The full repertoire of Drosophila gustatory receptors for detecting an aversive compound.

The ability to detect toxic compounds in foods is essential for animal survival. However, the minimal subunit composition of gustatory receptors required for sensing aversive chemicals in Drosophila is unknown. Here we report that three gustatory receptors, GR8a, GR66a and GR98b function together in the detection of L-canavanine, a plant-derived insecticide. Ectopic co-expression of Gr8a and Gr98b in Gr66a-expressing, bitter-sensing gustatory receptor neurons (GRNs) confers responsiveness to L-canavanine. Furthermore, misexpression of all three Grs enables salt- or sweet-sensing GRNs to respond to L-canavanine. Introduction of these Grs in sweet-sensing GRNs switches L-canavanine from an aversive to an attractive compound. Co-expression of GR8a, GR66a and GR98b in Drosophila S2 cells induces an L-canavanine-activated nonselective cation conductance. We conclude that three GRs collaborate to produce a functional L-canavanine receptor. Thus, our results clarify the full set of GRs underlying the detection of a toxic tastant that drives avoidance behaviour in an insect

Highly Emissive Self-assembled Organic Nanoparticles having Dual Color Capacity for Targeted Immunofluorescence Labeling

No Abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/58079/1/1117_ftp.pd

Bilingual Autoencoder-based Efficient Harmonization of Multi-source Private Data for Accurate Predictive Modeling

Sharing electronic health record data is essential for advanced analysis, but may put sensitive information at risk. Several studies have attempted to address this risk using contextual embedding, but with many hospitals involved, they are often inefficient and inflexible. Thus, we propose a bilingual autoencoder-based model to harmonize local embeddings in different spaces. Cross-hospital reconstruction of embeddings makes encoders map embeddings from hospitals to a shared space and align them spontaneously. We also suggest two-phase training to prevent distortion of embeddings during harmonization with hospitals that have biased information. In experiments, we used medical event sequences from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care-III dataset and simulated the situation of multiple hospitals. For evaluation, we measured the alignment of events from different hospitals and the prediction accuracy of a patient & rsquo;s diagnosis in the next admission in three scenarios in which local embeddings do not work. The proposed method efficiently harmonizes embeddings in different spaces, increases prediction accuracy, and gives flexibility to include new hospitals, so is superior to previous methods in most cases. It will be useful in predictive tasks to utilize distributed data while preserving private information

Data-Reserved Periodic Diffusion LMS With Low Communication Cost Over Networks

In this paper, we analyze diffusion strategies in which all nodes attempt to estimate a common vector parameter for achieving distributed estimation in adaptive networks. Under diffusion strategies, each node essentially needs to share processed data with predefined neighbors. Although the use of internode communication has contributed significantly to improving convergence performance based on diffusion, such communications consume a huge quantity of power in data transmission. In developing low-power consumption diffusion strategies, it is very important to reduce the communication cost without significant degradation of convergence performance. For that purpose, we propose a data-reserved periodic diffusion least-mean-squares (LMS) algorithm in which each node updates and transmits an estimate periodically while reserving its measurement data even during non-update time. By applying these reserved data in an adaptation step at update time, the proposed algorithm mitigates the decline in convergence speed incurred by most conventional periodic schemes. For a period p, the total cost of communication is reduced to a factor of 1/p relative to the conventional adapt-then-combine (ATC) diffusion LMS algorithm. The loss of combination steps in this process leads naturally to a slight increase in the steady-state error as the period p increases, as is theoretically confirmed through mathematical analysis. We also prove an interesting property of the proposed algorithm, namely, that it suffers less degradation of the steady-state error than the conventional diffusion in a noisy communication environment. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms related conventional algorithms and, in particular, outperforms ATC diffusion LMS over a network with noisy links.11Ysciescopu

Differential Genomic Imprinting and Expression of Imprinted microRNAs in Testes-Derived Male Germ-Line Stem Cells in Mouse

BACKGROUND: Testis-derived male germ-line stem (GS) cells, the in vitro counterpart of spermatogonial stem cells (SSC), can acquire multipotency under appropriate culture conditions to become multipotent adult germ-line stem (maGS) cells, which upon testicular transplantation, produce teratoma instead of initiating spermatogenesis. Consequently, a molecular marker that can distinguish GS cells from maGS cells would be of potential value in both clinical and experimental research settings. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Using mouse as a model system, here we show that, similar to sperm, expression of imprinted and paternally expressed miRNAs (miR-296-3p, miR-296-5p, miR-483) were consistently higher (P<0.001), while those of imprinted and maternally expressed miRNA (miR-127, miR-127-5p) were consistently lower (P<0.001) in GS cells than in control embryonic stem (ES) cells. DNA methylation analyses of imprinting control regions (ICR), that control the expression of all imprinted miRNAs in respective gene clusters (Gnas-Nespas DMR, Igf2-H19 ICR and Dlk1-Dio3 IG-DMR), confirmed that imprinted miRNAs were androgenetic in GS cells. On the other hand, DNA methylation of imprinted miRNA genes in maGS cells resembled those of ES cells but the expression pattern of the imprinted miRNAs was intermediate between those of GS and ES cells. The expression of imprinted miRNAs in GS and maGS cells were also altered during their in vitro differentiation and varied both with the differentiation stage and the miRNA. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that GS cells have androgenetic DNA methylation and expression of imprinted miRNAs which changes to ES cell-like pattern upon their conversion to maGS cells. Differential genomic imprinting of imprinted miRNAs may thus, serve as epigenetic miRNA signature or molecular marker to distinguish GS cells from maGS cells

A highly active and durable lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite cathode for Intermediate-Temperature solid Oxide fuel cel

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are promising techniques for high energy efficiency, fuel flexibility, and low pollutant emissions. For commercialization of SOFCs, it is required to decrease the operating temperature. At this intermediate temperature region, the cathodic polarization resistance significant due to the thermally activated oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). To compensate this, highly active cathode materials have been considered and lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite (LSCF6428, La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ) has been attracted as a cathode material for SOFCs because of its high mixed electronic and ionic conducting (MIEC) nature. However, one of the major concerns of LSCF6428 is the degradation during the long-term operation. Currently, Sr segregation has been reported as one of the major reasons for the LSCF degradation. In this study, we investigated LSCF2882 (La0.2Sr0.8Co0.8Fe0.2O3-δ) and compared with LSCF6428 as a SOFC cathode. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Rietveld refinement were applied to analyze phase structures. By electrical conductivity relaxation (ECR) technique, Oxygen surface exchange coefficients (kchem) and chemical diffusion coefficients (Dchem) of LSCF2882 were evaluated and we observed enhancements compare to LSCF6428. For interpretation of enhanced oxygen transport kinetics, we tried to visualize the interstitial oxygen conduction pathways and the bond valence sum (BVS) mapping method was utilized by Valence program. BVS mapping results show clearly demonstrating the 3D network of the interstitial pathways at 600oC in LSCF2882. Electrochemical performances were investigated by EIS (Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy) and single cell performance was also evaluated. In addition, long-term stability test was performed for over 500 hours. LSCF2882 showed better performances and it exhibited no degradation during the stability test. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Enhanced cardiac expression of two isoforms of matrix metalloproteinase-2 in experimental diabetes mellitus.

BackgroundDiabetic cardiomyopathy (DM CMP) is defined as cardiomyocyte damage and ventricular dysfunction directly associated with diabetes independent of concomitant coronary artery disease or hypertension. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), especially MMP-2, have been reported to underlie the pathogenesis of DM CMP by increasing extracellular collagen content.PurposeWe hypothesized that two discrete MMP-2 isoforms (full length MMP-2, FL-MMP-2; N-terminal truncated MMP-2, NTT-MMP-2) are induced by high glucose stimulation in vitro and in an experimental diabetic heart model.MethodsRat cardiomyoblasts (H9C2 cells) were examined to determine whether high glucose can induce the expression of the two isoforms of MMP-2. For the in vivo study, we used the streptozotocin-induced DM mouse heart model and age-matched controls. The changes of each MMP-2 isoform expression in the diabetic mice hearts were determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Immunohistochemical stains were conducted to identify the location and patterns of MMP-2 isoform expression. Echocardiography was performed to compare and analyze the changes in cardiac function induced by diabetes.ResultsQuantitative RT-PCR and immunofluorescence staining showed that the two MMP-2 isoforms were strongly induced by high glucose stimulation in H9C2 cells. Although no definite histologic features of diabetic cardiomyopathy were observed in diabetic mice hearts, left ventricular systolic dysfunction was determined by echocardiography. Quantitative RT-PCR and IHC staining showed this abnormal cardiac function was accompanied with the increases in the mRNA levels of the two isoforms of MMP-2 and related to intracellular localization.ConclusionTwo isoforms of MMP-2 were induced by high glucose stimulation in vitro and in a Type 1 DM mouse heart model. Further study is required to examine the role of these isoforms in DM CMP