Sex differences in basal hypothalamic anorectic and orexigenic gene expression and the effect of quantitative and qualitative food restriction

Abstract Background Research into energy balance and growth has infrequently considered genetic sex, yet there is sexual dimorphism for growth across the animal kingdom. We test the hypothesis that in the chicken, there is a sex difference in arcuate nucleus neuropeptide gene expression, since previous research indicates hypothalamic AGRP expression is correlated with growth potential and that males grow faster than females. Because growth has been heavily selected in some chicken lines, food restriction is necessary to improve reproductive performance and welfare, but this increases hunger. Dietary dilution has been proposed to ameliorate this undesirable effect. We aimed to distinguish the effects of gut fullness from nutritional feedback on hypothalamic gene expression and its interaction with sex. Methods Twelve-week-old male and female fast-growing chickens were either released from restriction and fed ad libitum or a restricted diet plus 15% w/w ispaghula husk, a non-nutritive bulking agent, for 2 days. A control group remained on quantitative restriction. Hypothalamic arcuate nucleus neuropeptides were measured using real-time PCR. To confirm observed sex differences, the experiment was repeated using only ad libitum and restricted fed fast-growing chickens and in a genetically distinct breed of ad libitum fed male and female chickens. Linear mixed models (Genstat 18) were used for statistical analysis with transformation where appropriate. Results There were pronounced sex differences: expression of the orexigenic genes AGRP (P < 0.001) and NPY (P < 0.002) was higher in males of the fast-growing strain. In genetically distinct chickens, males had higher AGRP mRNA (P = 0.002) expression than females, suggesting sex difference was not restricted to a fast-growing strain. AGRP (P < 0.001) expression was significantly decreased in ad libitum fed birds but was high and indistinguishable between birds on a quantitative versus qualitative restricted diet. Inversely, gene expression of the anorectic genes POMC and CART was significantly higher in ad libitum fed birds but no consistent sex differences were observed. Conclusion Expression of orexigenic peptides in the avian hypothalamus are significantly different between sexes. This could be useful starting point of investigating further if AGRP is an indicator of growth potential. Results also demonstrate that gut fill alone does not reduce orexigenic gene expression

Properties of Light Flavour Baryons in Hypercentral quark model

The light flavour baryons are studied within the quark model using the hyper central description of the three-body system. The confinement potential is assumed as hypercentral coulomb plus power potential ($hCPP_\nu$) with power index $\nu$. The masses and magnetic moments of light flavour baryons are computed for different power index, $\nu$ starting from 0.5 to 1.5. The predicted masses and magnetic moments are found to attain a saturated value with respect to variation in $\nu$ beyond the power index $\nu>$ 1.0. Further we computed transition magnetic moments and radiative decay width of light flavour baryons. The results are in good agreement with known experimental as well as other theoretical models.Comment: Accepted in Pramana J. of Physic

Genes Suggest Ancestral Colour Polymorphisms Are Shared across Morphologically Cryptic Species in Arctic Bumblebees

email Suzanne orcd idCopyright: © 2015 Williams et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Characterization of deposits formed on diesel injectors in field test and from thermal oxidative degradation of n-hexadecane in a laboratory reactor

Solid deposits from commercially available high-pressure diesel injectors (HPDI) were analyzed to study the solid deposition from diesel fuel during engine operation. The structural and chemical properties of injector deposits were compared to those formed from the thermal oxidative stressing of a diesel fuel range model compound, n-hexadecane at 160°C and 450 psi for 2.5 h in a flow reactor. Both deposits consist of polyaromatic compounds (PAH) with oxygen moieties. The similarities in structure and composition of the injector deposits and n-hexadecane deposits suggest that laboratory experiments can simulate thermal oxidative degradation of diesel in commercial injectors. The formation of PAH from n-hexadecane showed that aromatization of straight chain alkanes and polycondensation of aromatic rings was possible at temperatures as low as 160°C in the presence of oxygen. A mechanism for an oxygen-assisted aromatization of cylcoalkanes is proposed

The effect of incorrect scanning distance on boundary detection errors and macular thickness measurements by spectral domain optical coherence tomography: a cross sectional study

BACKGROUND: To investigate the influence of scan distance on retinal boundary detection errors (RBDEs) and retinal thickness measurements by spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). METHODS: 10 eyes of healthy subjects, 10 eyes with diabetic macular edema (DME) and 10 eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) were examined with RTVue SD-OCT. The MM5 protocol was used in two consecutive sessions to scan the macula. For the first session, the device was set 3.5 cm from the eye in order to obtain detectable signal with low fundus image quality (suboptimal setting) while in the second session a distance of 2.5 cm was set with a good quality fundus image. The signal strength (SSI) value was recorded. The score for retinal boundary detection errors (RBDE) was calculated for ten scans of each examination. RBDE scores were recorded for the whole scan and also for the peripheral 1.0 mm region. RBDE scores, regional retinal thickness values and SSI values between the two sessions were compared. The correlation between SSI and the number of RBDEs was also examined. RESULTS: The SSI was significantly lower with suboptimal settings compared to optimal settings (63.9+/-12.0 vs. 68.3+/-12.2, respectively, p = 0.001) and the number of RBDEs was significantly higher with suboptimal settings in the "all-eyes" group along with the group of healthy subjects and eyes with DME (9.1+/-6.5 vs. 6.8+/-6.3, p = 0.007; 4.4+/-2.6 vs. 2.5+/-1.6, p = 0.035 and 9.7+/-3.3 vs. 5.1+/-3.7, p = 0.008, respectively). For these groups, significant negative correlation was found between the SSI and the number of RBDEs. In the AMD group, the number of RBDEs was markedly higher compared to the other groups and there was no difference in RBDEs between optimal and suboptimal settings with the errors being independent of the SSI. There were significantly less peripheral RBDEs with optimal settings in the "all-eyes" group and the DME subgroup (2.7+/-2.6 vs. 4.2+/-2.8, p = 0.001 and 1.4+/-1.7 vs. 4.1+/-2.2, p = 0.007, respectively). Retinal thickness in the two settings was significantly different only in the outer-superior region in DME. CONCLUSIONS: Optimal distance settings improve SD-OCT SSI with a decrease in RBDEs while retinal thickness measurements are independent of scanning distance

Reversal of Cocaine-Conditioned Place Preference through Methyl Supplementation in Mice: Altering Global DNA Methylation in the Prefrontal Cortex

Analysis of global methylation in cells has revealed correlations between overall DNA methylation status and some biological states. Recent studies suggest that epigenetic regulation through DNA methylation could be responsible for neuroadaptations induced by addictive drugs. However, there is no investigation to determine global DNA methylation status following repeated exposure to addictive drugs. Using mice conditioned place preference (CPP) procedure, we measured global DNA methylation level in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) associated with drug rewarding effects. We found that cocaine-, but not morphine- or food-CPP training decreased global DNA methylation in the PFC. Chronic treatment with methionine, a methyl donor, for 25 consecutive days prior to and during CPP training inhibited the establishment of cocaine, but not morphine or food CPP. We also found that both mRNA and protein level of DNMT (DNA methytransferase) 3b in the PFC were downregulated following the establishment of cocaine CPP, and the downregulation could be reversed by repeated administration of methionine. Our study indicates a crucial role of global PFC DNA hypomethylation in the rewarding effects of cocaine. Reversal of global DNA hypomethylation could significantly attenuate the rewarding effects induced by cocaine. Our results suggest that methionine may have become a potential therapeutic target to treat cocaine addiction

Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube

We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Precise measurement of the W-boson mass with the CDF II detector

We have measured the W-boson mass MW using data corresponding to 2.2/fb of integrated luminosity collected in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. Samples consisting of 470126 W->enu candidates and 624708 W->munu candidates yield the measurement MW = 80387 +- 12 (stat) +- 15 (syst) = 80387 +- 19 MeV. This is the most precise measurement of the W-boson mass to date and significantly exceeds the precision of all previous measurements combined

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO