3,601 research outputs found
Transcriptional responses of Biomphalaria pfeifferi and Schistosoma mansoni following exposure to niclosamide, with evidence for a synergistic effect on snails following exposure to both stressors.
BackgroundSchistosomiasis is one of the world's most common NTDs. Successful control operations often target snail vectors with the molluscicide niclosamide. Little is known about how niclosamide affects snails, including for Biomphalaria pfeifferi, the most important vector for Schistosoma mansoni in Africa. We used Illumina technology to explore how field-derived B. pfeifferi, either uninfected or harboring cercariae-producing S. mansoni sporocysts, respond to a sublethal treatment of niclosamide. This study afforded the opportunity to determine if snails respond differently to biotic or abiotic stressors, and if they reserve unique responses for when presented with both stressors in combination. We also examined how sporocysts respond when their snail host is treated with niclosamide.Principal findingsCercariae-producing sporocysts within snails treated with niclosamide express ~68% of the genes in the S. mansoni genome, as compared to 66% expressed by intramolluscan stages of S. mansoni in snails not treated with niclosamide. Niclosamide does not disable sporocysts nor does it seem to provoke from them distinctive responses associated with detoxifying a xenobiotic. For uninfected B. pfeifferi, niclosamide treatment alone increases expression of several features not up-regulated in infected snails including particular cytochrome p450s and heat shock proteins, glutathione-S-transferases, antimicrobial factors like LBP/BPI and protease inhibitors, and also provokes strong down regulation of proteases. Exposure of infected snails to niclosamide resulted in numerous up-regulated responses associated with apoptosis along with down-regulated ribosomal and defense functions, indicative of a distinctive, compromised state not achieved with either stimulus alone.Conclusions/significanceThis study helps define the transcriptomic responses of an important and under-studied schistosome vector to S. mansoni sporocysts, to niclosamide, and to both in combination. It suggests the response of S. mansoni sporocysts to niclosamide is minimal and not reflective of a distinct repertoire of genes to handle xenobiotics while in the snail host. It also offers new insights for how niclosamide affects snails
Orbital Magnetization under an Electric Field and Orbital Magnetoelectric Polarizabilty for a Bilayer Chern System
In the the real space formalism of orbital magnetization (OM) for a Chern
insulator without an external electric field, it is correct to average the
local OM either over the bulk region or over the whole sample. However for a
layered Chern insulator in an external electric field, which is directly
related to the nontrivial nature of orbital magnetoelectric coupling, the role
of boundaries remains ambiguous in this formalism. Based on a bilayer model
with an adjustable Chern number at half filling, we numerically investigate the
OM with the above two different average types under a nonzero perpendicular
electric field. The result shows that in this case, the nonzero Chern number
gives rise to a gauge shift of the OM with the bulk region average, while this
gauge shift is absent for the OM with the whole sample average. This indicates
that only the whole sample average is reliable to calculate the OM under a
nonzero electric field for Chern insulators. On this basis, the orbital
magnetoelectric polarizablity (OMP) and the Chern-Simons orbital
magnetoelectric polarizablity (CSOMP) with the whole sample average are
studied. We also present the relationship between the OMP (CSOMP) and the
response of Berry curvature to the electric field. The stronger the response of
Berry curvature to electric field, the stronger is the OMP (CSOMP). Besides
clarify the calculation methods, our result also provides an effective method
to enhance OMP and CSOMP of materials.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure
Quantum Transports in Two-Dimensions with Long Range Hopping: Shielding, Localization and the Extended Isolated State
We investigate the effects of disorder and shielding on quantum transports in
a two dimensional system with all-to-all long range hopping. In the weak
disorder, cooperative shielding manifests itself as perfect conducting channels
identical to those of the short range model, as if the long range hopping does
not exist. With increasing disorder, the average and fluctuation of conductance
are larger than those in the short range model, since the shielding is
effectively broken and therefore long range hopping starts to take effect. Over
several orders of disorder strength (until times of nearest
hopping), although the wavefunctions are not fully extended, they are also
robustly prevented from being completely localized into a single site. Each
wavefunction has several localization centers around the whole sample, thus
leading to a fractal dimension remarkably smaller than 2 and also remarkably
larger than 0, exhibiting a hybrid feature of localization and delocalization.
The size scaling shows that for sufficiently large size and disorder strength,
the conductance tends to saturate to a fixed value with the scaling function
, which is also a marginal phase between the typical metal
() and insulating phase (). The all-to-all coupling expels
one isolated but extended state far out of the band, whose transport is
extremely robust against disorder due to absence of backscattering. The bond
current picture of this isolated state shows a quantum version of short circuit
through long hopping.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
The in vivo transcriptome of Schistosoma mansoni in the prominent vector species Biomphalaria pfeifferi with supporting observations from Biomphalaria glabrata.
BackgroundThe full scope of the genes expressed by schistosomes during intramolluscan development has yet to be characterized. Understanding the gene products deployed by larval schistosomes in their snail hosts will provide insights into their establishment, maintenance, asexual reproduction, ability to castrate their hosts, and their prolific production of human-infective cercariae. Using the Illumina platform, the intramolluscan transcriptome of Schistosoma mansoni was investigated in field-derived specimens of the prominent vector species Biomphalaria pfeifferi at 1 and 3 days post infection (d) and from snails shedding cercariae. These S. mansoni samples were derived from the same snails used in our complementary B. pfeifferi transcriptomic study. We supplemented this view with microarray analyses of S. mansoni from B. glabrata at 2d, 4d, 8d, 16d, and 32d to highlight robust features of S. mansoni transcription, even when a different technique and vector species was used.Principal findingsTranscripts representing at least 7,740 (66%) of known S. mansoni genes were expressed during intramolluscan development, with the greatest number expressed in snails shedding cercariae. Many transcripts were constitutively expressed throughout development featuring membrane transporters, and metabolic enzymes involved in protein and nucleic acid synthesis and cell division. Several proteases and protease inhibitors were expressed at all stages, including some proteases usually associated with cercariae. Transcripts associated with G-protein coupled receptors, germ cell perpetuation, and stress responses and defense were well represented. We noted transcripts homologous to planarian anti-bacterial factors, several neural development or neuropeptide transcripts including neuropeptide Y, and receptors that may be associated with schistosome germinal cell maintenance that could also impact host reproduction. In at least one snail the presence of larvae of another digenean species (an amphistome) was associated with repressed S. mansoni transcriptional activity.Conclusions/significanceThis in vivo study, emphasizing field-derived snails and schistosomes, but supplemented with observations from a lab model, provides a distinct view from previous studies of development of cultured intramolluscan stages from lab-maintained organisms. We found many highly represented transcripts with suspected or unknown functions, with connection to intramolluscan development yet to be elucidated
Discriminating different scenarios to account for the cosmic excess by synchrotron and inverse Compton radiation
The excesses of the cosmic positron fraction recently measured by PAMELA and
the electron spectra by ATIC, PPB-BETS, Fermi and H.E.S.S. indicate the
existence of primary electron and positron sources. The possible explanations
include dark matter annihilation, decay, and astrophysical origin, like
pulsars. In this work we show that these three scenarios can all explain the
experimental results of the cosmic excess. However, it may be difficult
to discriminate these different scenarios by the local measurements of
electrons and positrons. We propose possible discriminations among these
scenarios through the synchrotron and inverse Compton radiation of the primary
electrons/positrons from the region close to the Galactic center. Taking
typical configurations, we find the three scenarios predict quite different
spectra and skymaps of the synchrotron and inverse Compton radiation, though
there are relatively large uncertainties. The most prominent differences come
from the energy band MHz for synchrotron emission and GeV for inverse Compton emission. It might be able to discriminate at least
the annihilating dark matter scenario from the other two given the high
precision synchrotron and diffuse -ray skymaps in the future.Comment: published in Pr
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