355 research outputs found
Vaginal yeasts in the era of "over the counter" antifungals
OBJECTIVE: To establish whether there has been any rise in the prevalence of non-albicans
Candida species isolated from vaginal swabs since the introduction of âover the counterâ antifungal
treatments.
METHOD: A retrospective review looking at all positive vaginal yeast isolates collected from
women attending one genitourinary medicine clinic during the 6 year period from 1993 to 1998
inclusive. All positive vaginal yeast isolates were included, regardless of whether or not the
patients were symptomatic. Isolates from HIV positive women were excluded from the analysis.
RESULT: No increase in non-albicans vaginal yeast isolates was shown during the period studied.
The proportion of non-albicans yeasts remained constant at approximately 5% of the total yeasts
isolated. The most common non-albicans yeast isolated was C glabrata.
CONCLUSION: There is no evidence from this study to suggest that the increasing use of âover the
counterâ antifungal treatment has selected for atypical, possibly inherently azole resistant, strains
of vaginal yeasts in HIV seronegative women
Root system architecture determines fitness in an Arabidopsis mutant in competition for immobile phosphate ions but not for nitrate ions
Plant root systems often have complex branching patterns. Models indicate that a complex architecture is only required for the acquisition of immobile resources, such as phosphate; mobile ions, notably nitrate, can be effectively taken up by very restricted root systems. We have tested this prediction using the axr4 mutation of Arabidopsis thaliana, the principal phenotypic effect of which is to reduce the number of lateral roots. Arabidopsis thaliana is not a host for mycorrhizal fungi and so acquires all its nutrients through the root system. In both a pot experiment and a field experiment conducted under natural conditions for A. thaliana, we found that only phosphate, and not nitrate, affected the fitness of the mutant relative to the isogenic wild-type line, Columbia. These results confirm model predictions and have implications both for the evolution of complex root systems and for the design of efficient root systems for crops
Strigolactone regulates shoot development through a core signalling pathway.
Strigolactones are a recently identified class of hormone that regulate multiple aspects of plant development. The DWARF14 (D14) α/ÎČ fold protein has been identified as a strigolactone receptor, which can act through the SCF^MAX2 ubiquitin ligase, but the universality of this mechanism is not clear. Multiple proteins have been suggested as targets for strigolactone signalling, including both direct proteolytic targets of SCF^MAX2, and downstream targets. However, the relevance and importance of these proteins to strigolactone signalling in many cases has not been fully established. Here we assess the contribution of these targets to strigolactone signalling in adult shoot developmental responses. We find that all examined strigolactone responses are regulated by SCF^MAX2 and D14, and not by other D14-like proteins. We further show that all examined strigolactone responses likely depend on degradation of SMXL proteins in the SMXL6 clade, and not on the other proposed proteolytic targets BES1 or DELLAs. Taken together, our results suggest that in the adult shoot, the dominant mode of strigolactone signalling is D14-initiated, MAX2-mediated degradation of SMXL6-related proteins. We confirm that the BRANCHED1 transcription factor and the PIN-FORMED1 auxin efflux carrier are plausible downstream targets of this pathway in the regulation of shoot branching, and show that BRC1 likely acts in parallel to PIN1.This work was funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation (GAT3272C), the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council via the European Research Area Plant Genomics programme (R1039101) and by the Chinese Scholarship Council PhD Program (Sichuan Agricultural University) to Y.L
Fast relaxation in a fragile liquid under pressure
The incoherent dynamic structure factor of ortho-terphenyl has been measured
by neutron time-of-flight and backscattering technique in the pressure range
from 0.1 MPa to 240 MPa for temperatures between 301 K and 335 K.
Tagged-particle correlations in the compressed liquid decay in two steps. The
alpha-relaxation lineshape is independent of pressure, and the relaxation time
proportional to viscosity. A kink in the amplitude f_Q(P) reveals the onset of
beta relaxation. The beta-relaxation regime can be described by the
mode-coupling scaling function; amplitudes and time scales allow a consistent
determination of the critical pressure P_c(T). alpha and beta relaxation depend
in the same way on the thermodynamic state; close to the mode-coupling
cross-over, this dependence can be parametrised by an effective coupling Gamma
~ n*T**{-1/4}.Comment: 4 Pages of RevTeX, 4 figures (submitted to Physical Review Letters
On the origin of the Boson peak in globular proteins
We study the Boson Peak phenomenology experimentally observed in globular
proteins by means of elastic network models. These models are suitable for an
analytic treatment in the framework of Euclidean Random Matrix theory, whose
predictions can be numerically tested on real proteins structures. We find that
the emergence of the Boson Peak is strictly related to an intrinsic mechanical
instability of the protein, in close similarity to what is thought to happen in
glasses. The biological implications of this conclusion are also discussed by
focusing on a representative case study.Comment: Proceedings of the X International Workshop on Disordered Systems,
Molveno (2006
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