Plasma Catalytic Reforming of Biofuels

Vegetable oils and ethanol have been used in a plasmatron reformer to generate synthesis gas. Corn, canola, and soybean oils and ethanol have been reformed at different oxygen to carbon ratios and different power levels. Both homogeneous plasma reforming (uncatalyzed) and catalytic plasma reformer have been evaluated. I

Medication Complications in Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.

The need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy is a marker of disease severity for which multiple medications are required. The therapy causes physiologic changes that impact drug pharmacokinetics. These changes can lead to exposure-driven decreases in efficacy or increased incidence of side effects. The pharmacokinetic changes are drug specific and largely undefined for most drugs. We review available drug dosing data and provide guidance for use in the ECMO patient population

Functional Characterization of a First Avian Cytochrome P450 of the CYP2D Subfamily (CYP2D49)

The CYP2D family members are instrumental in the metabolism of 20–25% of commonly prescribed drugs. Although many CYP2D isoforms have been well characterized in other animal models, research concerning the chicken CYP2Ds is limited. In this study, a cDNA encoding a novel CYP2D enzyme (CYP2D49) was cloned from the chicken liver for the first time. The CYP2D49 cDNA contained an open reading frame of 502 amino acids that shared 52%–57% identities with other CYP2Ds. The gene structure and neighboring genes of CYP2D49 are conserved and similar to those of human CYP2D6. Additionally, similar to human CYP2D6, CYP2D49 is un-inducible in the liver and expressed predominantly in the liver, kidney and small intestine, with detectable levels in several other tissues. Metabolic assays of the CYP2D49 protein heterologously expressed in E. coli and Hela cells indicated that CYP2D49 metabolized the human CYP2D6 substrate, bufuralol, but not debrisoquine. Moreover, quinidine, a potent inhibitor of human CYP2D6, only inhibited the bufuralol 1′-hydroxylation activity of CYP2D49 to a negligible degree. All these results indicated that CYP2D49 had functional characteristics similar to those of human CYP2D6 but measurably differed in the debrisoquine 4′-hydroxylation and quinidine inhibitory profile. Further structure-function investigations that employed site-directed mutagenesis and circular dichroism spectroscopy identified the importance of Val-126, Glu-222, Asp-306, Phe-486 and Phe-488 in keeping the enzymatic activity of CYP2D49 toward bufuralol as well as the importance of Asp-306, Phe-486 and Phe-488 in maintaining the conformation of CYP2D49 protein. The current study is only the first step in characterizing the metabolic mechanism of CYP2D49; further studies are still required

Estimates of linkage disequilibrium and effective population size in rainbow trout

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The use of molecular genetic technologies for broodstock management and selective breeding of aquaculture species is becoming increasingly more common with the continued development of genome tools and reagents. Several laboratories have produced genetic maps for rainbow trout to aid in the identification of loci affecting phenotypes of interest. These maps have resulted in the identification of many quantitative/qualitative trait loci affecting phenotypic variation in traits associated with albinism, disease resistance, temperature tolerance, sex determination, embryonic development rate, spawning date, condition factor and growth. Unfortunately, the elucidation of the precise allelic variation and/or genes underlying phenotypic diversity has yet to be achieved in this species having low marker densities and lacking a whole genome reference sequence. Experimental designs which integrate segregation analyses with linkage disequilibrium (LD) approaches facilitate the discovery of genes affecting important traits. To date the extent of LD has been characterized for humans and several agriculturally important livestock species but not for rainbow trout.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We observed that the level of LD between syntenic loci decayed rapidly at distances greater than 2 cM which is similar to observations of LD in other agriculturally important species including cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens. However, in some cases significant LD was also observed up to 50 cM. Our estimate of effective population size based on genome wide estimates of LD for the NCCCWA broodstock population was 145, indicating that this population will respond well to high selection intensity. However, the range of effective population size based on individual chromosomes was 75.51 - 203.35, possibly indicating that suites of genes on each chromosome are disproportionately under selection pressures.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results indicate that large numbers of markers, more than are currently available for this species, will be required to enable the use of genome-wide integrated mapping approaches aimed at identifying genes of interest in rainbow trout.</p