First Ever Observations of Mineral Dust in Wintertime over Warsaw, Poland

The long-range transport of desert dust over the area of the temperate climate zone is associated with the influx of hot air masses due to the location of the sources of this aerosol in the tropical climate zone. Between 24–26 February 2021, such an aerosol outbreak took place and reached Central Europe. The mean temperature of +11.7 °C was recorded during the event. A comparison of this value to the 20-year (2000–2020) average February temperature for Warsaw (−0.2 °C) indicates the uniqueness of the meteorological conditions. It was the first wintertime inflow of Saharan dust over Warsaw, the presence of which was confirmed by lidar and sun-photometer measurements. The properties of the desert dust layers were obtained; the mean values of the particle depolarization for the fully developed mineral dust layer were 13 ± 3% and 22 ± 4% for 355 and 532 nm, respectively. The aerosol optical thickness was high with average values >0.36 for all wavelengths smaller than 500 nm. The three-modal, aerosol size distribution was dominated by coarse-mode particles, with a visible contribution of accumulation-mode particles. It suggests the possible presence of other aerosol types

The electron density of delocalized bonds (EDDB) applied for quantifying aromaticity

In this study the recently developed electron density of delocalized bonds (EDDB) is used to define a new measure of aromaticity in molecular rings. The relationships between bond-length alternation, electron delocalization and diatropicity of the induced ring current are investigated for a test set of representative molecular rings by means of correlation and principal component analyses involving the most popular aromaticity descriptors based on structural, electronic, and magnetic criteria. Additionally, a qualitative comparison is made between EDDB and the magnetically induced ring-current density maps from the ipsocentric approach for a series of linear acenes. Special emphasis is given to the comparative study of the description of cyclic delocalization of electrons in a wide range of organic aromatics in terms of the kekulean multicenter index KMCI and the newly proposed EDDBk indexThe research was supported in part by the Faculty of Chemistry at Jagiellonian University (grant K/DSC/001469, DS), Foundation for Polish Science (FNP START 2015, stipend 103.2015, DS), National Science Centre, Poland (NCN SONATA, grant 2015/17/ D/ST4/00558, DS) as well as the PL-Grid Infrastructure of the Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET with the calculations performed on the cluster platform ‘‘Prometheus’’. MS thanks for the support of the Ministerio de Economa y Competitividad of Spain (Project CTQ2014-54306-P), Generalitat de Catalunya (project number 2014SGR931, Xarxa de Refere`ncia en Qumica Teo`rica i Computacional, and ICREA Academia prize), and European Fund for Regional Development (FEDER grant UNGI10-4E-801

Mechanisms generating long-range correlation in nucleotide composition of the Borrelia burgdorferi genome

Abstract We have analysed protein coding and intergenic sequences in the Borrelia burgdorferi (the Lyme disease bacterium) genome using di erent kinds of DNA walks. Genes occupying the leading strand of DNA have signiÿcantly di erent nucleotide composition from genes occupying the lagging strand. Nucleotide compositional bias of the two DNA strands re ects the aminoacid composition of proteins. 96% of genes coding for ribosomal proteins lie on the leading DNA strand, which suggests that the positions of these as well as other genes are non-random. In the B. burgdorferi genome, the asymmetry in intergenic DNA sequences is lower than the asymmetry in the third positions in codons. All these characters of the B. burgdorferi genome suggest that both replication-associated mutational pressure and recombination mechanisms have established the speciÿc structure of the genome and now any recombination leading to inversion of a gene in respect to the direction of replication is forbidden. This property of the genome allows us to assume that it is in a steady state, which enables us to ÿx some parameters for simulations of DNA evolution. c 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 87.14.G; 05.10-a Keywords: Long-range correlation; Replication; Transcription * Corresponding author. Fax: +48-71-3252151. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Cebrat), [email protected] (M.R. Dudek) 0378-4371/99/$ -see front matter c 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 7 8 -4 3 7 1 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 3 4 5 -3 104 P. Mackiewicz et al. / Physica A 273 (1999) 103-11

Energy Metabolism in Uncoupling Protein 3 Gene Knockout Mice

Uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) is a member of the mitochondrial anion carrier superfamily. Based upon its high homology with UCP1 and its restricted tissue distribution to skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue, UCP3 has been suggested to play important roles in regulating energy expenditure, body weight, and thermoregulation. Other postulated roles for UCP3 include regulation of fatty acid metabolism, adaptive responses to acute exercise and starvation, and prevention of reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation. To address these questions, we have generated mice lacking UCP3 (UCP3 knockout (KO) mice). Here, we provide evidence that skeletal muscle mitochondria lacking UCP3 are more coupled (i.e. increased state 3/state 4 ratio), indicating that UCP3 has uncoupling activity. In addition, production of ROS is increased in mitochondria lacking UCP3. This study demonstrates that UCP3 has uncoupling activity and that its absence may lead to increased production of ROS. Despite these effects on mitochondrial function, UCP3 does not seem to be required for body weight regulation, exercise tolerance, fatty acid oxidation, or cold-induced thermogenesis. The absence of such phenotypes in UCP3 KO mice could not be attributed to up-regulation of other UCP mRNAs. However, alternative compensatory mechanisms cannot be excluded. The consequence of increased mitochondrial coupling in UCP3 KO mice on metabolism and the possible role of yet unidentified compensatory mechanisms, remains to be determined

Studies of viomycin, an anti-tuberculosis antibiotic: Copper(II) coordination, DNA degradation and the impact on delta ribozyme cleavage activity

Viomycin is a basic peptide antibiotic, which is among the most effective agents against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. In this paper we provide the characteristics of its acid base properties, coordination preferences towards the Cu(II) ions, as well as the reactivity of the resulting complexes against plasmid DNA and HDV ribozyme. Careful coordination studies throughout the wide pH range allow for the characterisation of all the Cu(II)-viomycin complex species. The assignment of proton chemical shifts was achieved by NMR experiments, while the DTF level of theory was applied to support molecular structures of the studied complexes. The experiments with the plasmid DNA reveal that at the physiological levels of hydrogen peroxide the Cu(II)-viomycin complex is more aggressive against DNA than uncomplexed metal ions. Moreover, the degradation of DNA by viomycin can be carried out without the presence of transition metal ions. In the studies of antigenomic delta ribozyme catalytic activity, viomycin and its complex are shown to modulate the ribozyme functioning. The molecular modelling approach allows the indication of two different locations of viomycin binding sites to the ribozyme

Energy Metabolism in Uncoupling Protein 3 Gene Knockout Mice

Uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) is a member of the mitochondrial anion carrier superfamily. Based upon its high homology with UCP1 and its restricted tissue distribution to skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue, UCP3 has been suggested to play important roles in regulating energy expenditure, body weight, and thermoregulation. Other postulated roles for UCP3 include regulation of fatty acid metabolism, adaptive responses to acute exercise and starvation, and prevention of reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation. To address these questions, we have generated mice lacking UCP3 (UCP3 knockout (KO) mice). Here, we provide evidence that skeletal muscle mitochondria lacking UCP3 are more coupled (i.e. increased state 3/state 4 ratio), indicating that UCP3 has uncoupling activity. In addition, production of ROS is increased in mitochondria lacking UCP3. This study demonstrates that UCP3 has uncoupling activity and that its absence may lead to increased production of ROS. Despite these effects on mitochondrial function, UCP3 does not seem to be required for body weight regulation, exercise tolerance, fatty acid oxidation, or cold-induced thermogenesis. The absence of such phenotypes in UCP3 KO mice could not be attributed to up-regulation of other UCP mRNAs. However, alternative compensatory mechanisms cannot be excluded. The consequence of increased mitochondrial coupling in UCP3 KO mice on metabolism and the possible role of yet unidentified compensatory mechanisms, remains to be determined

The prognostic significance of HLA-A2 expression on somatic cells in patients with left-sided colon and rectal cancers

Introduction. Current knowledge about colorectal cancer (CRC) identifies tumor immunogenicity as one of the more important issues. In cancers, a prerequisite for immune system activation is the presentation of tumor associated antigen (TAA) epitopes to immunocompetent cells. HLA-A2 is one of the antigens in the context of which TAAs are present, but data on the possible impact of HLA-A2 antigen expression on the survival of patients with colorectal cancer are scarce and sometimes contradictory. The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between HLA-A2 expression in patients with left-sided colorectal cancer in various stages of disease and their long-term survival, and to answer the question of whether a lack of HLA-A2 expression is actually a negative prognostic factor. Material and methods.  A prospective analysis of 58 patients with left-sided colorectal cancer was carried out. Expression of HLA-A2 was determined by patient blood lymphocyte staining, and analysed using flow cytometry. Results. In the study group, patients with HLA-A2 expression lived statistically longer than HLA-A2 negative patients (p = 0.027). There was no significant difference in overall survival between the HLA-A2+ and HLA-A2- groups with stage II and III left-sided CRC. However, the Cox proportional hazard model showed that a lack of HLA-A2 expression was a negative prognostic factor in the group of radically operated patients without distant metastases. Conclusions. HLA-A2 status may affect the clinical course of patients with left-sided colon and rectal cancer, although left-sided tumors are less immunogenic than right-sided ones. HLA-A2-positive patients with left-sided colorectal cancer lived statistically longer than those who were HLA-A2-negative (p = 0.027). Lack of HLA-A2 expression was a negative prognostic factor in the group of radically operated patients