1,704 research outputs found
Rab8a and Rab8b are essential for several apical transport pathways but insufficient for ciliogenesis
The small GTP-binding protein Rab8 is known to play an essential role in intracellular transport and cilia formation. We have previously demonstrated that Rab8a is required for localising apical markers in various organisms. Rab8a has a closely related isoform, Rab8b. To determine whether Rab8b can compensate for Rab8a, we generated Rab8b-knockout mice. Although the Rab8b-knockout mice did not display an overt phenotype, Rab8a and Rab8b double-knockout mice exhibited mislocalisation of apical markers and died earlier than Rab8a-knockout mice. The apical markers accumulated in three intracellular patterns in the double-knockout mice. However, the localisation of basolateral and/or dendritic markers of the double-knockout mice seemed normal. The morphology and the length of various primary and/or motile cilia, and the frequency of ciliated cells appeared to be identical in control and double-knockout mice. However, an additional knockdown of Rab10 in double-knockout cells greatly reduced the percentage of ciliated cells. Our results highlight the compensatory effect of Rab8a and Rab8b in apical transport, and the complexity of the apical transport process. In addition, neither Rab8a nor Rab8b are required for basolateral and/or dendritic transport. However, simultaneous loss of Rab8a and Rab8b has little effect on ciliogenesis, whereas additional loss of Rab10 greatly affects ciliogenesis
Particle velocity in noncommutative space-time
We investigate a particle velocity in the -Minkowski space-time,
which is one of the realization of a noncommutative space-time. We emphasize
that arrival time analyses by high-energy -rays or neutrinos, which
have been considered as powerful tools to restrict the violation of Lorentz
invariance, are not effective to detect space-time noncommutativity. In
contrast with these examples, we point out a possibility that {\it low-energy
massive particles} play an important role to detect it.Comment: 16 pages, corrected some mistake
Have we already detected astrophysical symptoms of space-time noncommutativity ?
We discuss astrophysical implications of -Minkowski space-time, in
which there appears space-time noncommutativity. We first derive a velocity
formula for particles based on the motion of a wave packet. The result is that
a massless particle moves at a constant speed as in the usual Minkowski
space-time, which implies that an arrival time analysis by -rays from
Markarian (Mk) 421 does not exclude space-time noncommutativity. Based on this
observation, we analyze reaction processes in -Minkowski space-time
which are related to the puzzling detections of extremely high-energy cosmic
rays above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cutoff and of high-energy (20 TeV)
-rays from Mk 501.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PRD, corrected some mistake
High Speed Dynamics of Collapsing Cylindrical Dust Fluid
We construct approximate solutions that will describe the last stage of
cylindrically symmetric gravitational collapse of dust fluid. Just before the
spacetime singularity formation, the speed of the dust fluid might be almost
equal to the speed of light by gravitational acceleration. Therefore the
analytic solution describing the dynamics of cylindrical null dust might be the
crudest approximate solution of the last stage of the gravitational collapse.
In this paper, we regard this null dust solution as a background and perform
`high-speed approximation' to know the gravitational collapse of ordinary
timelike dust fluid; the `deviation of the timelike
4-velocity vector field from null' is treated as a perturbation. In contrast
with the null dust approximation, our approximation scheme can describe the
generation of gravitational waves in the course of the cylindrically symmetric
dust collapse.Comment: 15 page
Transport by molecular motors in the presence of static defects
The transport by molecular motors along cytoskeletal filaments is studied
theoretically in the presence of static defects. The movements of single motors
are described as biased random walks along the filament as well as binding to
and unbinding from the filament. Three basic types of defects are
distinguished, which differ from normal filament sites only in one of the
motors' transition probabilities. Both stepping defects with a reduced
probability for forward steps and unbinding defects with an increased
probability for motor unbinding strongly reduce the velocities and the run
lengths of the motors with increasing defect density. For transport by single
motors, binding defects with a reduced probability for motor binding have a
relatively small effect on the transport properties. For cargo transport by
motors teams, binding defects also change the effective unbinding rate of the
cargo particles and are expected to have a stronger effect.Comment: 20 pages, latex, 7 figures, 1 tabl
The proangiogenic capacity of polymorphonuclear neutrophils delineated by microarray technique and by measurement of neovascularization in wounded skin of CD18-deficient mice
Growing evidence supports the concept that polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) are critically involved in inflammation-mediated angiogenesis which is important for wound healing and repair. We employed an oligonucleotide microarray technique to gain further insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying the proangiogenic potential of human PMN. In addition to 18 known angiogenesis-relevant genes, we detected the expression of 10 novel genes, namely midkine, erb-B2, ets-1, transforming growth factor receptor-beta(2) and -beta(3), thrombospondin, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 2, ephrin A2, ephrin B2 and restin in human PMN freshly isolated from the circulation. Gene expression was confi rmed by the RT-PCR technique. In vivo evidence for the role of PMN in neovascularization was provided by studying neovascularization in a skin model of wound healing using CD18-deficient mice which lack PMN infi ltration to sites of lesion. In CD18-deficient animals, neo- vascularization was found to be signifi cantly compromised when compared with wild- type control animals which showed profound neovascularization within the granulation tissue during the wound healing process. Thus, PMN infiltration seems to facilitate inflammation mediated angiogenesis which may be a consequence of the broad spectrum of proangiogenic factors expressed by these cells. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel
Complete hierarchies of SIR models on arbitrary networks with exact and approximate moment closure
We first generalise ideas discussed by Kiss et al. (2015) to prove a theorem for generating exact closures (here expressing joint probabilities in terms of their constituent marginal probabilities) for susceptible-infectious-removed (SIR) dynamics on arbitrary graphs (networks). For Poisson transmission and removal processes, this enables us to obtain a systematic reduction in the number of differential equations needed for an exact ‘moment closure’ representation of the underlying stochastic model. We define ‘transmission blocks’ as a possible extension of the block concept in graph theory and show that the order at which the exact moment closure representation is curtailed is the size of the largest transmission block. More generally, approximate closures of the hierarchy of moment equations for these dynamics are typically defined for the first and second order yielding mean-field and pairwise models respectively. It is frequently implied that, in principle, closed models can be written down at arbitrary order if only we had the time and patience to do this. However, for epidemic dynamics on networks, these higher-order models have not been defined explicitly. Here we unambiguously define hierarchies of approximate closed models that can utilise subsystem states of any order, and show how well-known models are special cases of these hierarchies
How generic is cosmic string formation in SUSY GUTs
We study cosmic string formation within supersymmetric grand unified
theories. We consider gauge groups having a rank between 4 and 8. We examine
all possible spontaneous symmetry breaking patterns from the GUT down to the
standard model gauge group. Assuming standard hybrid inflation, we select all
the models which can solve the GUT monopole problem, lead to baryogenesis after
inflation and are consistent with proton lifetime measurements. We conclude
that in all acceptable spontaneous symmetry breaking schemes, cosmic string
formation is unavoidable. The strings which form at the end of inflation have a
mass which is proportional to the inflationary scale. Sometimes, a second
network of strings form at a lower scale. Models based on gauge groups which
have rank greater than 6 can lead to more than one inflationary era; they all
end by cosmic string formation.Comment: 31 pages, Latex, submitted to PR
Pressure study of the noncentrosymmetric 5d-electron superconductors CaMSi3 (M= Ir, Pt)
We report hydrostatic pressure study on the Rashba-type noncentrosymmetric
superconduc- tors CaMSi3 (M= Ir, Pt). The temperature dependence of the
resistivity for both compounds is well described by the conventional
Bloch-Gr\"uneisen formalism at each pressure. This fact suggests that
electron-phonon scattering is dominant in these compounds. The superconducting
critical temperature Tc decreases by pressure as \sim 0.2 K/GPa above 0.41 GPa
to 2 GPa for both compounds. This behavior of Tc can be explained with a modest
decrease of the density of states based on the conventional BCS theory.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Nel positively regulates the genesis of retinal ganglion cells by promoting their differentiation and survival during development
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
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