α-actinin accounts for the bioactivity of actin preparations in inducing STAT target genes in

Damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) are molecules exposed or released by dead cells that trigger or modulate immunity and tissue repair. In vertebrates, the cytoskeletal component F-actin is a DAMP specifically recognised by DNGR-1, an innate immune receptor. Previously we suggested that actin is also a DAMP in Drosophila melanogaster by inducing STATdependent genes (Srinivasan et al., 2016). Here, we revise that conclusion and report that aactinin is far more potent than actin at inducing the same STAT response and can be found in trace amounts in actin preparations. Recombinant expression of actin or a-actinin in bacteria demonstrated that only a-actinin could drive the expression of STAT target genes in Drosophila. The response to injected a-actinin required the same signalling cascade that we had identified in our previous work using actin preparations. Taken together, these data indicate that a-actinin rather than actin drives STAT activation when injected into Drosophila

First demonstration of OH suppression in a high-efficiency near-infrared spectrograph

Ground-based near-infrared (NIR) astronomy is severely hampered by the forest of atmospheric emission lines resulting from the rovibrational decay of OH molecules in the upper atmosphere. The extreme brightness of these lines, as well as their spatial and temporal variability, makes accurate sky subtraction difficult. Selectively filtering these lines with OH suppression instruments has been a long standing goal for NIR spectroscopy. We have shown previously the efficacy of fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) combined with photonic lanterns for achieving OH suppression. Here we report on PRAXIS, a unique NIR spectrograph that is optimized for OH suppression with FBGs. We show for the first time that OH suppression (of any kind) is possible with high overall throughput (18 per cent end-to-end), and provide examples of the relative benefits of OH suppression.The prototype of the PRAXIS instrument, GNOSIS, was funded under an ARC Federation Fellowship (FF0776384, PI: BlandHawthorn) and two ARC LIEF grants LE100100164 and LE120100199. PRAXIS was funded under an ARC Laureate Fellowship (FL140100278, PI: Bland-Hawthorn), and an ARC LIEF grant LE160100191. innoFSPEC acknowledges support from BMBF under grant no. 03Z2AN11

Bright sub-20-nm cathodoluminescent nanoprobes for electron microscopy.

Electron microscopy has been instrumental in our understanding of complex biological systems. Although electron microscopy reveals cellular morphology with nanoscale resolution, it does not provide information on the location of different types of proteins. An electron-microscopy-based bioimaging technology capable of localizing individual proteins and resolving protein-protein interactions with respect to cellular ultrastructure would provide important insights into the molecular biology of a cell. Here, we synthesize small lanthanide-doped nanoparticles and measure the absolute photon emission rate of individual nanoparticles resulting from a given electron excitation flux (cathodoluminescence). Our results suggest that the optimization of nanoparticle composition, synthesis protocols and electron imaging conditions can lead to sub-20-nm nanolabels that would enable high signal-to-noise localization of individual biomolecules within a cellular context. In ensemble measurements, these labels exhibit narrow spectra of nine distinct colours, so the imaging of biomolecules in a multicolour electron microscopy modality may be possible