248 research outputs found
Respiratory Syncytial Virus Grown in Vero Cells Contains a Truncated Attachment Protein That Alters Its Infectivity and Dependence on Glycosaminoglycans
Human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) contains a heavily glycosylated 90-kDa attachment glycoprotein (G). Infection of HEp-2 and Vero cells in culture depends largely on virion G protein binding to cell surface glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). This GAG-dependent phenotype has been described for RSV grown in HEp-2 cells, but we have found that it is greatly reduced by a single passage in Vero cells. Virions produced from Vero cells primarily display a 55-kDa G glycoprotein. This smaller G protein represents a post-Golgi compartment form that is lacking its C terminus, indicating that the C terminus is required for GAG dependency. Vero cell-grown virus infected primary well-differentiated human airway epithelial (HAE) cell cultures 600-fold less efficiently than did HEp-2 cell-grown virus, indicating that the C terminus of the G protein is also required for virus attachment to this model of the in vivo target cells. This reduced infectivity for HAE cell cultures is not likely to be due to the loss of GAG attachment since heparan sulfate, the primary GAG used by RSV for attachment to HEp-2 cells, is not detectable at the apical surface of HAE cell cultures where RSV enters. Growing RSV stocks in Vero cells could dramatically reduce the initial infection of the respiratory tract in animal models or in volunteers receiving attenuated virus vaccines, thereby reducing the efficiency of infection or the efficacy of the vaccine
The Mass of the Black Hole in the Quasar PG 2130+099
We present the results of a recent reverberation-mapping campaign undertaken
to improve measurements of the radius of the broad line region and the central
black hole mass of the quasar PG 2130+099. Cross correlation of the 5100
angstrom continuum and H-beta emission-line light curves yields a time lag of
22.9 (+4.4 - 4.3) days, corresponding to a central black hole mass MBH= 3.8
(+/- 1.5) x 10^7 Msun. This value supports the notion that previous
measurements yielded an incorrect lag. We re-analyzed previous datasets to
investigate the possible sources of the discrepancy and conclude that previous
measurement errors were apparently caused by a combination of undersampling of
the light curves and long-term secular changes in the H-beta emission-line
equivalent width. With our new measurements, PG 2130+099 is no longer an
outlier in either the R-L or the MBH-Sigma relationships.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures; Accepted for publication in Ap
When Do Stars Go BOOM?
The maximum mass of a star that can produce a white dwarf (WD) is an
important astrophysical quantity. One of the best approaches to establishing
this limit is to search for WDs in young star clusters in which only massive
stars have had time to evolve and where the mass of the progenitor can be
established from the cooling time of the WD together with the age of the
cluster. Searches in young Milky Way clusters have not thus far yielded WD
members more massive than about 1.1, well below the Chandrasekhar
mass of , nor progenitors with masses in excess of about
. However, the hunt for potentially massive WDs that escaped their
cluster environs is yielding interesting candidates. To expand the cluster
sample further, we used HST to survey four young and massive star clusters in
the Magellanic Clouds for bright WDs that could have evolved from stars as
massive as 10. We located five potential WD candidates in the
oldest of the four clusters examined, the first extragalactic single WDs thus
far discovered. As these hot WDs are very faint at optical wavelengths, final
confirmation will likely have to await spectroscopy with 30-metre class
telescopes.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted to the Astrophysical Journal Letter
Keck Observations of the Young Metal-Poor Host Galaxy of the Super-Chandrasekhar-Mass Type Ia Supernova SN 2007if
We present Keck LRIS spectroscopy and -band photometry of the metal-poor,
low-luminosity host galaxy of the super-Chandrasekhar mass Type Ia supernova SN
2007if. Deep imaging of the host reveals its apparent magnitude to be
, which at the spectroscopically-measured redshift of
corresponds to an absolute magnitude of
. Galaxy color constrains the mass-to-light ratio,
giving a host stellar mass estimate of . Balmer
absorption in the stellar continuum, along with the strength of the 4000\AA\
break, constrain the age of the dominant starburst in the galaxy to be
Myr, corresponding to a main-sequence
turn-off mass of . Using the R method of
calculating metallicity from the fluxes of strong emission lines, we determine
the host oxygen abundance to be ,
significantly lower than any previously reported spectroscopically-measured
Type Ia supernova host galaxy metallicity. Our data show that SN 2007if is very
likely to have originated from a young, metal-poor progenitor.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication in Ap
Gas Accretion and Star Formation Rates
Cosmological numerical simulations of galaxy evolution show that accretion of
metal-poor gas from the cosmic web drives the star formation in galaxy disks.
Unfortunately, the observational support for this theoretical prediction is
still indirect, and modeling and analysis are required to identify hints as
actual signs of star-formation feeding from metal-poor gas accretion. Thus, a
meticulous interpretation of the observations is crucial, and this
observational review begins with a simple theoretical description of the
physical process and the key ingredients it involves, including the properties
of the accreted gas and of the star-formation that it induces. A number of
observations pointing out the connection between metal-poor gas accretion and
star-formation are analyzed, specifically, the short gas consumption time-scale
compared to the age of the stellar populations, the fundamental metallicity
relationship, the relationship between disk morphology and gas metallicity, the
existence of metallicity drops in starbursts of star-forming galaxies, the
so-called G dwarf problem, the existence of a minimum metallicity for the
star-forming gas in the local universe, the origin of the alpha-enhanced gas
forming stars in the local universe, the metallicity of the quiescent BCDs, and
the direct measurements of gas accretion onto galaxies. A final section
discusses intrinsic difficulties to obtain direct observational evidence, and
points out alternative observational pathways to further consolidate the
current ideas.Comment: Invited review to appear in Gas Accretion onto Galaxies, Astrophysics
and Space Science Library, eds. A. J. Fox & R. Dav\'e, to be published by
Springe
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