Uniformity in a Diversity of Landscapes – Branchiopod Communities in Eastern and Central Mongolia

While investigating the branchiopod fauna of Mongolia, the uniformity of these crustacean communities through a multitude of different ecological conditions is conspicuous. We sampled branchiopods in 24 sites through Central- and East-Mongolia, as living animals as well as cysts in soil samples. These sites represent the main types of Mongolia’s vegetation- and ecological-zones: Taiga forests in the western and eastern edge of the Khentey-Mountain ridge, the central and eastern steppe regions, and the Gobi-desert in the south. In this large amount of differing ecological conditions with a changing human impact, compared to the width of the covered area, we found a relatively uniform structure of “large branchiopod” communities. The main type of Branchiopod assemblies were a community formed by up to four different species (Branchipodopsis affinis, Triops numidicus, Eocyzicus davidi, Lynceus dauricus), which represent the four main groups within the “large branchiopods” (Anostraca, Notostraca, Spinicaudata, Laevicaudata). Exemplary for this “Mongolian standard Branchiopod Community” we investigated several waterponds, inhabited by these Branchiopods at Khonin Nuga – Research station in the western Khentey Mountains to study the population’s development and living conditions. The short life span of those ephemeral puddles only allows the occurrence of short-living and fast developing species. Thus, only one generation of large branchiopods inhabits one aqueous phase at any given time. After the large branchiopods have completed their life cycle, Daphnia dominates

Mutations in the C-terminal region of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase and their correlation with drug resistance associated mutations and antiviral treatment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>Replication of HIV-1 after cell entry is essentially dependent on the reverse transcriptase (RT). Antiretroviral drugs impairing the function of the RT currently aim at the polymerase subunit. One reason for failure of antiretroviral treatment is the evolvement of resistance-associated mutations in the viral genome. For RT inhibitors, almost all identified mutations are located within the polymerase; therefore, general genotyping confines to investigate this subunit. Recently several studies have shown that substitutions within the RNase H and the connection domain increase antiviral drug-resistance in vitro, and some of them are present in patient isolates.</p> <p>Aim</p> <p>The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of these substitutions and their association with mutations in the polymerase domain arising during antiretroviral treatment.</p> <p>Materials and methods</p> <p>We performed genotypic analyzes on seventy-four virus isolates derived from treated and untreated patients, followed at the HIV Centre of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Hospital (Frankfurt/Main, Germany). We subsequently analysed the different substitutions in the c-terminal region to evaluate whether there were associations with each other, n-terminal substitutions or with antiretroviral treatment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified several primer grip substitutions, but almost all of them were located in the connection domain. This is consistent with other in-vivo studies, in which especially the primer grip residues located in the RNase H were unvaried. Furthermore, we identified other substitutions in the connection domain and in the RNase H. Especially E399D seemed to be associated with an antiretroviral treatment and N-terminal resistance-delivering mutations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Some of the identified substitutions were associated with antiviral treatment and drug resistance-associated mutations. Due to the low prevalence of C-terminal mutations and as only a few of them could be associated with antiviral treatment and N-terminal resistance-delivering mutations, we would not recommend routinely testing of the C-terminal RT region.</p

The dynamic relationships between the three events that release individual Na+ ions from the Na+/K+-ATPase

© Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 3 (2012): 669, doi:10.1038/ncomms1673.Na+/K+ pumps move net charge through the cell membrane by mediating unequal exchange of intracellular Na+ and extracellular K+. Most charge moves during transitions that release Na+ to the cell exterior. When pumps are constrained to bind and release only Na+, a membrane voltage-step redistributes pumps among conformations with zero, one, two or three bound Na+, thereby transiently generating current. By applying rapid voltage steps to squid giant axons, we previously identified three components in such transient currents, with distinct relaxation speeds: fast (which nearly parallels the voltage-jump time course), medium speed (τm=0.2–0.5 ms) and slow (τs=1–10 ms). Here we show that these three components are tightly correlated, both in their magnitudes and in the time courses of their changes. The correlations reveal the dynamics of the conformational rearrangements that release three Na+ to the exterior (or sequester them into their binding sites) one at a time, in an obligatorily sequential manner.This research was directly supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NINDS, grants NIH HL36783 to D.C.G., and NIH U54GM087519 and R01GM030376 to F.B

Bend it like Beckham: embodying the motor skills of famous athletes.

Observing an action activates the same representations as does the actual performance of the action. Here we show for the first time that the action system can also be activated in the complete absence of action perception. When the participants had to identify the faces of famous athletes, the responses were influenced by their similarity to the motor skills of the athletes. Thus, the motor skills of the viewed athletes were retrieved automatically during person identification and had a direct influence on the action system of the observer. However, our results also indicated that motor behaviours that are implicit characteristics of other people are represented differently from when actions are directly observed. That is, unlike the facilitatory effects reported when actions were seen, the embodiment of the motor behaviour that is not concurrently perceived gave rise to contrast effects where responses similar to the behaviour of the athletes were inhibited

Lumbar spine radiographic features and demographic, clinical, and radiographic knee, hip and hand osteoarthritis: The Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project

Objective—1) To determine the prevalence of lumbar spine individual radiographic features (IRF) of disc space narrowing (DSN), osteophytes (OST) and facet joint osteoarthritis (FOA). 2) To describe the frequencies of demographic, clinic and radiographic knee, hip and hand osteoarthritis (OA) across lumbar spine IRF. 3) To determine factors associated with lumbar spine IRF. Methods—A cross-sectional study of 840 participants enrolled in the Johnston County OA Project (2003-4). Sample-based prevalence estimates were generated for each lumbar spine IRF. Associations between lumbar spine IRF and demographic, clinical and peripheral joint OA were determined with logistic regression models. Results—Sample-based prevalence estimates were similar for DSN (57.6%) and FOA (57.9%) but higher for OST (88.1%) with significant differences across race and gender. Hand and knee OA frequencies increased across IRF whereas the effect was absent for hip OA. African Americans had lower odds of FOA (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=0.45 (95% CI 0.32, 0.62)) while there was no racial association with DSN and OST. Low back symptoms were associated with DSN (aOR=1.37 (95% CI 1.04, 1.80)) but not OST or FOA. Knee OA was associated with OST (aOR=1.62 (95% CI 1.16, 2.27)) and FOA (aOR=1.69 (95% CI 1.15, 2.49)) but not DSN. Hand OA was associated with FOA (aOR=1.67 (95% CI 1.20, 2.28)) but not with DSN or OST. No associations were found with hip OA. Conclusion—These findings underscore the importance of analyzing lumbar spine IRF separately as the associations with demographic, clinic and radiographic knee, hip and hand OA differ widely

Assessing the association between GLP-1 receptor agonist use and diabetic retinopathy through the FDA adverse event reporting system

Recently, the Trial to Evaluate Cardiovascular and Other Long-term Outcomes With Semaglutide in Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes (SUSTAIN-6) suggested that semaglutide may increase the risk for diabetic retinopathy (DR) adverse events (AEs) compared with placebo. Other trials of glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) showed a numerically higher incidence of DR AEs for liraglutide but not exenatide. However, these trials did not systematically assess DR. Our population-based cohort study of older U.S. adults suggested that GLP-1RA use for approximately 1 year does not increase DR risk. As current evidence on GLP-1RA–associated DR risk is still limited, we conducted a disproportionality analysis of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database to examine the association between GLP-1RA and DR events

Assessing the association between dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor use and inflammatory bowel disease through drug adverse event reporting

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), is an autoimmune digestive system disease. A recent cohort study using the U.K. Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) involving 7,231 dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor (DPP4i) users with 49 IBD cases indicated that new use of DPP4is over a median duration of 1.6 years was associated with IBD risk in patients with type 2 diabetes compared with other noninsulin antihyperglycemic drugs (hazard ratio 1.75, 95% CI 1.22, 2.49). Current evidence regarding the effect of DPP4is on IBD risk is very limited. We thus performed a disproportionality analysis using the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database, which contains all adverse events spontaneously reported to the Food and Drug Administration since 2004

Volumetric HiLo microscopy employing an electrically tunable lens

Electrically tunable lenses exhibit strong potential for fast motion-free axial scanning in a variety of microscopes. However, they also lead to a degradation of the achievable resolution because of aberrations and misalignment between illumination and detection optics that are induced by the scan itself. Additionally, the typically nonlinear relation between actuation voltage and axial displacement leads to over- or under-sampled frame acquisition in most microscopic techniques because of their static depth-of-field. To overcome these limitations, we present an Adaptive-Lens-High-and-Low-frequency (AL-HiLo) microscope that enables volumetric measurements employing an electrically tunable lens. By using speckle-patterned illumination, we ensure stability against aberrations of the electrically tunable lens. Its depth-of-field can be adjusted a-posteriori and hence enables to create flexible scans, which compensates for irregular axial measurement positions. The adaptive HiLo microscope provides an axial scanning range of 1 mm with an axial resolution of about 4 μm and sub-micron lateral resolution over the full scanning range. Proof of concept measurements at home-built specimens as well as zebrafish embryos with reporter gene-driven fluorescence in the thyroid gland are shown

Determinants of quality, specificity, and stability of emotional episodic memories in a fine-dining context

For theoretical and practical reasons, it is of great interest to understand how accurate and persistent episodic memories of enjoyable experiences are formed and maintained, for example, in the context of gastronomy and other instances of experience design. Here, we investigated factors that might affect the quality (a measure of coherence) of immediate and long-term emotional episodic memories of individual dishes of a long and complex dinner in a fine-dining restaurant. We also assessed long-term recognition memory for pictures of the dishes. Intra-class correlations revealed good immediate emotional episodic memory, which remained stable over three months. Contributing factors to these kinds of memory were assessed with path modelling. The quality of emotional episodic memory was enhanced by the hedonic intensity of the most valued dishes during the meal and was impaired with the hedonic intensity of the least valued dishes. Enjoying the final dish positively affects emotional memory after the experience. Interestingly, when diners reported to have been distracted from the meal, presumably by communicating with their meal companions about the food, it had a positive effect on the long-term emotional episodic memory. Personality traits of the diners had no substantial impact on either type of memory. Alcohol intake during the meal modestly affected recognition memory but – interestingly – had no statistically significant effect on emotional episodic memory. Altogether, this study provides novel information about the main determinants of the precision and temporal stability of emotional episodic memory and nonemotional recognition memory for a meal. These findings contribute to the psychological foundations of designing memorable experiences in gastronomy and other areas. Implications for gastronomy Knowing what factors may determine whether a gastronomic experience would be memorable to diners is the holy grail of any chef. The design of a gastronomic experience should provide intense emotional moments to the diners aiming to increase the quality of emotional memory of those moments. Different factors contribute to this stability, for instance, how the diner interacts with the food and the food itself. In this regard, serving in a dining course very tasty and less delicious dishes thereafter can enhance the memorability of the former, but not so much of the latter, as it may be disturbing for the diner. Critically, enjoying the final dish positively affects emotional memory after the experience. In addition, most gastronomic events are shared with companions. Far from being a distracting element, social relationships in a table seem to increase the memorability of the experience, as communication deeply elaborates and reinforces memory traces. In the reinforcement of emotional memories for foods, alcohol has a negligible effect. Although our findings have been obtained in a fine-dining context, the implications of our current findings might be generalizable to other, more standard contexts. The critical point is to focus on having positive specific episodes rather than having a positive global valuation. All these outcomes would converge to increase the probability of repeating the gastronomic experience, regardless of whether it is a high-level restaurant or a standard one