The effect of range of outcomes and magnitude of rewards on lying behavior in anonymous dice-under-cup trials

We examine the effect of changing the structure of the lying opportunity by conducting a laboratory experiment. In particular, we vary the range of possible false outcomes and the magnitude of rewards. We apply the dice-under-cup paradigm which uses anonymous dice rolls to record actual lying behavior by comparing the distribution of participants’ stated outcomes to the expected statistical distribution of dice roll outcomes. We find that although some small changes in lying behavior can be achieved with an increase in the possible range of outcomes and by exponentially increasing rewards, lying behavior is generally robust to changes in the lying opportunity structure. Our study concludes that lying behavior seems to be driven by the aim to achieve a certain payoff regardless of conditions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Escherichia coli COG1738 Member YhhQ Is Involved in 7-Cyanodeazaguanine (preQ0) Transport

Queuosine (Q) is a complex modification of the wobble base in tRNAs with GUN anticodons. The full Q biosynthesis pathway has been elucidated in Escherichia coli. FolE, QueD, QueE and QueC are involved in the conversion of guanosine triphosphate (GTP) to 7-cyano-7-deazaguanine (preQ0), an intermediate of increasing interest for its central role in tRNA and DNA modification and secondary metabolism. QueF then reduces preQ0 to 7-aminomethyl-7-deazaguanine (preQ1). PreQ1 is inserted into tRNAs by tRNA guanine(34) transglycosylase (TGT). The inserted base preQ1 is finally matured to Q by two additional steps involving QueA and QueG or QueH. Most Eubacteria harbor the full set of Q synthesis genes and are predicted to synthesize Q de novo. However, some bacteria only encode enzymes involved in the second half of the pathway downstream of preQ0 synthesis, including the signature enzyme TGT. Different patterns of distribution of the queF, tgt, queA and queG or queH genes are observed, suggesting preQ0, preQ1 or even the queuine base being salvaged in specific organisms. Such salvage pathways require the existence of specific 7-deazapurine transporters that have yet to be identified. The COG1738 family was identified as a candidate for a missing preQ0/preQ1 transporter in prokaryotes, by comparative genomics analyses. The existence of Q precursor salvage was confirmed for the first time in bacteria, in vivo, through an indirect assay. The involvement of the COG1738 in salvage of a Q precursor was experimentally validated in Escherichia coli, where it was shown that the COG1738 family member YhhQ is essential for preQ0 transport

Drive-through vaccinations prove successful in immunizing mountain communities against tick-borne encephalitis during the Covid-19 pandemic

In March 2020 the covid-19 pandemic led to the abruption of most of the routine outpatient activities in the Italian hospitals and Prevention Departments, including those vaccinations which were not urgent and/or scheduled for the age 0-6. As soon as a milder phase of the pandemic made it possible, since June 2020, in the mountain territory of the province of Belluno (Veneto, North-East of Italy), in the Alps, 12.152 doses of vaccine against tick-borne encephalitis have been administered by means of the innovative “drive-through” modality. No significant adverse events occurred and the demand by the population has kept growing since the previous year, proving the “drive-through” to be safe, efficient and successful

Prevalence of Bowel Damage Assessed by Cross-Sectional Imaging in Early Crohn's Disease and its Impact on Disease Outcome

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Meta-analysis of Liver and Heart Transcriptomic Data for Functional Annotation Transfer in Mammalian Orthologs

Functional annotation transfer across multi-gene family orthologs can lead to functional misannotations. We hypothesised that co-expression network will help predict functional orthologs amongst complex homologous gene families. To explore the use of transcriptomic data available in public domain to identify functionally equivalent ones from all predicted orthologs, we collected genome wide expression data in mouse and rat liver from over 1500 experiments with varied treatments. We used a hyper-graph clustering method to identify clusters of orthologous genes co-expressed in both mouse and rat. We validated these clusters by analysing expression profiles in each species separately, and demonstrating a high overlap. We then focused on genes in 18 homology groups with one-to-many or many-to-many relationships between two species, to discriminate between functionally equivalent and non-equivalent orthologs. Finally, we further applied our method by collecting heart transcriptomic data (over 1400 experiments) in rat and mouse to validate the method in an independent tissue

High-throughput comparison, functional annotation, and metabolic modeling of plant genomes using the PlantSEED resource

The increasing number of sequenced plant genomes is placing new demands on the methods applied to analyze, annotate, and model these genomes. Today's annotation pipelines result in inconsistent gene assignments that complicate comparative analyses and prevent efficient construction of metabolic models. To overcome these problems, we have developed the PlantSEED, an integrated, metabolism-centric database to support subsystems-based annotation and metabolic model reconstruction for plant genomes. PlantSEED combines SEED subsystems technology, first developed for microbial genomes, with refined protein families and biochemical data to assign fully consistent functional annotations to orthologous genes, particularly those encoding primary metabolic pathways. Seamless integration with its parent, the prokaryotic SEED database, makes PlantSEED a unique environment for cross-kingdom comparative analysis of plant and bacterial genomes. The consistent annotations imposed by PlantSEED permit rapid reconstruction and modeling of primary metabolism for all plant genomes in the database. This feature opens the unique possibility of model-based assessment of the completeness and accuracy of gene annotation and thus allows computational identification of genes and pathways that are restricted to certain genomes or need better curation. We demonstrate the PlantSEED system by producing consistent annotations for 10 reference genomes. We also produce a functioning metabolic model for each genome, gapfilling to identify missing annotations and proposing gene candidates for missing annotations. Models are built around an extended biomass composition representing the most comprehensive published to date. To our knowledge, our models are the first to be published for seven of the genomes analyzed

High-throughput Comparison, Functional Annotation, and Metabolic Modeling of Plant Genomes using the PlantSEED Resource

There is a growing demand for genome-scale metabolic reconstructions for plants, fueled by the need to understand the metabolic basis of crop yield and by progress in genome and transcriptome sequencing. Methods are also required to enable the interpretation of plant transcriptome data to study how cellular metabolic activity varies under different growth conditions or even within different organs, tissues, and developmental stages. Such methods depend extensively on the accuracy with which genes have been mapped to the biochemical reactions in the plant metabolic pathways. Errors in these mappings lead to metabolic reconstructions with an inflated number of reactions and possible generation of unreliable metabolic phenotype predictions. Here we introduce a new evidence-based genome-scale metabolic reconstruction of maize, with significant improvements in the quality of the gene-reaction associations included within our model. We also present a new approach for applying our model to predict active metabolic genes based on transcriptome data. This method includes a minimal set of reactions associated with low expression genes to enable activity of a maximum number of reactions associated with high expression genes. We apply this method to construct an organ-specific model for the maize leaf, and tissue specific models for maize embryo and endosperm cells. We validate our models using fluxomics data for the endosperm and embryo, demonstrating an improved capacity of our models to fit the available fluxomics data. All models are publicly available via the DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase and PlantSEED, and our new method is generally applicable for analysis transcript profiles from any plant, paving the way for further in silico studies with a wide variety of plant genomes

Clinical Remission of Sight-Threatening Non-Infectious Uveitis Is Characterized by an Upregulation of Peripheral T-Regulatory Cell Polarized Towards T-bet and TIGIT.

Background: Non-infectious uveitis can cause chronic relapsing and remitting ocular inflammation, which may require high dose systemic immunosuppression to prevent severe sight loss. It has been classically described as an autoimmune disease, mediated by pro-inflammatory Th1 and Th17 T-cell subsets. Studies suggest that natural immunosuppressive CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ T-regulatory cells (Tregs) are involved in resolution of inflammation and may be involved in the maintenance of clinical remission. Objective: To investigate whether there is a peripheral blood immunoregulatory phenotype associated with clinical remission of sight-threatening non-infectious uveitis by comparing peripheral blood levels of Treg, Th1, and Th17, and associated DNA methylation and cytokine levels in patients with active uveitic disease, control subjects and patients (with previously active disease) in clinical remission induced by immunosuppressive drugs. Methods: Isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from peripheral blood samples from prospectively recruited subjects were analyzed by flow cytometry for CD3, CD4, FoxP3, TIGIT, T-bet, and related orphan receptor γt. Epigenetic DNA methylation levels of FOXP3 Treg-specific demethylated region (TSDR), FOXP3 promoter, TBX21, RORC2, and TIGIT loci were determined in cryopreserved PBMC using a next-generation sequencing approach. Related cytokines were measured in blood sera. Functional suppressive capacity of Treg was assessed using T-cell proliferation assays. Results: Fifty patients with uveitis (intermediate, posterior, and panuveitis) and 10 control subjects were recruited. The frequency of CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ Treg, TIGIT+ Treg, and T-bet+ Treg and the ratio of Treg to Th1 were significantly higher in remission patients compared with patients with active uveitic disease; and TIGIT+ Tregs were a significant predictor of clinical remission. Treg from patients in clinical remission demonstrated a high level of in vitro suppressive function compared with Treg from control subjects and from patients with untreated active disease. PBMC from patients in clinical remission had significantly lower methylation levels at the FOXP3 TSDR, FOXP3 promoter, and TIGIT loci and higher levels at RORC loci than those with active disease. Clinical remission was also associated with significantly higher serum levels of transforming growth factor β and IL-10, which positively correlated with Treg levels, and lower serum levels of IFNγ, IL-17A, and IL-22 compared with patients with active disease. Conclusion: Clinical remission of sight-threatening non-infectious uveitis has an immunoregulatory phenotype characterized by upregulation of peripheral Treg, polarized toward T-bet and TIGIT. These findings may assist with individualized therapy of uveitis, by informing whether drug therapy has induced phenotypically stable Treg associated with long-term clinical remission