Variable wave vector second harmonic generation in phenanthrene

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jcp/76/7/10.1063/1.443430.Second harmonic generation is observed in phenanthrene crystals. The experimental set is used allowed the simultaneous detection of two proton excitation (TPE) and second harmonic generation.(SHG). (AIP

Capillary electrophoresis-fluorescence line narrowing system (CE-FLNS) for on-line structural characterization

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is interfaced with low temperature fluorescenceline-narrowing (FLN) spectroscopy for on-line structural characterization of separated molecular analytes

Spectral and Conformational Analysis of Deoxyadenosine Adducts Derived from syn-and anti-Dibenzo[a,l]pyrene Diol Epoxides: Fluorescence Studies

Low-temperature fluorescence spectra and results of conformational studies with trans- syn-, cis-syn-, trans-anti-, and cis-anti-dibenzo[a,l]pyrene diol epoxide (DB[a,l]PDE)-derived deoxyadenosine (dA) adducts are presented and compared with those previously obtained for the stereoisomeric DB[a,l]P tetrols [Jankowiak, R., et al. (1997) Chem. Res. Toxicol. 10, 677-686]. In contrast to DB[a,l]P tetrols, for which only trans isomers exhibited two conformers, all stereoisomeric dA adducts adopt two different conformations with either half-chair or halfboat structures for the cyclohexenyl ring, and an "open"-or "folded"-type configuration between dA and the DB[a,l]P moiety. The major conformations observed for trans-syn-, cis-syn-, and cis-anti-DB [a,l]PDE-14-N 6 dA could be assigned on the basis of the previous calculations for the DB[a,l]P tetrols. The major conformers of the trans-syn-and cis-syn-DB [a,l]PDE-14-N 6 -dA adducts exist in conformations I and II, with their fluorescence origin bands at ∼382 and ∼389 nm, respectively. In conformation I, the cyclohexenyl ring adopts a half-boat structure with dA in a pseudoaxial position (an open configuration), whereas the cyclohexenyl ring in conformation II adopts a half-chair structure with dA in pseudoequatorial position (a folded configuration). The major conformation of cis-anti-DB[a,l]PDE-14-N 6 dA, with its origin band at ∼389 nm, was also assigned as a folded-type configuration with a half-chair structure in the cyclohexenyl ring. Molecular mechanics and dynamical simulations were performed for interpretation of the low-temperature fluorescence spectra and 1 H NMR coupling constants observed for the trans-anti-DB[a,l]PDE-14-N 6 dA adduct. The major conformer of this adduct has a half-chair structure in the cyclohexenyl ring, but a deviation from planarity in the fjord region different from that of conformer II of cis-anti-DB [a,l]PDE-N 6 dA. This new structure is labeled as conformer II′. Its (0,0) fluorescence band is at 388.1 and 388.3 nm in ethanol and glycerol/water glasses, respectively, consistent with the folded-type configuration revealed by the calculations. The fluorescence line-narrowed spectra reveal that the trans- dA adducts can be distinguished. Thus, their spectra should prove useful for identification of DB[a,l]P-DNA adducts formed at low levels in biological samples

BMQ

BMQ: Boston Medical Quarterly was published from 1950-1966 by the Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals

Multiple interactions between the alpha2C- and beta1-adrenergic receptors influence heart failure survival

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Persistent stimulation of cardiac β₁-adrenergic receptors by endogenous norepinephrine promotes heart failure progression. Polymorphisms of this gene are known to alter receptor function or expression, as are polymorphisms of the α_2C-adrenergic receptor, which regulates norepinephrine release from cardiac presynaptic nerves. The purpose of this study was to investigate possible synergistic effects of polymorphisms of these two intronless genes (<it>ADRB1 </it>and <it>ADRA2C</it>, respectively) on the risk of death/transplant in heart failure patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Sixteen sequence variations in <it>ADRA2C </it>and 17 sequence variations in <it>ADRB1 </it>were genotyped in a longitudinal study of 655 white heart failure patients. Eleven sequence variations in each gene were polymorphic in the heart failure cohort. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to identify polymorphisms and potential intra- or intergenic interactions that influenced risk of death or cardiac transplant. A leave-one-out cross-validation method was utilized for internal validation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Three polymorphisms in <it>ADRA2C </it>and five polymorphisms in <it>ADRB1 </it>were involved in eight cross-validated epistatic interactions identifying several two-locus genotype classes with significant relative risks ranging from 3.02 to 9.23. There was no evidence of intragenic epistasis. Combining high risk genotype classes across epistatic pairs to take into account linkage disequilibrium, the relative risk of death or transplant was 3.35 (1.82, 6.18) relative to all other genotype classes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Multiple polymorphisms act synergistically between the <it>ADRA2C </it>and <it>ADRB1 </it>genes to increase risk of death or cardiac transplant in heart failure patients.</p

In Vitro and In Vivo Germ Line Potential of Stem Cells Derived from Newborn Mouse Skin

We previously reported that fetal porcine skin-derived stem cells were capable of differentiation into oocyte-like cells (OLCs). Here we report that newborn mice skin-derived stem cells are also capable of differentiating into early OLCs. Using stem cells from mice that are transgenic for Oct4 germline distal enhancer-GFP, germ cells resulting from their differentiation are expected to be GFP+. After differentiation, some GFP+ OLCs reached 40–45 µM and expressed oocyte markers. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that ∼0.3% of the freshly isolated skin cells were GFP+. The GFP-positive cells increased to ∼7% after differentiation, suggesting that the GFP+ cells could be of in vivo origin, but are more likely induced upon being cultured in vitro. To study the in vivo germ cell potential of skin-derived cells, they were aggregated with newborn ovarian cells, and transplanted under the kidney capsule of ovariectomized mice. GFP+ oocytes were identified within a subpopulation of follicles in the resulting growth. Our finding that early oocytes can be differentiated from mice skin-derived cells in defined medium may offer a new in vitro model to study germ cell formation and oogenesis

RNA Methylation by the MIS Complex Regulates a Cell Fate Decision in Yeast

For the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, nutrient limitation is a key developmental signal causing diploid cells to switch from yeast-form budding to either foraging pseudohyphal (PH) growth or meiosis and sporulation. Prolonged starvation leads to lineage restriction, such that cells exiting meiotic prophase are committed to complete sporulation even if nutrients are restored. Here, we have identified an earlier commitment point in the starvation program. After this point, cells, returned to nutrient-rich medium, entered a form of synchronous PH development that was morphologically and genetically indistinguishable from starvation-induced PH growth. We show that lineage restriction during this time was, in part, dependent on the mRNA methyltransferase activity of Ime4, which played separable roles in meiotic induction and suppression of the PH program. Normal levels of meiotic mRNA methylation required the catalytic domain of Ime4, as well as two meiotic proteins, Mum2 and Slz1, which interacted and co-immunoprecipitated with Ime4. This MIS complex (Mum2, Ime4, and Slz1) functioned in both starvation pathways. Together, our results support the notion that the yeast starvation response is an extended process that progressively restricts cell fate and reveal a broad role of post-transcriptional RNA methylation in these decisions

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

THE EFFECTS OF ADIABATIC AND NONADIABATIC INTERACTIONS ON VIBRONIC AND ELECTRIC FIELD SPECTRA

Author Institution: Ames Laboratory-USAEC and Department of Chemistry, Iowa State UniversityThe results of recent theoretical work on nonadiabatic contributions to vibronic intensities are reported. Specifically, we consider the problem, in absorption, of how one takes into account the non-adiabaticity when its dependence on the total vibrational energy of the final vibronic state of the transition is not ignored. A simple perturbative scheme is developed which, although not applicable when the final vibronic state is in resonance with vibronic levels of the second interacting electronic state (higher energy), should prove useful for the off-resonance case. Model calculations are presented which show that for many systems the problem is soluble without knowledge of the geometry difference between the two interacting electronic states. Finally, the problem of adiabatic and nonadiabatic contributions to excited state dipole moments is considered along with some pertinent experimental data