854 research outputs found
DNMTs are required for delayed genome instability caused by radiation
This is an open-access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. The article may be redistributed, reproduced, and reused for non-commercial purposes, provided the original source is properly cited - Copyright @ 2012 Landes Bioscience.The ability of ionizing radiation to initiate genomic instability has been harnessed in the clinic where the localized delivery of controlled doses of radiation is used to induce cell death in tumor cells. Though very effective as a therapy, tumor relapse can occur in vivo and its appearance has been attributed to the radio-resistance of cells with stem cell-like features. The molecular mechanisms underlying these phenomena are unclear but there is evidence suggesting an inverse correlation between radiation-induced genomic instability and global hypomethylation. To further investigate the relationship between DNA hypomethylation, radiosensitivity and genomic stability in stem-like cells we have studied mouse embryonic stem cells containing differing levels of DNA methylation due to the presence or absence of DNA methyltransferases. Unexpectedly, we found that global levels of methylation do not determine radiosensitivity. In particular, radiation-induced delayed genomic instability was observed at the Hprt gene locus only in wild-type cells. Furthermore, absence of Dnmt1 resulted in a 10-fold increase in de novo Hprt mutation rate, which was unaltered by radiation. Our data indicate that functional DNMTs are required for radiation-induced genomic instability, and that individual DNMTs play distinct roles in genome stability. We propose that DNMTS may contribute to the acquirement of radio-resistance in stem-like cells.This study is funded by NOTE, BBSRC and the Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship
Gravitational Chern-Simons Lagrangians and black hole entropy
We analyze the problem of defining the black hole entropy when Chern-Simons
terms are present in the action. Extending previous works, we define a general
procedure, valid in any odd dimensions both for purely gravitational CS terms
and for mixed gauge-gravitational ones. The final formula is very similar to
Wald's original formula valid for covariant actions, with a significant
modification. Notwithstanding an apparent violation of covariance we argue that
the entropy formula is indeed covariant.Comment: 39 page
Black-hole dynamics in BHT massive gravity
Using an exact Vaidya-type null-dust solution, we study the area and entropy
laws for dynamical black holes defined by a future outer trapping horizon in
(2+1)-dimensional Bergshoeff-Hohm-Townsend (BHT) massive gravity. We consider
the theory admitting a degenerate (anti-)de Sitter vacuum and pure BHT gravity.
It is shown that, while the area of a black hole decreases by the injection of
a null dust with positive energy density in several cases, the Wald-Kodama
dynamical entropy always increases.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
On the General Kerr/CFT Correspondence in Arbitrary Dimensions
We study conformal symmetries on the horizon of a general stationary and
axisymmetric black hole. We find that there exist physically reasonable
boundary conditions that uniquely determine a set of symmetry generators, which
form one copy of the Virasoro algebra. For extremal black holes, Cardy's
formula reproduces exactly the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.Comment: 17 page
Membrane Paradigm and Horizon Thermodynamics in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity
We study the membrane paradigm for horizons in Lanczos-Lovelock models of
gravity in arbitrary D dimensions and find compact expressions for the pressure
p and viscosity coefficients \eta and \zeta of the membrane fluid. We show that
the membrane pressure is intimately connected with the Noether charge entropy
S_Wald of the horizon when we consider a specific m-th order Lanczos-Lovelock
model, through the relation pA/T=(D-2m)/(D-2)S_Wald, where T is the temperature
and A is the area of the horizon. Similarly, the viscosity coefficients are
expressible in terms of entropy and quasi-local energy associated with the
horizons. The bulk and shear viscosity coefficients are found to obey the
relation \zeta=-2(D-3)/(D-2)\eta.Comment: v1: 13 pages, no figure. (v2): refs added, typos corrected, new
subsection added on the ratio \eta/s. (v3): some clarification added, typos
corrected, to appear in JHE
The Entropy for General Extremal Black Holes
We use the Kerr/CFT correspondence to calculate the entropy for all known
extremal stationary and axisymmetric black holes. This is done with the help of
two ansatzs that are general enough to cover all such known solutions.
Considering only the contribution from the Einstein-Hilbert action to the
central charge(s), we find that the entropy obtained by using Cardy's formula
exactly matches with the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.Comment: Minor corrections, section 5 refined, references added
Boundary Conditions and Unitarity: the Maxwell-Chern-Simons System in AdS_3/CFT_2
We consider the holography of the Abelian Maxwell-Chern-Simons (MCS) system
in Lorentzian three-dimensional asymptotically-AdS spacetimes, and discuss a
broad class of boundary conditions consistent with conservation of the
symplectic structure. As is well-known, the MCS theory contains a massive
sector dual to a vector operator in the boundary theory, and a topological
sector consisting of flat connections dual to U(1) chiral currents; the
boundary conditions we examine include double-trace deformations in these two
sectors, as well as a class of boundary conditions that mix the vector
operators with the chiral currents. We carefully study the symplectic product
of bulk modes and show that almost all such boundary conditions induce
instabilities and/or ghost excitations, consistent with violations of unitarity
bounds in the dual theory.Comment: 50+1 pages, 6 figures, PDFLaTeX; v2: added references, corrected
typo
New supersymmetric higher-derivative couplings: Full N=2 superspace does not count!
An extended class of N=2 locally supersymmetric invariants with
higher-derivative couplings based on full superspace integrals, is constructed.
These invariants may depend on unrestricted chiral supermultiplets, on vector
supermultiplets and on the Weyl supermultiplet. Supersymmetry is realized
off-shell. A non-renormalization theorem is proven according to which none of
these invariants can contribute to the entropy and electric charges of BPS
black holes. Some of these invariants may be relevant for topological string
deformations.Comment: 24 pages, v2: version published in JHEP, one reference added and
typos corrected, v3: reference adde
Black Hole Hair Removal: Non-linear Analysis
BMPV black holes in flat transverse space and in Taub-NUT space have
identical near horizon geometries but different microscopic degeneracies. It
has been proposed that this difference can be accounted for by different
contribution to the degeneracies of these black holes from hair modes, --
degrees of freedom living outside the horizon. In this paper we explicitly
construct the hair modes of these two black holes as finite bosonic and
fermionic deformations of the black hole solution satisfying the full
non-linear equations of motion of supergravity and preserving the supersymmetry
of the original solutions. Special care is taken to ensure that these solutions
do not have any curvature singularity at the future horizon when viewed as the
full ten dimensional geometry. We show that after removing the contribution due
to the hair degrees of freedom from the microscopic partition function, the
partition functions of the two black holes agree.Comment: 40 pages, LaTe
Thermodynamic Geometry and Phase Transitions in Kerr-Newman-AdS Black Holes
We investigate phase transitions and critical phenomena in Kerr-Newman-Anti
de Sitter black holes in the framework of the geometry of their equilibrium
thermodynamic state space. The scalar curvature of these state space Riemannian
geometries is computed in various ensembles. The scalar curvature diverges at
the critical point of second order phase transitions for these systems.
Remarkably, however, we show that the state space scalar curvature also carries
information about the liquid-gas like first order phase transitions and the
consequent instabilities and phase coexistence for these black holes. This is
encoded in the turning point behavior and the multi-valued branched structure
of the scalar curvature in the neighborhood of these first order phase
transitions. We re-examine this first for the conventional Van der Waals
system, as a preliminary exercise. Subsequently, we study the Kerr-Newman-AdS
black holes for a grand canonical and two "mixed" ensembles and establish novel
phase structures. The state space scalar curvature bears out our assertion for
the first order phase transitions for both the known and the new phase
structures, and closely resembles the Van der Waals system.Comment: 1 + 41 pages, LaTeX, 46 figures. Discussions, clarifications and
references adde
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