The septin cytoskeleton facilitates membrane retraction during motility and blebbing.

Increasing evidence supports a critical role for the septin cytoskeleton at the plasma membrane during physiological processes including motility, formation of dendritic spines or cilia, and phagocytosis. We sought to determine how septins regulate the plasma membrane, focusing on this cytoskeletal element's role during effective amoeboid motility. Surprisingly, septins play a reactive rather than proactive role, as demonstrated during the response to increasing hydrostatic pressure and subsequent regulatory volume decrease. In these settings, septins were required for rapid cortical contraction, and SEPT6-GFP was recruited into filaments and circular patches during global cortical contraction and also specifically during actin filament depletion. Recruitment of septins was also evident during excessive blebbing initiated by blocking membrane trafficking with a dynamin inhibitor, providing further evidence that septins are recruited to facilitate retraction of membranes during dynamic shape change. This function of septins in assembling on an unstable cortex and retracting aberrantly protruding membranes explains the excessive blebbing and protrusion observed in septin-deficient T cells

Radiation induced lichen planus - an uncommon side effect

Cutaneous lichen planus is classically characterized by violaceous, pruritic, planar papules and plaques, most commonly affecting the extremities. Lichen planus following radiation therapy is extremely rare and lichen planus following radiation therapy for prostate carcinoma has not been previously reported in the literature. We report a 66-year-old man who presented to the dermatology clinic with a symmetric pruritic eruption affecting the pelvic and gluteal region within two months of radiation therapy targeting the prostate and pelvic lymph nodes for prostate adenocarcinoma. The patient did not have a prior history of lichen planus. Physical examination demonstrated well demarcated, violaceous papules and plaques in a circumferential band-like distribution on the bilateral gluteal, lumbosacral, and pelvic region. In addition, he had a few discrete lesions on the calves and dorsal feet. Punch biopsy revealed an acanthotic epidermis with "saw-tooth" rete ridges and a lichenoid inflammatory infiltrate. A diagnosis of hypertrophic lichen planus was made, reinforcing the importance for clinicians to recognize radiation therapy as a risk factor for developing lichen planus despite no prior history of lichen planus

Information-technology approach to quantum feedback control

Quantum control theory is profitably reexamined from the perspective of quantum information, two results on the role of quantum information technology in quantum feedback control are presented and two quantum feedback control schemes, teleportation-based distant quantum feedback control and quantum feedback control with quantum cloning, are proposed. In the first feedback scheme, the output from the quantum system to be controlled is fed back into the distant actuator via teleportation to alter the dynamics of system. The result theoretically shows that it can accomplish some tasks such as distant feedback quantum control that Markovian or Bayesian quantum feedback can't complete. In the second feedback strategy, the design of quantum feedback control algorithms is separated into a state recognition step, which gives "on-off" signal to the actuator through recognizing some copies from the cloning machine, and a feedback (control) step using another copies of cloning machine. A compromise between information acquisition and measurement disturbance is established, and this strategy can perform some quantum control tasks with coherent feedback.Comment: 10 pages,submitte

Serum metabolic profiling of oocyst-induced Toxoplasma gondii acute and chronic infections in mice using mass-spectrometry

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite causing severe diseases in immunocompromised individuals and congenitally infected neonates, such as toxoplasmosis encephalitis and toxoplasmic chorioretinitis. This study aimed to determine whether serum metabolic profiling can (i) identify metabolites associated with oocyst-induced T. gondii infection and (ii) detect systemic metabolic differences between T. gondii -infected mice patients and controls. We performed the first global metabolomics analysis of mice serum challenged with 100 sporulated T. gondii Pru oocysts (Genotype II). Sera from acutely infected mice (11 days post-infection, dpi), chronically infected mice (33 dpi) and control mice were collected and analysed using LC-MS/MS platform. Following False Discovery Rate filtering, we identified 3871 and 2825 ions in ESI + or ESI − mode, respectively. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS -DA) identified metabolomics profiles that clearly differentiated T. gondii -infected and -uninfected serum samples. Acute infection significantly influenced the serum metabolonme. Our results identified common and uniquely perturbed metabolites and pathways. Acutely infected mice showed perturbations in metabolites associated with glycerophospholipid metabolism, biosynthesis of amino acid, and tyrosine metabolism. These findings demonstrated that acute T. gondii oocyst induces a global perturbation of mice serum metabolonme, providing new insights into the mechanisms underlying systemic metabolic changes during early stage of T. gondii oocyst infection

Edge superconducting state in attractive U Kane-Mele-Hubbard model

We theoretically investigate the phase transition from topological insulator (TI) to superconductor in the attractive U Kane-Mele-Hubbard model with self-consistent mean field method. We demonstrate the existence of edge superconducting state (ESS), in which the bulk is still an insulator and the superconductivity only appears near the edges. The ESS results from the special energy dispersion of TI, and is a general property of the superconductivity in TI. The phase transition in this model essentially consists of two steps. When the attractive U becomes nonzero, ESS appears immediately. After the attractive U exceeds a critical value $U_c$, the whole system becomes a superconductor. The effective model of the ESS has also been discussed and we believe that the conception of ESS can be realized in atomic optical lattice system.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Observed aerosol effects on marine cloud nucleation and supersaturation

Aerosol particles in the marine boundary layer include primary organic and salt particles from sea spray and combustion-derived particles from ships and coastal cities. These particle types serve as nuclei for marine cloud droplet activation, although the particles that activate depend on the particle size and composition as well as the supersaturation that results from cloud updraft velocities. The Eastern Pacific Emitted Aerosol Cloud Experiment (EPEACE) 2011 was a targeted aircraft campaign to assess how different particle types nucleate cloud droplets. As part of E-PEACE 2011, we studied the role of marine particles as cloud droplet nuclei and used emitted particle sources to separate particle-induced feedbacks from dynamical variability. The emitted particle sources included shipboard smoke-generated particles with 0.05-1 μm diameters (which produced tracks measured by satellite and had drop composition characteristic of organic smoke) and combustion particles from container ships with 0.05-0.2 μm diameters (which were measured in a variety of conditions with droplets containing both organic and sulfate components) [1]. Three central aspects of the collaborative E-PEACE results are: (1) the size and chemical composition of the emitted smoke particles compared to ship-track-forming cargo ship emissions as well as background marine particles, with particular attention to the role of organic particles, (2) the characteristics of cloud track formation for smoke and cargo ships, as well as the role of multi-layered low clouds, and (3) the implications of these findings for quantifying aerosol indirect effects. For comparison with the E-PEACE results, the preliminary results of the Stratocumulus Observations of Los-Angeles Emissions Derived Aerosol-Droplets (SOLEDAD) 2012 provided evidence of the cloud-nucleating roles of both marine organic particles and coastal urban pollution, with simultaneous measurements of the effective supersaturations of the clouds in the California coastal region

PARENTAGE OF OVERLAPPING OFFSPRING OF AN ARBOREAL-BREEDING FROG WITH NO NEST DEFENSE: IMPLICATIONS FOR NEST SITE SELECTION AND REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGY

Overlapping offspring occurs when eggs are laid in a nest containing offspring from earlier reproduction. To unveil the parentage between overlapping offspring and parents is critical in understanding oviposition site selection and the reproductive strategies of parents. Amplectant pairs of an arboreal-breeding frog, Kurixalus eiffingeri, lay eggs in tadpole-occupied nests where offspring of different life stages (embryos and tadpoles) coexist. We used five microsatellite DNA markers to assess the parentage between parents and overlapping offspring. Results showed varied parentage patterns, which may differ from the phenomenon of overlapping egg clutches reported earlier. Parentage analyses showed that only 58 and 25% of the tadpole-occupied stumps were reused by the same male and female respectively, partially confirming our prediction. Re-nesting by the same individual was more common in males than females, which is most likely related to the cost of tadpole feeding and/or feeding schemes of females. On the other hand, results of parentage analyses showed that about 42 and 75 % of male and female respectively bred in tadpole-occupied stumps where tadpoles were genetically unrelated. Results of a nest-choice experiment revealed that 40% of frogs chose tadpole-occupied bamboo cups when we presented identical stumps, without or with tadpoles, suggesting that the habitat saturation hypothesis does not fully explain why frogs used the tadpole-occupied stumps. Several possible benefits of overlapping offspring with different life stages were proposed. Our study highlights the importance of integrating molecular data with field observations to better understand the reproductive biology and nest site selection of anuran amphibians