A barley cysteine-protease inhibitor reduces teh performance of two aphid species in artificial diets and transgenic arabidopsis plants

Cystatins from plants have been implicated in plant defense towards insects, based on their role as inhibitors of heterologous cysteine-proteinases. We have previously characterized thirteen genes encoding cystatins (HvCPI-1 to HvCPI-13) from barley (Hordeum vulgare), but only HvCPI-1 C68 → G, a variant generated by direct-mutagenesis, has been tested against insects. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of the whole gene family members of barley cystatins against two aphids, Myzus persicae and Acyrthosiphon pisum. All the cystatins, except HvCPI-7, HvCPI-10 and HvCPI-12, inhibited in vitro the activity of cathepsin L- and/or B-like proteinases, with HvCPI-6 being the most effective inhibitor for both aphid species. When administered in artificial diets, HvCPI-6 was toxic to A. pisum nymphs (LC50 = 150 μg/ml), whereas no significant mortality was observed on M. persicae nymphs up to 1000 μg/ml. The effects of HvCPI-6 ingestion on A. pisum were correlated with a decrease of cathepsin B- and L-like proteinase activities. In the case of M. persicae, there was an increase of these proteolytic activities, but also of the aminopeptidase-like activity, suggesting that this species is regulating both target and insensitive enzymes to overcome the effects of the cystatin. To further analyze the potential of barley cystatins as insecticidal proteins against aphids, Arabidopsis plants expressing HvCPI-6 were tested against M. persicae. For A. pisum, which does not feed on Arabidopsis, a combined diet-Vicia faba plant bioassay was performed. A significant delay in the development time to reach the adult stage was observed in both species. The present study demonstrates the potential of barley cystatins to interfere with the performance of two aphid specie

Ab initio molecular dynamics of liquid water using embedded-fragment second-order many-body perturbation theory towards its accurate property prediction

A direct, simultaneous calculation of properties of a liquid using an ab initio electron-correlated theory has long been unthinkable. Here we present structural, dynamical, and response properties of liquid water calculated by ab initio molecular dynamics using the embedded-fragment spin-component-scaled second-order many-body perturbation method with the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set. This level of theory is chosen as it accurately and inexpensively reproduces the water dimer potential energy surface from the coupled-cluster singles, doubles, and noniterative triples with the augcc-pVQZ basis set, which is nearly exact. The calculated radial distribution function, self-diffusion coefficient, coordinate number, and dipole moment, as well as the infrared and Raman spectra are in excellent agreement with experimental results. The shapes and widths of the OH stretching bands in the infrared and Raman spectra and their isotropic-anisotropic Raman noncoincidence, which reflect the diverse local hydrogen-bond environment, are also reproduced computationally. The simulation also reveals intriguing dynamic features of the environment, which are difficult to probe experimentally, such as a surprisingly large fluctuation in the coordination number and the detailed mechanism by which the hydrogen donating water molecules move across the first and second shells, thereby causing this fluctuationopen

Potential Use of a Serpin from Arabidopsis for Pest Control

Although genetically modified (GM) plants expressing toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) protect agricultural crops against lepidopteran and coleopteran pests, field-evolved resistance to Bt toxins has been reported for populations of several lepidopteran species. Moreover, some important agricultural pests, like phloem-feeding insects, are not susceptible to Bt crops. Complementary pest control strategies are therefore necessary to assure that the benefits provided by those insect-resistant transgenic plants are not compromised and to target those pests that are not susceptible. Experimental GM plants producing plant protease inhibitors have been shown to confer resistance against a wide range of agricultural pests. In this study we assessed the potential of AtSerpin1, a serpin from Arabidopsis thaliana (L). Heynh., for pest control. In vitro assays were conducted with a wide range of pests that rely mainly on either serine or cysteine proteases for digestion and also with three non-target organisms occurring in agricultural crops. AtSerpin1 inhibited proteases from all pest and non-target species assayed. Subsequently, the cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis Boisduval and the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris) were fed on artificial diets containing AtSerpin1, and S. littoralis was also fed on transgenic Arabidopsis plants overproducing AtSerpin1. AtSerpin1 supplied in the artificial diet or by transgenic plants reduced the growth of S. littoralis larvae by 65% and 38%, respectively, relative to controls. Nymphs of A. pisum exposed to diets containing AtSerpin1 suffered high mortality levels (LC50 = 637 µg ml−1). The results indicate that AtSerpin1 is a good candidate for exploitation in pest control

The Pathway Coexpression Network: Revealing pathway relationships.

A goal of genomics is to understand the relationships between biological processes. Pathways contribute to functional interplay within biological processes through complex but poorly understood interactions. However, limited functional references for global pathway relationships exist. Pathways from databases such as KEGG and Reactome provide discrete annotations of biological processes. Their relationships are currently either inferred from gene set enrichment within specific experiments, or by simple overlap, linking pathway annotations that have genes in common. Here, we provide a unifying interpretation of functional interaction between pathways by systematically quantifying coexpression between 1,330 canonical pathways from the Molecular Signatures Database (MSigDB) to establish the Pathway Coexpression Network (PCxN). We estimated the correlation between canonical pathways valid in a broad context using a curated collection of 3,207 microarrays from 72 normal human tissues. PCxN accounts for shared genes between annotations to estimate significant correlations between pathways with related functions rather than with similar annotations. We demonstrate that PCxN provides novel insight into mechanisms of complex diseases using an Alzheimer's Disease (AD) case study. PCxN retrieved pathways significantly correlated with an expert curated AD gene list. These pathways have known associations with AD and were significantly enriched for genes independently associated with AD. As a further step, we show how PCxN complements the results of gene set enrichment methods by revealing relationships between enriched pathways, and by identifying additional highly correlated pathways. PCxN revealed that correlated pathways from an AD expression profiling study include functional clusters involved in cell adhesion and oxidative stress. PCxN provides expanded connections to pathways from the extracellular matrix. PCxN provides a powerful new framework for interrogation of global pathway relationships. Comprehensive exploration of PCxN can be performed at http://pcxn.org/

Search for dijet resonances in 7 TeV pp collisions at CMS

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version of the paper can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 APSA search for narrow resonances in the dijet mass spectrum is performed using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.9  pb-1 collected by the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level are presented on the product of the resonance cross section, branching fraction into dijets, and acceptance, separately for decays into quark-quark, quark-gluon, or gluon-gluon pairs. The data exclude new particles predicted in the following models at the 95% confidence level: string resonances, with mass less than 2.50 TeV, excited quarks, with mass less than 1.58 TeV, and axigluons, colorons, and E6 diquarks, in specific mass intervals. This extends previously published limits on these models.This work is supported by FMSR (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); Academy of Sciences and NICPB (Estonia); Academy of Finland, ME, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); PAEC (Pakistan); SCSR (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MST and MAE (Russia); MSTD (Serbia); MICINN and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA)

Transverse-momentum and pseudorapidity distributions of charged hadrons in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

This is the pre-print version of the Published Article which can be accessed from the link below.Charged-hadron transverse-momentum and pseudorapidity distributions in proton-proton collisions at √s=7  TeV are measured with the inner tracking system of the CMS detector at the LHC. The charged-hadron yield is obtained by counting the number of reconstructed hits, hit pairs, and fully reconstructed charged-particle tracks. The combination of the three methods gives a charged-particle multiplicity per unit of pseudorapidity dNch/dη||η|<0.5=5.78±0.01(stat)±0.23(syst) for non-single-diffractive events, higher than predicted by commonly used models. The relative increase in charged-particle multiplicity from √s=0.9 to 7 TeV is [66.1±1.0(stat)±4.2(syst)]%. The mean transverse momentum is measured to be 0.545±0.005(stat)±0.015(syst)  GeV/c. The results are compared with similar measurements at lower energies

Dijet azimuthal decorrelations in pp collisions at √s = 7TeV

This is the pre-print version of the Published Article which can be accessed from the link below.Measurements of dijet azimuthal decorrelations in pp collisions at √s=7  TeV using the CMS detector at the CERN LHC are presented. The analysis is based on an inclusive dijet event sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.9  pb-1. The results are compared to predictions from perturbative QCD calculations and various Monte Carlo event generators. The dijet azimuthal distributions are found to be sensitive to initial-state gluon radiation

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research

Measurement of the B+ production cross section in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

This is the pre-print version of the Published Article which can be accessed from the link below.Measurements of the total and differential cross sections dσ/dpTB and dσ/dyB for B+ mesons produced in pp collisions at √s=7  TeV are presented. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 5.8  pb-1 collected by the CMS experiment operating at the LHC. The exclusive decay B+→J/ψK+, with J/ψ→μ+μ-, is used to detect B+ mesons and to measure the production cross section as a function of pTB and yB. The total cross section for pTB>5  GeV and |yB|<2.4 is measured to be 28.1±2.4±2.0±3.1  μb, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is systematic, and the last is from the luminosity measurement