Sustainable Phosphorus Loadings from Effective and Cost-Effective Phosphorus Management Around the Baltic Sea

Nutrient over-enrichment of the Baltic Sea, accompanied by intensified algal blooms and decreasing water clarity, has aroused widespread concern in the surrounding countries during the last four decades. This work has used a well-tested dynamic mass-balance model to investigate which decrease in total phosphorus loading would be required to meet the environmental goal to restore the trophic state in the Baltic Sea to pre-1960s levels. Furthermore, the extent to which various abatement options may decrease the phosphorus loading in a cost-effective manner has been studied. Upgrading urban sewage treatment in the catchment could, alone or in combination with banning phosphates in detergents, be sufficient to meet the set environmental goal, at an estimated annual basin-wide cost of 0.21–0.43 billion euro. Such a plan would potentially decrease the total phosphorus loading to the Baltic Sea with 6,650–10,200 tonnes per year

A Cost-Effective ELP-Intein Coupling System for Recombinant Protein Purification from Plant Production Platform

BACKGROUND: Plant bioreactor offers an efficient and economical system for large-scale production of recombinant proteins. However, high cost and difficulty in scaling-up of downstream purification of the target protein, particularly the common involvement of affinity chromatography and protease in the purification process, has hampered its industrial scale application, therefore a cost-effective and easily scale-up purification method is highly desirable for further development of plant bioreactor. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To tackle this problem, we investigated the ELP-intein coupling system for purification of recombinant proteins expressed in transgenic plants using a plant lectin (PAL) with anti-tumor bioactivity as example target protein and rice seeds as production platform. Results showed that ELP-intein-PAL (EiP) fusion protein formed novel irregular ER-derived protein bodies in endosperm cells by retention of endogenous prolamins. The fusion protein was partially self-cleaved in vivo, but only self-cleaved PAL protein was detected in total seed protein sample and deposited in protein storage vacuoles (PSV). The in vivo uncleaved EiP protein was accumulated up to 2-4.2% of the total seed protein. The target PAL protein could be purified by the ELP-intein system efficiently without using complicated instruments and expensive chemicals, and the yield of pure PAL protein by the current method was up to 1.1 mg/g total seed protein. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: This study successfully demonstrated the purification of an example recombinant protein from rice seeds by the ELP-intein system. The whole purification procedure can be easily scaled up for industrial production, providing the first evidence on applying the ELP-intein coupling system to achieve cost-effective purification of recombinant proteins expressed in plant bioreactors and its possible application in industry

Crossing the street: how pedestrians interact with cars

This paper analyzes crossing the street as a form of communication between pedestrians and drivers, who are participants characterized by different types of mobility, and distinct rights and obligations. Based on video recordings of couples having a stroll in an urban environment, the analyses focus on the mundane practices and the visual resources (gaze and gestures) through which pedestrians organize the sequential and temporal trajectories of crossing, and negotiate their right to cross the street. Moreover, since some of the pedestrians studied here are affected by psychosis—a condition in which urban environments are often experienced as stressful and difficult to manage—the paper points to practices that might not only differentiate pedestrians within neuro-typical populations but also within neuro-atypical populations

Prediction of response to radiotherapy in the treatment of esophageal cancer using stem cell markers

<p>Background and purpose: In this study, we investigated whether cancer stem cell marker expressing cells can be identified that predict for the response of esophageal cancer (EC) to CRT.</p><p>Materials and methods: EC cell-lines OE-33 and OE-21 were used to assess in vitro, stem cell activity, proliferative capacity and radiation response. Xenograft tumors were generated using NOD/SCID mice to assess in vivo proliferative capacity and tumor hypoxia. Archival and fresh EC biopsy tissue was used to confirm our in vitro and in vivo results.</p><p>Results: We showed that the CD44+/CD24- subpopulation of EC cells exerts a higher proliferation rate and sphere forming potential and is more radioresistant in vitro, when compared to unselected or CD44+/CD24+ cells. Moreover, CD44+/CD24- cells formed xenograft tumors faster and were often located in hypoxic tumor areas.</p><p>In a study of archival pre-neoadjuvant CRT biopsy material from EC adenocarcinoma patients (N = 27), this population could only be identified in 50% (9/18) of reduced-responders to neoadjuvant CRT, but never (0/9) in the complete responders (P = 0.009).</p><p>Conclusion: These results warrant further investigation into the possible clinical benefit of CD44+/CD24- as a predictive marker in EC patients for the response to chemoradiation. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.</p>