867 research outputs found
Vascular signalling mediated by ZWILLE potentiates WUSCHEL function during shoot meristem stem cell development in the Arabidopsis embryo
Stem cells are maintained in an undifferentiated state by signals from their microenvironment, the stem cell niche. Despite its central role for organogenesis throughout the plant's life, little is known about how niche development is regulated in the Arabidopsis embryo. Here we show that, in the absence of functional ZWILLE (ZLL), which is a member of the ARGONAUTE (AGO) family, stem cell-specific expression of the signal peptide gene CLAVATA3 (CLV3) is not maintained despite increased levels of the homeodomain transcription factor WUSCHEL (WUS), which is expressed in the organising centre (OC) of the niche and normally promotes stem cell identity. Tissue-specific expression indicates that ZLL acts to maintain the stem cells from the neighbouring vascular primordium, providing direct evidence for a non-cell-autonomous mechanism. Furthermore, mutant and marker gene analyses suggest that during shoot meristem formation, ZLL functions in a similar manner but in a sequential order with its close homologue AGO1, which mediates RNA interference. Thus, WUS-dependent OC signalling to the stem cells is promoted by AGO1 and subsequently maintained by a provascular ZLL-dependent signalling pathway.Matthew R. Tucker, Annika Hinze, Elise J. Tucker, Shinobu Takada, Gerd Jürgens and Thomas Lau
Pupil dilation as an implicit measure of appetitive Pavlovian learning
Appetitive Pavlovian conditioning is a learning mechanism of fundamental biological and pathophysiological significance. Nonetheless, its exploration in humans remains sparse, which is partly attributed to the lack of an established psychophysiological parameter that aptly represents conditioned responding. This study evaluated pupil diameter and other ocular response measures (gaze dwelling time, blink duration and count) as indices of conditioning. Additionally, a learning model was used to infer participants' learning progress on the basis of their pupil dilation. Twenty-nine healthy volunteers completed an appetitive differential delay conditioning paradigm with a primary reward, while the ocular response measures along with other psychophysiological (heart rate, electrodermal activity, postauricular and eyeblink reflex) and behavioral (ratings, contingency awareness) parameters were obtained to examine the relation among different measures. A significantly stronger increase in pupil diameter, longer gaze duration and shorter eyeblink duration was observed in response to the reward-predicting cue compared to the control cue. The Pearce-Hall attention model best predicted the trial-by-trial pupil diameter. This conditioned response was corroborated by a pronounced heart rate deceleration to the reward-predicting cue, while no conditioning effect was observed in the electrodermal activity or startle responses. There was no discernible correlation between the psychophysiological response measures. These results highlight the potential value of ocular response measures as sensitive indices for representing appetitive conditioning
Far-infrared absorption in parallel quantum wires with weak tunneling
We study collective and single-particle intersubband excitations in a system
of quantum wires coupled via weak tunneling. For an isolated wire with
parabolic confinement, the Kohn's theorem guarantees that the absorption
spectrum represents a single sharp peak centered at the frequency given by the
bare confining potential. We show that the effect of weak tunneling between two
parabolic quantum wires is twofold: (i) additional peaks corresponding to
single-particle excitations appear in the absorption spectrum, and (ii) the
main absorption peak acquires a depolarization shift. We also show that the
interplay between tunneling and weak perpendicular magnetic field drastically
enhances the dispersion of single-particle excitations. The latter leads to a
strong damping of the intersubband plasmon for magnetic fields exceeding a
critical value.Comment: 18 pages + 6 postcript figure
Electron focusing, mode spectroscopy and mass enhancement in small GaAs/AlGaAs rings
A new electron focusing effect has been discovered in small single and
coupled GaAs/AlGaAs rings. The focusing in the single ring is attributed solely
to internal orbits. The focusing effect allows the ring to be used as a small
mass spectrometer. The focusing causes peaks in the magnetoresistance at low
fields, and the peak positions were used to study the dispersion relation of
the one-dimensional magnetoelectric subbands. The electron effective mass
increases with the applied magnetic field by a factor of , at a magnetic
field of . This is the first time this increase has been measured
directly. General agreement obtains between the experiment and the subband
calculations for straight channels.Comment: 13 pages figures are available by reques
Hypermethylation of ribosomal DNA in human breast carcinoma
We examined the methylation status of the transcribed domain of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) in 58 patients with breast cancer. The mean percent of methylation was significantly higher in breast tumours than that of normal control samples (P< 0.0001). This increased rDNA methylation was associated with oestrogen receptor non-expression (P< 0.0273) and with moderately or poorly differentiated tumours as compared to well differentiated tumours (P< 0.0475). Our results suggest that rDNA can be a useful marker for monitoring aberrant methylation during breast tumour progression. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig
Far-infrared induced current in a ballistic channel -- potential barrier structure
We consider electron transport in a ballistic multi-mode channel structure in
the presence of a transversely polarized far-infrared (FIR) field. The channel
structure consists of a long resonance region connected to an adiabatic
widening with a potential barrier at the end. At frequencies that match the
mode energy separation in the resonance region we find distinct peaks in the
photocurrent, caused by Rabi oscillations in the mode population. For an
experimental situation in which the width of the channel is tunable via gates,
we propose a method for reconstructing the spectrum of propagating modes,
without having to use a tunable FIR source. With this method the change in the
spectrum as the gate voltage is varied can be monitored.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Magic Numbers and Optical Absorption Spectrum in Vertically Coupled Quantum Dots in the Fractional Quantum Hall Regime
Exact diagonalization is used to study the quantum states of vertically
coupled quantum dots in strong magnetic fields. We find a new sequence of
angular momentum magic numbers which are a consequence of the electron
correlation in the double dot. The new sequence occurs at low angular momenta
and changes into the single dot sequence at a critical angular momentum
determined by the strength of the inter-dot electron tunneling. We also propose
that the magic numbers can be investigated experimentally in vertically coupled
dots. Because of the generalized Kohn theorem, the far-infrared optical
absorption spectrum of a single dot is unaffected by correlation but the
theorem does not hold for two vertically coupled dots which have different
confining potentials. We show that the absorption energy of the double dot
should exhibit discontinuities at the magnetic fields where the total angular
momentum changes from one magic number to another.Comment: 4 pages, 3 Postscript figures, RevTeX. (to appear in Phys.Rev.B
The spin-orbit interaction as a source of new spectral and transport properties in quasi-one-dimensional systems
We present an exact theoretical study of the effect of the spin-orbit (SO)
interaction on the band structure and low temperature transport in long
quasi-one-dimensional electron systems patterned in two-dimensional electron
gases in zero and weak magnetic fields. We reveal the manifestations of the SO
interaction which cannot in principle be observed in higher dimensional
systems.Comment: 5 pages including 5 figures; RevTeX; to appear in Phys.Rev.B (Rapid
Communications
Effect of the spin-orbit interaction on the band structure and conductance of quasi-one-dimensional systems
We discuss the effect of the spin-orbit interaction on the band structure,
wave functions and low temperature conductance of long quasi-one-dimensional
electron systems patterned in two-dimensional electron gases (2DEG). Our model
for these systems consists of a linear (Rashba) potential confinement in the
direction perpendicular to the 2DEG and a parabolic confinement transverse to
the 2DEG. We find that these two terms can significantly affect the band
structure introducing a wave vector dependence to subband energies, producing
additional subband minima and inducing anticrossings between subbands. We
discuss the origin of these effects in the symmetries of the subband wave
functions.Comment: 15 pages including 14 figures; RevTeX; to appear in Phys.Rev.B (15
Nov 1999
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