2-[4-(4-Methylphenylsulfonyl)piperazin-1-yl]-1-(4,5,6,7-tetrahydrothieno[3,2-c]pyridin-5-yl)ethanone

In the title thienopyridine derivative, C20H25N3O3S2, the piperazine ring exhibits a chair conformation and the tetra­hydro­pyridine ring exhibits a half-chair conformation. The folded conformation of the mol­ecule is defined by the N—C—C—N torsion angle of −70.20 (2) °. Inter­molecular C—H⋯S and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds help to establish the packing

Newly identified NO-sensor guanylyl cyclase/connexin 43 association is involved in cardiac electrical function

Background: Guanylyl cyclase, a heme-containing alpha 1 beta 1 heterodimer (GC1), produces cGMP in response to Nitric oxide (NO) stimulation. The NO-GC1-cGMP pathway negatively regulates cardiomyocyte contractility and protects against cardiac hypertrophy-related remodeling. We recently reported that the beta 1 subunit of GC1 is detected at the intercalated disc with connexin 43 (Cx43). Cx43 forms gap junctions (GJs) at the intercalated disc that are responsible for electrical propagation. We sought to determine whether there is a functional association between GC1 and Cx43 and its role in cardiac homeostasis. Methods and Results: GC1 and Cx43 immunostaining at the intercalated disc and coimmunoprecipitation from membrane fraction indicate that GC1 and Cx43 are associated. Mice lacking the alpha subunit of GC1 (GC alpha 1 knockout mice) displayed a significant decrease in GJ function (dye-spread assay) and Cx43 membrane lateralization. In a cardiac-hypertrophic model, angiotensin II treatment disrupted the GC1-Cx43 association and induced significant Cx43 membrane lateralization, which was exacerbated in GC alpha 1 knockout mice. Cx43 lateralization correlated with decreased Cx43-containing GJs at the intercalated disc, predictors of electrical dysfunction. Accordingly, an ECG revealed that angiotensin II-treated GCa1 knockout mice had impaired ventricular electrical propagation. The phosphorylation level of Cx43 at serine 365, a protein-kinase A upregulated site involved in trafficking/assembly of GJs, was decreased in these models. Conclusions: GC1 modulates ventricular Cx43 location, hence GJ function, and partially protects from electrical dysfunction in an angiotensin II hypertrophy model. Disruption of the NO-cGMP pathway is associated with cardiac electrical disturbance and abnormal Cx43 phosphorylation. This previously unknown NO/Cx43 signaling could be a protective mechanism against stress-induced arrhythmia

Clinical study of retinal detachment associated with choroidal detachment

AIM: To analyze the clinical characteristics of retinal detachment associated with choroidal detachment and to evaluate the surgical techniques, the efficacy and operation time for treatment.<p>METHODS: We reviewed and analyzed the operative effects of vitreoretinal surgeries in 45 patients(45 eyes)with retinal and choroidal detachment in our hospital from January, 2010 to January, 2012. In these 45 patients, there were 38 patients of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment associated with choroidal detachment, 7 patients of retinal redetachment associated with choroidal detachment. The surgical techniques include scleral encircling operation, epichoroidal space drainage by sclerocentesis intraocular photocoagulation, gas-fluid exchange, perfluoropropane(C₃F₈)or silicone oil intraocular tamponade and vitreoretinal surgery.<p>RESULTS: The drainage of the suprachoroidal space liquid and blood was successful in 45 eyes. Silicone oil tamponade was performed for 39 eyes and C₃F₈ tamponade for 6 eyes. Retinas and choroids were all reattached and retinal holes were closed. Visual acuities were improved, ≥0.1 in 23 eyes.<p>CONCLUSION: The vitreoretinal surgery and external drainage by sclerocentesis and scleral encircling operation is an effective operating method for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment associated with choroidal detachment

Identify submitochondria and subchloroplast locations with pseudo amino acid composition: Approach from the strategy of discrete wavelet transform feature extraction

AbstractIt is very challenging and complicated to predict protein locations at the sub-subcellular level. The key to enhancing the prediction quality for protein sub-subcellular locations is to grasp the core features of a protein that can discriminate among proteins with different subcompartment locations. In this study, a different formulation of pseudoamino acid composition by the approach of discrete wavelet transform feature extraction was developed to predict submitochondria and subchloroplast locations. As a result of jackknife cross-validation, with our method, it can efficiently distinguish mitochondrial proteins from chloroplast proteins with total accuracy of 98.8% and obtained a promising total accuracy of 93.38% for predicting submitochondria locations. Especially the predictive accuracy for mitochondrial outer membrane and chloroplast thylakoid lumen were 82.93% and 82.22%, respectively, showing an improvement of 4.88% and 27.22% when other existing methods were compared. The results indicated that the proposed method might be employed as a useful assistant technique for identifying sub-subcellular locations. We have implemented our algorithm as an online service called SubIdent (http://bioinfo.ncu.edu.cn/services.aspx)

The Complete Chloroplast Genome of Ginkgo biloba Reveals the Mechanism of Inverted Repeat Contraction

We determined the complete chloroplast genome (cpDNA) of Ginkgo biloba (common name: ginkgo), the only relict of ginkgophytes from the Triassic Period. The cpDNA molecule of ginkgo is quadripartite and circular, with a length of 156,945 bp, which is 6,458 bp shorter than that of Cycas taitungensis. In ginkgo cpDNA, rpl23 becomes pseudo, only one copy of ycf2 is retained, and there are at least five editing sites. We propose that the retained ycf2 is a duplicate of the ancestral ycf2, and the ancestral one has been lost from the inverted repeat A (IRA). This loss event should have occurred and led to the contraction of IRs after ginkgos diverged from other gymnosperms. A novel cluster of three transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, trnY-AUA, trnC-ACA, and trnSeC-UCA, was predicted to be located between trnC-GCA and rpoB of the large single-copy region. Our phylogenetic analysis strongly suggests that the three predicted tRNA genes are duplicates of trnC-GCA. Interestingly, in ginkgo cpDNA, the loss of one ycf2 copy does not significantly elevate the synonymous rate (Ks) of the retained copy, which disagrees with the view of Perry and Wolfe (2002) that one of the two-copy genes is subjected to elevated Ks when its counterpart has been lost. We hypothesize that the loss of one ycf2 is likely recent, and therefore, the acquired Ks of the retained copy is low. Our data reveal that ginkgo possesses several unique features that contribute to our understanding of the cpDNA evolution in seed plants

Searches for the technicolor signatures via gg --> W^{\pm}\pi_t^{\mp} at the Large Hadron Collider

In this paper we calculate the production of a charged top pion in association with a W boson via gg fusion at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in the context of the topcolor assisted technicolor model. We find that, the total cross section of pp --> gg --> W^{\pm}\pi_t^{\mp}, is several dozen femtobarns with reasonable values of the parameters, and the total cross section of pp --> W^{\pm}\pi_t^{\mp} can reach a few hundred femtobarns when we consider the sum of the contributions of these two parton subprocesses gg --> W^{\pm}\pi_t^{\mp} and b\bar{b} --> W^{\pm}\pi_t^{\mp}.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1007.028

Logarithmic singularities and quantum oscillations in magnetically doped topological insulators

We report magnetotransport measurements on magnetically doped (Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_3$ films grown by molecular beam epitaxy. In Hallbar devices, logarithmic dependence on temperature and bias voltage are obseved in both the longitudinal and anomalous Hall resistance. The interplay of disorder and electron-electron interactions is found to explain quantitatively the observed logarithmic singularities and is a dominant scattering mechanism in these samples. Submicron scale devices exhibit intriguing quantum oscillations at high magnetic fields with dependence on bias voltage. The observed quantum oscillations can be attributed to bulk and surface transport.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figure

On the bistable zone of milling processes

LRR-RLK genes identified in Physcomitrella patens and Selaginella moellendorffii. (XLS 4566 kb