cDNA and Gene Analyses Imply a Novel Structure for a Rat Carcinoembryonic Antigen-related Protein

The gene encoding the human tumor marker carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) belongs to a gene family which can be subdivided into the CEA and the pregnancy-specific glycoprotein subgroups. The corresponding proteins are members of the immunoglobulin superfamily, characterized through the presence of one IgV-like domain and a varying number of IgC-like domains. Since the function of the CEA family is not well understood, we decided to establish an animal model in the rat to study its tissue- specific and developmental stage-dependent expression. To this end, we have screened an 18-day rat placenta cDNA library with a recently isolated fragment of a rat CEA-related gene. Two overlapping clones containing the complete coding region for a putative 709 amino acid protein (rnCGM1; Mr = 78,310) have been characterized. In contrast to all members of the human CEA family, this rat CEA-related protein consists of five IgV-like domains and only one IgC-like domain. This novel structure, which has been confirmed at the genomic level might have important functional implications. Due to the rapid evolutionary divergence of the rat and human CEA gene families it is not possible to assign rnCGM1 to its human counterpart. However, the predominant expression of the rnCGM1 gene in the placenta suggests that it could be analogous to one of the human pregnancy-specific glycoprotein genes

Quadriceps Tendon Graft for ACL Reconstruction - How Does it Compare? - A Literature Review with a Case Example

Introduction: Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries are one of the most common injuries encountered today. ACL reconstruction surgeries are an extremely popular treatment used to help return patients to their activities post ACL tear. There are several different graft options, with patellar tendon grafts and hamstring tendon grafts being the two most popular. However, quadriceps tendon grafts are becoming more popular. Thus the purpose of this literature review and case report is to provide information for therapists not fully familiar with this approach. In this literature review with a case example, quadricep tendon grafts will be compared with patellar tendon grafts and hamstring tendon grafts for ACL reconstruction. Surgical Intervention: Background on the surgical intervention of patellar tendon, hamstring tendon, and quadriceps tendon graft harvest and placement discussed and compared. Evidence Based Comparison: Literature review and comparison of viability and outcomes of each graft type discussed. Main comparisons made considering tissue strength, donor site morbidity, stability and range of motion, functional outcomes, graft re-rupture rates, and patient satisfaction. Case Description: The initial post-operative rehabilitation of a 21 year-old male following an ACL reconstruction surgery with a quadriceps tendon autograft and lateral extra articular tenodesis is described. Discussion: Quadriceps tendon graft for ACL reconstruction is a safe and viable option that provides stability, quick healing time, and decreased pain based on the literature. Outcome scores of the patient population with this procedure are comparable or favorable to those of patellar tendon and hamstring tendon graft surgeries, supporting the current evidence. This is an up and coming technique that may be used more frequently in the future

Reducing Antibiotic Use in Pediatric Upper Respiratory Infection: A Multifaceted Parent-Clinician Approach

The goal of this QI initiative was to decrease inappropriate antibiotic for the treatment of pediatric upper respiratory infection (URI) in the retail clinic setting. The approach included the use of a protocol to treat viral upper respiratory illness, a visual aid decision-making tool for guideline adherence, prescription pad for nonprescription remedies, and shared decision-making techniques for providers to involve patients and parents in management plans regarding nonprescription remedies, supportive treatment, and signs and symptoms that would warrant a return visit. An improvement trend during the first 3 months of the initiative showed a shift in antibiotic avoidance from a baseline avoidance rate of 66% to a post intervention rate of 82%. The antibiotic avoidance initiative proved to be an effective approach in reducing the rate of inappropriate antibiotic treatment for pediatric viral upper respiratory conditions

Spatiotemporal Expression of Pregnancy-Specific Glycoprotein Gene rnCGMl in Rat Placenta

As a basis towards a better understanding of the role of the pregnancy-specific glycoprotein (PSG) family in the maintenance of pregnancy, detailed investigations are described on the expression of a recently identified rat PSG gene (rnCGM1) at the mRNA and protein levels. Using specific oligonucleotide primers, rnCGM1 transcripts were identified after reverse transcription, polymerase chain reaction, and hybridization with a radiolabelled, internal oligonucleotide. Transcripts were only found in significant amounts in placenta. In situ hybridization visualized rnCGM1 transcripts at day 14 post coitum (p.c.), in secondary trophoblast giant cells and in the spongiotrophoblast. Only those secondary giant cells lining the maternal decidua were positive. In contrast, primary giant cells did not contain rnCGM1 mRNA. At day 18 p.c., rnCGM1. transcripts were almost exclusively detectable in the spongiotrophoblast. No rnCGM1 transcripts were found in rat embryos of these two developmental stages. Rabbit antisera were generated against the amino-terminal immunoglobulin variable-like domain and against a synthetic peptide containing the last 13 carboxy-terminal amino acids of rnCGM1. Bothe antisera recognized a 124 kDa protein in day 18 rat placental extracts as identified by Western blot analysis. The anti-peptide antiserum recognized a 116 kDa protein in the serum of a 14 day p.c. pregnant rat that is absent from the sera of non-pregnant females. Taken together, these results confirm exclusive expression of rnCGM1 in the rat trophoblast, but unlike human PSG, negligible or no expression is found in other organs, such as fetal liver or salivary glands, indicating a more specialized function of rnCGM1. Its spatiotemporal expression pattern is conducive with a potential role of PSG in protecting the fetus against the maternal immune system and/or in regulating the invasive growth of trophoblast cells

Identification of a Carcinoembryonic Antigen Gene Family in the Rat

The existence of a carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-like gene family in rat has been demonstrated through isolation and sequencing of the N- terminal domain exons of presumably five discrete genes (rnCGM1-5). This finding will allow for the first time the study of functional and clinical aspects of the tumor marker CEA and related antigens in an animal model. Sequence comparison with the corresponding regions of members of the human CEA gene family revealed a relatively low similarity at the amino acid level, which indicates rapid divergence of the CEA gene family during evolution and explains the lack of cross- reactivity of rat CEA-like antigens with antibodies directed against human CEA. The N-terminal domains of the rat CEA-like proteins show structural similarity to immunoglobulin variable domains, including the presence of hypervariable regions, which points to a possible receptor function of the CEA family members. Although so far only one of the five rat CEA-like genes could be shown to be transcriptionally active, multiple mRNA species derived from other members of the rat CEA-like gene family have been found to be differentially expressed in rat placenta and liver

Resurgence in the bi-Yang-Baxter model

We study the integrable bi-Yang-Baxter deformation of the SU(2) principal chiral model (PCM) and its finite action uniton solutions. Under an adiabatic compactification on an S1 , we obtain a quantum mechanics with an elliptic Lamé-like potential.We perform a perturbative calculation of the ground state energy in this quantum mechanics to large orders obtaining an asymptotic series. Using the Borel-Padé technique, we determine the expected locations of branch cuts in the Borel plane of the perturbative series and show that they match the values of the uniton actions. Therefore, we can match the non-perturbative contributions to the energy with the uniton solutions which fractionate upon adiabatic compactification.An off-shoot of the WKB analysis, is to identify the quadratic differential of this deformed PCM with that of an N=2 Seiberg-Witten theory. This can be done either as an Nf=4 SU(2) theory or as an elliptic quiver SU(2) x SU(2) theory. The mass parameters of the gauge theory are given by the deformation parameters of the PCM

Latent protein trees

Unbiased, label-free proteomics is becoming a powerful technique for measuring protein expression in almost any biological sample. The output of these measurements after preprocessing is a collection of features and their associated intensities for each sample. Subsets of features within the data are from the same peptide, subsets of peptides are from the same protein, and subsets of proteins are in the same biological pathways, therefore, there is the potential for very complex and informative correlational structure inherent in these data. Recent attempts to utilize this data often focus on the identification of single features that are associated with a particular phenotype that is relevant to the experiment. However, to date, there have been no published approaches that directly model what we know to be multiple different levels of correlation structure. Here we present a hierarchical Bayesian model which is specifically designed to model such correlation structure in unbiased, label-free proteomics. This model utilizes partial identification information from peptide sequencing and database lookup as well as the observed correlation in the data to appropriately compress features into latent proteins and to estimate their correlation structure. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the model using artificial/benchmark data and in the context of a series of proteomics measurements of blood plasma from a collection of volunteers who were infected with two different strains of viral influenza.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AOAS639 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Biodiversity Through the Lens of Bird Flocks

Birds are known bioindicators for ecosystems worldwide. At Inkaterra Reserva Amazónica located in the Madre de Dios region of Perú, it’s no different. Inkaterra Reserva Amazónica is home to over 480 different bird species and frequently engages in bird monitoring. We noted every identifiable species of bird we saw or heard and chose to focus on mixed-species flocks (MSF) of birds to observe biodiversity within one collective group. In our study, we saw a total of 141 species of birds. We saw 4 different MSF with 24 species and ~60 individuals total. By focusing on MSF, we were able to gather observations of bird behavior and species interactions. While observing MSF and the different species within them, we were able to witness the importance of citizen science through collecting data via eBird

Piper: Audio Feature Extraction in Browser and Mobile Applications

Piper is a protocol for audio analysis and feature extraction. We propose a data schema and API that can be used to support both remote audio feature extraction services and feature extractors loaded directly into a host application. We provide a means of using existing audio feature extractor implementations with this protocol. In this talk we demonstrate several use-cases for Piper, including an “audio notebook” mobile application using Piper modules to analyse recordings; a web service for remote feature extraction; and the refactoring of an existing desktop application, Sonic Visualiser, to communicate with a Piper service using a simple IPC mechanism

Advanced Multimission Operations System (ATMO)

The HiiHat toolbox developed for CAT/ENVI provides principal investigators direct, immediate, flexible, and seamless interaction with their instruments and data from any location. Offering segmentation and neutral region division, it facilitates the discovery of key endmembers and regions of interest larger than a single pixel. Crucial to the analysis of hyperspectral data from Mars or Earth is the removal of unwanted atmospheric signatures. For Mars and the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), residual atmospheric CO2 absorption is both directly problematic and indicative of processing errors with implications to the scientific utility of any particular image region. Estimating this residual error becomes key both in selecting regions of low distortion, and also to select mitigating methods, such as neutral region division. This innovation, the ATMO estimator, provides a simple, 0-1 normalized scalar that estimates this distortion (see figure). The metric is defined as the coefficient of determination of a quadratic fit in the region of distorting atmospheric absorption (approx 2 micron). This mimics the behavior of existing CRISM team mineralogical indices to estimate the presence of known, interesting mineral signatures. This facilitates the ATMO metric's assimilation into existing planetary geology workflows