Impacts of the Spotted Spiny Lobster (\u3ci\u3ePanulirus guttatus\u3c/i\u3e) on the Long-Spined Sea Urchin (\u3ci\u3eDiadema antillarum\u3c/i\u3e) and Patch Reef Communities in the Florida Keys

Caribbean coral reefs have undergone a phase shift from a system dominated by corals to one where algae are pervasive. This shift was precipitated by the loss of herbivores, including the mass mortality of the long spined sea urchin (Diadema antillarum), coupled with disease and the recruitment failure of hermatypic corals. Diadema populations have recovered in some areas of the Caribbean, but are still below historical levels in the Florida Keys, likely due to low larval supply coupled with predation on juveniles. Lobsters are sea urchin predators in other systems and the spotted spiny lobster (Panulirus guttatus ) is abundant on coral reefs in the Florida Keys, where I investigated their role as nocturnal, philopatric carnivores on patch reef communities, with particular emphasis on their density and trait mediated impacts on Diadema. Additionally, I examined the importance of predation threat and intra-specific competition on habitat utilization by Diadema. I found that P. guttatus consumes small herbivorous reef invertebrates including sea urchins and crabs and its foraging activities destabilize rubble substrate, a disturbance more intense with smaller rubble, which may inhibit coral recruitment. In addition to density mediated impacts, Diadema increased its flight response and consumed significantly less algae in the presence of P. guttatus. However, Diadema did not increase its flight response to P. argus , a known Diadema predator. Panulirus guttatus cues also mitigated the importance of intra-specific competition for shelter by Diadema, with Diadema selecting shelters with conspecific chemical cues over those with P. guttatus chemical cues. Through its negative impact on the abundance and behavior of herbivores such as Diadema and destabilization of rubble substrates, high densities of P. guttatus potentially contribute to coral-to-algae phase-shifts on coral reefs

Effects of Predation upon the Long-Spined Sea Urchin Diadema antillarum by the Spotted Spiny Lobster Panulirus guttatus

Sea urchins, important herbivores in marine ecosystems, are strongly impacted by both the direct and indirect effects of predation, and the long-spined sea urchin Diadema antillarum is no exception. Once abundant on Caribbean coral reefs, D. antillarum populations were decimated by disease in the early 1980s, and only where their natural predators have been over-fished has D. antillarum recovery been observed. Spiny lobsters (Palinuridae) are predators of sea urchins, and although there are several species of spiny lobster in the Caribbean, only the spotted spiny lobster Panulirus guttatus is restricted to coral reefs where D. antillarum dwells. We investigated the direct and indirect impacts of P. guttatus on D. antillarum mortality, foraging, and behavior in a series of laboratory experiments. We found that P. guttatus prey on D. antillarum, especially small urchins. D. antillarum also consumed significantly less algae in the presence of P. guttatus and fled when exposed to the odor of P. guttatus but apparently not the scent of the Caribbean spiny lobster P. argus. The altered foraging and avoidance behaviors displayed by D. antillarum are strong evidence that predation by P. guttatus has played an important, but underappreciated, role in the evolutionary history of D. antillarum and perhaps its recovery on Caribbean coral reefs

The Influence of Shelter, Conspecifics, and Threat of Predation on the Behavior of the Long-Spined Sea Urchin (Diadema antillarum)

The interplay of competition and predation often affects prey habitat use, which may concentrate prey in safer areas with indirect consequences on their foraging efficiency and the effects of their foraging on the community. Predation is intense on coral reefs where competition for limited space and food is severe. The sea urchin Diadema antillarum, an inhabitant of Caribbean coral reefs, uses crevice shelters and often aggregates with conspecifics for protection against predators, which appears to reflect a conflicting balance between group defense versus competition for limited shelter. A series of laboratory experiments was used to determine how the availability of shelter, conspecifics, and chemical odors from conspecifics and a predator-the spotted spiny lobster (Panulirus guttatus)-affect D. antillarum shelter use. The long-spined sea urchin D. antillarum responded strongly to the odor of conspecifics and the lobster predator. Absent the threat of predation, D. antillarum compete for shelter and avoid shelters bearing the scent of other urchins. But, D. antillarum readily shared shelters and preferred the scent of conspecifics when exposed to lobster odors. Thus, efforts to enhance the recovery of D. antillarum populations on degraded reefs must strike a balance between minimizing their mortality from predation and increasing habitat complexity, which not only increases shelter for D. antillarum, but also their predators

The CALO meeting speech recognition and understanding system

ABSTRACT The CALO Meeting Assistant provides for distributed meeting capture, annotation, automatic transcription and semantic analysis of multi-party meetings, and is part of the larger CALO personal assistant system. This paper summarizes the CALO-MA architecture and its speech recognition and understanding components, which include realtime and offline speech transcription, dialog act segmentation and tagging, question-answer pair identification, action item recognition, and summarization

A chicken bioreactor for efficient production of functional cytokines

The global market for protein drugs has the highest compound annual growth rate of any pharmaceutical class but their availability, especially outside of the US market, is compromised by the high cost of manufacture and validation compared to traditional chemical drugs. Improvements in transgenic technologies allow valuable proteins to be produced by genetically-modified animals; several therapeutic proteins from such animal bioreactors are already on the market after successful clinical trials and regulatory approval. Chickens have lagged behind mammals in bioreactor development, despite a number of potential advantages, due to the historic difficulty in producing transgenic birds, but the production of therapeutic proteins in egg white of transgenic chickens would substantially lower costs across the entire production cycle compared to traditional cell culture-based production systems. This could lead to more affordable treatments and wider markets, including in developing countries and for animal health applications. Here we report the efficient generation of new transgenic chicken lines to optimize protein production in eggs. As proof-of-concept, we describe the expression, purification and functional characterization of three pharmaceutical proteins, the human cytokine interferon α2a and two species-specific Fc fusions of the cytokine CSF1. Our work optimizes and validates a transgenic chicken system for the cost-effective production of pure, high quality, biologically active protein for therapeutics and other applications

Plasma Rich in Growth Factors (PRGF) Disrupt the Blood-Brain Barrier Integrity and Elevate Amyloid Pathology in the Brains of 5XFAD Mice

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder affecting 5.4 million people in the United States. Currently approved pharmacologic interventions for AD are limited to symptomatic improvement, not affecting the underlying pathology. Therefore, the search for novel therapeutic strategies is ongoing. A hallmark of AD is the compromised blood-brain barrier (BBB); thus, developing drugs that target the BBB to enhance its integrity and function could be a novel approach to prevent and/or treat AD. Previous evidence has shown the beneficial effects of growth factors in the treatment of AD pathology. Based on reported positive results obtained with the product Endoret®, the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF) on the BBB integrity and function, initially in a cell-based BBB model and in 5x Familial Alzheimer’s Disease (5xFAD) mice. Our results showed that while PRGF demonstrated a positive effect in the cell-based BBB model with the enhanced integrity and function of the model, the in-vivo findings showed that PRGF exacerbated amyloid pathology in 5xFAD brains. At 10 and 100% doses, PRGF increased amyloid deposition associated with increased apoptosis and neuroinflammation. In conclusion, our results suggest PRGF may not provide beneficial effects against AD and the consideration to utilize growth factors should further be investigated

Structural Basis of the Differential Binding of Engineered Knottins to Integrins αVβ3 and α5β1

Targeting both integrins αVβ3 and α5β1 simultaneously appears to be more effective in cancer therapy than targeting each one alone. The structural requirements for bispecific binding of ligand to integrins have not been fully elucidated. RGD-containing knottin 2.5F binds selectively to αVβ3 and α5β1, whereas knottin 2.5D is αVβ3 specific. To elucidate the structural basis of this selectivity, we determined the structures of 2.5F and 2.5D as apo proteins and in complex with αVβ3, and compared their interactions with integrins using molecular dynamics simulations. These studies show that 2.5D engages αVβ3 by an induced fit, but conformational selection of a flexible RGD loop accounts for high-affinity selective binding of 2.5F to both integrins. The contrasting binding of the highly flexible low-affinity linear RGD peptides to multiple integrins suggests that a "Goldilocks zone" of conformational flexibility of the RGD loop in 2.5F underlies its selective binding promiscuity to integrins

The CALO meeting speech recognition and understanding system

ABSTRACT The CALO Meeting Assistant provides for distributed meeting capture, annotation, automatic transcription and semantic analysis of multiparty meetings, and is part of the larger CALO personal assistant system. This paper summarizes the CALO-MA architecture and its speech recognition and understanding components, which include real-time and offline speech transcription, dialog act segmentation and tagging, question-answer pair identification, action item recognition, decision extraction, and summarization