926 research outputs found
Pathogen-Inducible Regulatory Element
Qualitative transcriptional regulatory sequences functional in plants, plant tissue and in plant cells for inducible gene expression and quantitative transcriptional regulatory sequences for increasing the transcriptional expression of downstream genetic information in plants, plant tissue and plant cells are disclosed. Also disclosed are methods and recombinant DNA molecules for improving the disease resistance of transgenic plants, especially wherein an inducible promoter controls the expression of a protein capable of evoking the hypersensitive response in a plant
Iteration dynamical systems of discrete Laplacians on the plane lattice : Its mathematical structure and computer simulations of designs(Recent Developments in Dynamical Systems)
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The APOB insertion/deletion polymorphism (rs17240441) influences postprandial lipaemia in healthy adults
BACKGROUND:
Apolipoprotein (apo)B is the structural apoprotein of intestinally- and liver- derived lipoproteins and plays an important role in the transport of triacylglycerol (TAG) and cholesterol. Previous studies have examined the association between the APOB insertion/deletion (ins/del) polymorphism (rs17240441) and postprandial lipaemia in response to a single meal; however the findings have been inconsistent with studies often underpowered to detect genotype-lipaemia associations, focused mainly on men, or with limited postprandial characterisation of participants. In the present study, using a novel sequential test meal protocol which more closely mimics habitual eating patterns, we investigated the impact of APOB ins/del polymorphism on postprandial TAG, non-esterified fatty acids, glucose and insulin levels in healthy adults.
FINDINGS:
Healthy participants (n = 147) consumed a standard test breakfast (0 min; 49 g fat) and lunch (330 min; 29 g fat), with blood samples collected before (fasting) and on 11 subsequent occasions until 480 min after the test breakfast. The ins/ins homozygotes had higher fasting total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, TAG, insulin and HOMA-IR and lower HDL-cholesterol than del/del homozygotes (P < 0.017). A higher area under the time response curve (AUC) was evident for the postprandial TAG (P < 0.001) and insulin (P = 0.032) responses in the ins/ins homozygotes relative to the del/del homozygotes, where the genotype explained 35% and 7% of the variation in the TAG and insulin AUCs, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS:
In summary, our findings indicate that the APOB ins/del polymorphism is likely to be an important genetic determinant of the large inter-individual variability in the postprandial TAG and insulin responses to dietary fat intake
Modelling environmental drivers of black band disease outbreaks in populations of foliose corals in the genus Montipora
Seawater temperature anomalies associated with warming climate have been linked to increases in coral disease outbreaks that have contributed to coral reef declines globally. However, little is known about how seasonal scale variations in environmental factors influence disease dynamics at the level of individual coral colonies. In this study, we applied a multi-state Markov model (MSM) to investigate the dynamics of black band disease (BBD) developing from apparently healthy corals and/or a precursor-stage, termed `cyanobacterial patches' (CP), in relation to seasonal variation in light and seawater temperature at two reef sites around Pelorus Island in the central sector of the Great Barrier Reef. The model predicted that the proportion of colonies transitioning from BBD to Healthy states within three months was appro)dmately 57%, but 5.6% of BBD cases resulted in whole colony mortality. According to our modelling, healthy coral colonies were more susceptible to BBD during summer months when light levels were at their maxima and seawater temperatures were either rising 0r at their maxima. In contrast, CP mostly occurred during spring, when both light and seawater temperatures were rising. This suggests that environmental drivers for healthy coral colonies transitioning into a Cl' state are different from those driving transitions into BBD. Our model predicts that (1) the transition from healthy to CP state is best explained by increasing light, (2) the transition between Healthy to BBD occurs more frequently from early to late summer, (3) 20% of CP infected corals developed BBD, although light and temperature appeared to have limited impact on this state transition, and (4) the number of transitions from Healthy to BBD differed significantly between the two study sites, potentially reflecting differences in localised wave action regimes
Decadal erosion of coral assemblages by multiple disturbances in the Palm Islands, central Great Barrier Reef
Increases in the frequency of perturbations that drive coral community structure, such as severe thermal anomalies and high intensity storms, highlight the need to understand how coral communities recover following multiple disturbances. We describe the dynamics of cover and assemblage composition of corals on exposed inshore reefs in the Palm Islands, central Great Barrier Reef, over 19 years encapsulating major disturbance events such as the severe bleaching event in 1998 and Cyclone Yasi in 2011, along with other minor storm and heat stress events. Over this time, 47.8% of hard coral cover was lost, with a concomitant shift in coral assemblage composition due to taxon-specific rates of mortality during the disturbances, and asymmetric recovery in the aftermath thereof. High recruitment rates of some broadcast-spawning corals, particularly corymbose Acropora spp., even in the absence of adult colonies, indicate that a strong external larval supply replenished the stocks. Conversely, the time required for recovery of slow-growing coral morphologies and life histories was longer than the recurrence times of major disturbances. With interludes between bleaching and cyclones predicted to decrease, the probability of another severe disturbance event before coral cover and assemblage composition approximates historical levels suggests that reefs will continue to erode
Interstellar Turbulence II: Implications and Effects
Interstellar turbulence has implications for the dispersal and mixing of the
elements, cloud chemistry, cosmic ray scattering, and radio wave propagation
through the ionized medium. This review discusses the observations and theory
of these effects. Metallicity fluctuations are summarized, and the theory of
turbulent transport of passive tracers is reviewed. Modeling methods, turbulent
concentration of dust grains, and the turbulent washout of radial abundance
gradients are discussed. Interstellar chemistry is affected by turbulent
transport of various species between environments with different physical
properties and by turbulent heating in shocks, vortical dissipation regions,
and local regions of enhanced ambipolar diffusion. Cosmic rays are scattered
and accelerated in turbulent magnetic waves and shocks, and they generate
turbulence on the scale of their gyroradii. Radio wave scintillation is an
important diagnostic for small scale turbulence in the ionized medium, giving
information about the power spectrum and amplitude of fluctuations. The theory
of diffraction and refraction is reviewed, as are the main observations and
scintillation regions.Comment: 46 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Annual Reviews of Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Quantitative Excited State Spectroscopy of a Single InGaAs Quantum Dot Molecule through Multi-million Atom Electronic Structure Calculations
Atomistic electronic structure calculations are performed to study the
coherent inter-dot couplings of the electronic states in a single InGaAs
quantum dot molecule. The experimentally observed excitonic spectrum [12] is
quantitatively reproduced, and the correct energy states are identified based
on a previously validated atomistic tight binding model. The extended devices
are represented explicitly in space with 15 million atom structures. An excited
state spectroscopy technique is presented in which the externally applied
electric field is swept to probe the ladder of the electronic energy levels
(electron or hole) of one quantum dot through anti-crossings with the energy
levels of the other quantum dot in a two quantum dot molecule. This technique
can be applied to estimate the spatial electron-hole spacing inside the quantum
dot molecule as well as to reverse engineer quantum dot geometry parameters
such as the quantum dot separation. Crystal deformation induced piezoelectric
effects have been discussed in the literature as minor perturbations lifting
degeneracies of the electron excited (P and D) states, thus affecting
polarization alignment of wave function lobes for III-V Heterostructures such
as single InAs/GaAs quantum dots. In contrast this work demonstrates the
crucial importance of piezoelectricity to resolve the symmetries and energies
of the excited states through matching the experimentally measured spectrum in
an InGaAs quantum dot molecule under the influence of an electric field. Both
linear and quadratic piezoelectric effects are studied for the first time for a
quantum dot molecule and demonstrated to be indeed important. The net
piezoelectric contribution is found to be critical in determining the correct
energy spectrum, which is in contrast to recent studies reporting vanishing net
piezoelectric contributions.Comment: Accepted for publication in IOP Nanotechnology Journa
Automorphic Instanton Partition Functions on Calabi-Yau Threefolds
We survey recent results on quantum corrections to the hypermultiplet moduli
space M in type IIA/B string theory on a compact Calabi-Yau threefold X, or,
equivalently, the vector multiplet moduli space in type IIB/A on X x S^1. Our
main focus lies on the problem of resumming the infinite series of D-brane and
NS5-brane instantons, using the mathematical machinery of automorphic forms. We
review the proposal that whenever the low-energy theory in D=3 exhibits an
arithmetic "U-duality" symmetry G(Z) the total instanton partition function
arises from a certain unitary automorphic representation of G, whose Fourier
coefficients reproduce the BPS-degeneracies. For D=4, N=2 theories on R^3 x S^1
we argue that the relevant automorphic representation falls in the quaternionic
discrete series of G, and that the partition function can be realized as a
holomorphic section on the twistor space Z over M. We also offer some comments
on the close relation with N=2 wall crossing formulae.Comment: 25 pages, contribution to the proceedings of the workshop "Algebra,
Geometry and Mathematical Physics", Tjarno, Sweden, 25-30 October, 201
The small molecule curcumin analog FLLL32 induces apoptosis in melanoma cells via STAT3 inhibition and retains the cellular response to cytokines with anti-tumor activity
Background:
We characterized the biologic effects of a novel small molecule STAT3 pathway inhibitor that is derived from the natural product curcumin. We hypothesized this lead compound would specifically inhibit the STAT3 signaling pathway to induce apoptosis in melanoma cells.
Results:
FLLL32 specifically reduced STAT3 phosphorylation at Tyr705 (pSTAT3) and induced apoptosis at micromolar amounts in human melanoma cell lines and primary melanoma cultures as determined by annexin V/propidium iodide staining and immunoblot analysis. FLLL32 treatment reduced expression of STAT3-target genes, induced caspase-dependent apoptosis, and reduced mitochondrial membrane potential. FLLL32 displayed specificity for STAT3 over other homologous STAT proteins. In contrast to other STAT3 pathway inhibitors (WP1066, JSI-124, Stattic), FLLL32 did not abrogate IFN-γ-induced pSTAT1 or downstream STAT1-mediated gene expression as determined by Real Time PCR. In addition, FLLL32 did not adversely affect the function or viability of immune cells from normal donors. In peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), FLLL32 inhibited IL-6-induced pSTAT3 but did not reduce signaling in response to immunostimulatory cytokines (IFN-γ, IL 2). Treatment of PBMCs or natural killer (NK) cells with FLLL32 also did not decrease viability or granzyme b and IFN-γ production when cultured with K562 targets as compared to vehicle (DMSO).
Conclusions:
These data suggest that FLLL32 represents a lead compound that could serve as a platform for further optimization to develop improved STAT3 specific inhibitors for melanoma therapy
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