where the first uncertainties are
statistical and the second are systematic. These results improve a previous
Belle II measurement and agree with the world averages
Reconstruction of decays identified using hadronic decays of the recoil meson in 2019 -- 2021 Belle II data
We present results on the semileptonic decays and in a sample corresponding to
189.9/fb of Belle II data at the SuperKEKB collider. Signal decays
are identified using full reconstruction of the recoil meson in hadronic
final states. We determine the total branching fractions via fits to the
distributions of the square of the "missing" mass in the event and the dipion
mass in the signal candidate and find and where the dominant
systematic uncertainty comes from modeling the nonresonant contribution
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