Domain III function of Mu transposase analysed by directed placement of subunits within the transpososome

Assembly of the functional tetrameric form of Mu transposase (MuA protein) at the two att ends of Mu depends on interaction of MuA with multiple att and enhancer sites on supercoiled DNA, and is stimulated by MuB protein. The N-terminal domain I of MuA harbours distinct regions for interaction with the att ends and enhancer; the C-terminal domain III contains separate regions essential for tetramer assembly and interaction with MuB protein (IIIα and IIIβ, respectively). Although the central domain II (the 'DDE' domain) of MuA harbours the known catalytic DDE residues, a 26 amino acid peptide within IIIα also has a non-specific DNA binding and nuclease activity which has been implicated in catalysis. One model proposes that active sites for Mu transposition are assembled by sharing structural/catalytic residues between domains II and III present on separate MuA monomers within the MuA tetramer. We have used substrates with altered att sites and mixtures of MuA proteins with either wild-type or altered att DNA binding specificities, to create tetrameric arrangements wherein specific MuA subunits are nonfunctional in II, IIIα or IIIβ domains. From the ability of these oriented tetramers to carry out DNA cleavage and strand transfer we conclude that domain IIIα or IIIβ function is not unique to a specific subunit within the tetramer, indicative of a structural rather than a catalytic function for domain III in Mu transposition

A single nucleotide polymorphism in CAPN1 associated with marbling score in Korean cattle

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Marbling score (MS) is the major quantitative trait that affects carcass quality in beef cattle. In this study, we examined the association between genetic polymorphisms of the micromolar calcium-activated neutral protease gene (micro-calpain, <it>CAPN1</it>) and carcass traits in Korean cattle (also known as Hanwoo).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>By direct DNA sequencing in 24 unrelated Korean cattle, we identified 39 sequence variants within exons and their flanking regions in <it>CAPN1</it>. Among them, 12 common polymorphic sites were selected for genotyping in the beef cattle (<it>n </it>= 421). Statistical analysis revealed that a polymorphism in the 3'UTR (<it>c.2151*479C>T</it>) showed significant association with MS (<it>P</it>^{<it>cor</it>.}= 0.02).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings suggest that polymorphisms in <it>CAPN1 </it>might be one of the important genetic factors involved in carcass quality in beef cattle, although it could be false positive association.</p

Salicylic acid-based organic dyes acting as the photosensitizer for solar cells

A D-π-A metal-free organic dye, featuring salicylic acid as a novel acceptor/anchoring unit, has been designed, synthesized and applied to dye-sensitized solar cell. The detailed photophysical, electrochemical, photovoltaic and sensitizing properties of the organic dye were investigated, in addition to the computational studies of the dye and dye-(TiO2)6 system. A solar cell device using this new organic dye as a sensitizer produced a solar to electric power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 3.49% (J(sc) = 6.69 mAcm-2, V(oc) = 0.74 V and ff = 0.70) under 100 mWcm(-2) simulated AM 1.5 G solar irradiation, demonstrating that the salicylic acid-based organic dye is a suitable alternative to currently used organometallic dye

Controllable Text Generation Using Semantic Control Grammar

Controllable text generation is the primary technique for controlling specific attributes such as topic, keywords and obtaining augmented data. This work proposes a novel controllable text generation framework to improve the controllability of generation models. First, we introduce semantic control grammar, a controllable input format to generate sentences that satisfy the constraints. Second, we adopt a generation and rerank method to obtain semantically reranked controlled sentences. Extensive experiments and analyses are conducted on benchmark, natural language understanding, data-to-text generation, and text classification datasets. Through automatic evaluations, we show that our method leads to improvement over strong baselines. The results show that our model can control sentence and word attributes and semantically generate natural sentences. Furthermore, our techniques improve the generation quality of the model

A Pilot Study Comparing a Micronized Adipose Tissue Niche versus Standard Wound Care for Treatment of Neuropathic Diabetic Foot Ulcers

Numerous studies have demonstrated the various properties of micronized adipose tissue (MAT), including angiogenic, anti-inflammatory, and regenerative activities, which can be helpful in wound healing. This exploratory clinical trial aimed to report the efficacy and safety of MAT niche for treating diabetic foot ulcers. Twenty subjects were randomly divided into MAT niche treatment (n = 10) and control groups (n = 10). All patients were followed up weekly for 16 weeks. We evaluated the efficacy of the MAT niche treatment by assessing the (1) reduction in wound area after 4 weeks and (2) percentage of patients who achieved complete wound closure after 16 weeks. All possible adverse events were recorded. The wound area was reduced by 4.3 &plusmn; 1.0 cm2 in the treatment group and by 2.0 &plusmn; 1.1 cm2 in the control group (p = 0.043). Complete wound healing was achieved after 16 weeks in eight out of 10 patients (80%) in the treatment group and three out of six (50%) in the control group (p = 0.299). No serious adverse events related to MAT niche treatment were observed. Although the present study&rsquo;s findings do not support the use of this therapy to treat foot ulcers of patients with diabetes owing to the small number of patients included and the absence of statistical significance, the results of this pilot preliminary study are promising in that MAT niche autografts may offer the possibility of a simple and effective treatment for diabetic ulcers. Further follow-up studies with a larger number of patients are required to validate our findings

Cortical Network Dynamics During Source Memory Retrieval: Current Density Imaging With Individual MRI

We investigated the neural correlates of source memory retrieval using low-resolution electromagnetic tromagnetic (LORETA) with 64 channels EEG and individual MRI as a realistic head model. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while 13 healthy subjects performed the source memory task for the voice of the speaker in spoken words. The source correct condition of old words elicited more positive-going potentials than the correct rejection condition of new words at 400-700 ins post-stimulus and the old/new effects also appeared in the, right anterior region between 1,000 and 1,200 ms. We conducted source reconstruction at mean latencies of 311, 604, 793, and 1,100 ms and used statistical parametric mapping for the statistical analysis. The results of source analysis suggest that the activation of the right inferior parietal region may reflect retrieval of source information. The source elicited by the difference ERPs between the source correct and source incorrect conditions exhibited dynamic change of current density activation in the overall cortices with time during source memory retrieval. These results indicate that multiple neural systems may underlie the ability to recollect context.Vincent JL, 2006, J NEUROPHYSIOL, V96, P3517, DOI 10.1152/jn.00048.2006Iidaka T, 2006, CEREB CORTEX, V16, P1349, DOI 10.1093/cercor/bhl040King JA, 2005, NEUROIMAGE, V28, P256, DOI 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.05.057Lundstrom BN, 2005, NEUROIMAGE, V27, P824, DOI 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.05.008Wagner AD, 2005, TRENDS COGN SCI, V9, P445, DOI 10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.001Slotnick SD, 2005, MEM COGNITION, V33, P151Guderian S, 2005, HIPPOCAMPUS, V15, P901, DOI 10.1002/hipo.20125ALHAJ HA, 2005, PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY, V18, P1Mitchell KJ, 2004, J COGNITIVE NEUROSCI, V16, P921, DOI 10.1162/0898929041502724Dobbins IG, 2004, J COGNITIVE NEUROSCI, V16, P908Smith APR, 2004, J COGNITIVE NEUROSCI, V16, P760, DOI 10.1162/089892904970816Fujii T, 2004, NEUROIMAGE, V21, P1596, DOI 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.01.005Duarte A, 2004, COGNITIVE BRAIN RES, V18, P255, DOI 10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2003.10.010Lundstrom BN, 2003, NEUROIMAGE, V20, P1934, DOI 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.07.017Fan J, 2003, NEUROREPORT, V14, P2275, DOI 10.1097/01.wnr.0000090582.35425.e1Kobayashi Y, 2003, J COMP NEUROL, V466, P48, DOI 10.1002/cne.10883Slotnick SD, 2003, COGNITIVE BRAIN RES, V17, P75, DOI 10.1016/S0926-6410(03)00082-XDobbins IG, 2003, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, V41, P318Cabeza R, 2003, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, V41, P390Ranganath C, 2003, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, V41, P378Rugg MD, 2003, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, V41, P40Park HJ, 2002, HUM BRAIN MAPP, V17, P168, DOI 10.1002/hbm.10059Takahashi E, 2002, NEUROREPORT, V13, P1951Cansino S, 2002, CEREB CORTEX, V12, P1048Craik FIM, 2002, MEMORY, V10, P305, DOI 10.1080/09658210244000135Dobbins IG, 2002, NEURON, V35, P989Wegesin DJ, 2002, COGNITIVE BRAIN RES, V13, P323Yonelinas AP, 2002, J MEM LANG, V46, P441, DOI 10.1006/jmla.2002.2864Pascual-Marqui RD, 2002, METHOD FIND EXP CLIN, V24, P5RANGANATH C, 2002, COGNITIVE NEUROSCIEN, P83Buckner RL, 2001, NAT REV NEUROSCI, V2, P624Burgess N, 2001, NEUROIMAGE, V14, P439, DOI 10.1006/nimg.2001.0806Cycowicz YM, 2001, CEREB CORTEX, V11, P322KAHN J, 2001, J NEUROSCI, V24, P4172Friedman D, 2000, MICROSC RES TECHNIQ, V51, P6Konishi S, 2000, NEUROIMAGE, V12, P276Wegesin DJ, 2000, INT J PSYCHOPHYSIOL, V37, P243Van Petten C, 2000, PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY, V37, P551Dale AM, 2000, NEURON, V26, P55Rugg MD, 2000, TRENDS COGN SCI, V4, P108Wilding EL, 2000, INT J PSYCHOPHYSIOL, V35, P81Rugg MD, 1999, NEUROIMAGE, V10, P520Henson RNA, 1999, BRAIN, V122, P1367Wilding EL, 1999, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, V37, P441*NEUR LAB, 1999, US GUID CURR VERS 4, P229Nolde SF, 1998, NEUROREPORT, V9, P3509Cuffin BN, 1998, IEEE ENG MED BIOL, V17, P118, DOI 10.1109/51.715495Fuchs M, 1998, IEEE T BIO-MED ENG, V45, P980, DOI 10.1109/10.704867Senkfor AJ, 1998, J EXP PSYCHOL LEARN, V24, P1005Waberski TD, 1998, BRAIN TOPOGR, V10, P283Donaldson DI, 1998, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, V36, P377Allan K, 1998, ACTA PSYCHOL, V98, P231*I LANG INF STUD, 1998, PUBL YONS UJohnson MK, 1997, PHILOS T R SOC B, V352, P1733Maguire EA, 1997, J NEUROSCI, V17, P7103Wilding EL, 1997, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, V35, P1185Wilding EL, 1997, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, V35, P119Burgess PW, 1996, MEMORY, V4, P359Wilding EL, 1996, BRAIN, V119, P889Worsley KJ, 1996, HUM BRAIN MAPP, V4, P74GLISKY EL, 1995, NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, V9, P229SUZUKI WA, 1994, J COMP NEUROL, V350, P497PASCUALMARQUI RD, 1994, INT J PSYCHOPHYSIOL, V18, P49JOHNSON MK, 1993, PSYCHOL BULL, V114, P3FRISTON KJ, 1990, J CEREBR BLOOD F MET, V10, P458SMITH ME, 1989, J EXP PSYCHOL LEARN, V15, P50FOX PT, 1988, J CEREBR BLOOD F MET, V8, P642INSAUSTI R, 1987, J COMP NEUROL, V264, P396HAMALAINEN MS, 1984, TKKFA559 HELS U TECHSCHACTER DL, 1984, J VERB LEARN VERB BE, V23, P593GREENHOUSE SW, 1959, PSYCHOMETRIKA, V24, P95

A non-synonymous variant rs12614 of complement factor B associated with risk of chronic hepatitis B in a Korean population

Background Hepatitis B is known to cause several forms of liver diseases including chronic hepatitis B (CHB), and hepatocellular carcinoma. Previous genome-wide association study of CHB risk has demonstrated that rs12614 of complement factor B (CFB) was significantly associated with CHB risk. In this study, fine-mapping study of previously reported GWAS single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP; CFB rs12614) was performed to validate genetic effect of rs12614 on CHB susceptibility and identify possible additional causal variants around rs12614 in a Korean population. This association study was conducted in order to identify genetic effects of CFB single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and to identify additional independent CHB susceptible causal markers within a Korean population. Methods A total of 10 CFB genetic polymorphisms were selected and genotyped in 1716 study subjects comprised of 955 CHB patients and 761 population controls. Results A non-synonymous variant, rs12614 (Arg32Trp) in exon2 of CFB, had significant associations with risk of CHB (odds ratio = 0.43, P = 5.91 × 10− 10). Additional linkage disequilibrium and conditional analysis confirmed that rs12614 had independent genetic effect on CHB susceptibility with previously identified CHB markers. The genetic risk scores (GRSs) were calculated and the CHB patients had higher GRSs than the population controls. Moreover, OR was found to increase significantly with cumulative GRS. Conclusions rs12614 showed significant genetic effect on CHB risk within the Korean population. As such rs12614 may be used as a possible causal genetic variant for CHB susceptibility.This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (Grant No. 2017R1D1A1B03030763), the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (NRF-2015R1A2A1A15053987), and grants from the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (Grant No. HI16C1074) and Yuhan Corporation (Grant No. 800–20170050)