Transcriptome of the deep-sea black scabbardfish, Aphanopus carbo (Perciformes: Trichiuridae) : tissue-specific expression patterns and candidate genes associated to depth adaptation

Deep-sea fishes provide a unique opportunity to study the physiology and evolutionary adaptation to extreme environments. We carried out a high throughput sequencing analysis on a 454 GS-FLX titanium plate using unnormalized cDNA libraries from six tissues of A. carbo. Assemblage and annotations were performed by Newbler and InterPro/Pfam analyses, respectively. The assembly of 544,491 high quality reads provided 8,319 contigs, 55.6% of which retrieved blast hits against the NCBI nonredundant database or were annotated with ESTscan. Comparison of functional genes at both the protein sequences and protein stability levels, associated with adaptations to depth, revealed similarities between A. carbo and other bathypelagic fishes. A selection of putative genes was standardized to evaluate the correlation between number of contigs and their normalized expression, as determined by qPCR amplification. The screening of the libraries contributed to the identification of new EST simple-sequence repeats (SSRs) and to the design of primer pairs suitable for population genetic studies as well as for tagging and mapping of genes. The characterization of the deep-sea fish A. carbo first transcriptome is expected to provide abundant resources for genetic, evolutionary, and ecological studies of this species and the basis for further investigation of depth-related adaptation processes in fishes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Biofouling in tubes: some trends and perspectives

A significant increase in the literature concerning the formation of biological deposits in tubes has been noticed in the last few years. Yet, the scope of the majority of the reports is limited to the study of a single operating parameter. Besides, the operating conditions differ significantly from case to case, renderino difficult the absortion of the available information. In this work, a survey of the most recent publications on the subject of tube biofouling is undertaken, as a means of clarifying further research proprams. Emphasis is placed on the systems used, experimental equipments adopted and, essentially on the parameters studied. Of these, specially attention is qiven to the influence of tube material and roughness, foulant type and concentration, fluid velocity and temperature field

A model for the interpretation of biofouling

The formation of biofilms on heat exchange surfaces was studied using water with Pseudomonas fluorescens as a contaminant and also a mixture of these bacteria and kaolin particles. In every case increasing the fluid velocity resulted in a decrease in the final amount of deposit and in the deposition rate . The effect of the fluid velocity was interpreted using a mathematical model and it was found that cell adhesion and reproduction were the fundamental processes controlling the deposition rate . The presence of inorganic particles in the deposit enhanced the biofilm growth rate . This result was explained by the differences in the structure of the fouling layers

Fractal Conductance Fluctuations of Classical Origin

In mesoscopic systems conductance fluctuations are a sensitive probe of electron dynamics and chaotic phenomena. We show that the conductance of a purely classical chaotic system with either fully chaotic or mixed phase space generically exhibits fractal conductance fluctuations unrelated to quantum interference. This might explain the unexpected dependence of the fractal dimension of the conductance curves on the (quantum) phase breaking length observed in experiments on semiconductor quantum dots.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to appear in PR

Suppression of Anderson localization of light and Brewster anomalies in disordered superlattices containing a dispersive metamaterial

Light propagation through 1D disordered structures composed of alternating layers, with random thicknesses, of air and a dispersive metamaterial is theoretically investigated. Both normal and oblique incidences are considered. By means of numerical simulations and an analytical theory, we have established that Anderson localization of light may be suppressed: (i) in the long wavelength limit, for a finite angle of incidence which depends on the parameters of the dispersive metamaterial; (ii) for isolated frequencies and for specific angles of incidence, corresponding to Brewster anomalies in both positive- and negative-refraction regimes of the dispersive metamaterial. These results suggest that Anderson localization of light could be explored to control and tune light propagation in disordered metamaterials.Comment: 4 two-column pages, 3 figure

Etiologia, fatores de risco e aspectos clínicos da mastite ovina.

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Fouling in heat exchangers: a study of the mechanisms of formation of kaolin deposits

Fouling caused by a water-kaolin suspension in an annular heat exchanger was studied. Deposition seemed to be controlled by ma!!s transfer for lower Reynolds numbers and by adhesion for higher Re. The data was satisfactorily described by the generalized model of Pinheiro. The relative cohesion of the deposits was measured using a concentric cylinders apparatus, which also helped in confirming the existence of a loose and a hard layer in the kaolin deposits

Particulate fouling: controlling processes and deposit structure

Fouling caused by a water-kaolin suspension in an annular heat exchanger was studied. Deposition seemed to be controlled by mass transfer for lower Reynolds numbers and by adhesion for higher Re. The data was satisfactorily described by the generalized model of Pinheiro. The relative cohesion of the deposits was measured using a rotating cylinder apparatus, which also helped in confirming the existence of a loose and a hard layer in the kaolin deposits.(undefined