Holographische Abbildung nicht-kristalliner organischer und biologischer Makromoleküle mit Elektronenpunktquellen

In dieser Arbeit wurde an der Weiterentwicklung einer neuen Methode zur Strukturaufklärung von Makromolekülen gearbeitet. Holographie mit niederenergetischen Elektronen ist eine Mikroskopietechnik, die ohne Linsen und aus Linsen resultierenden Fehlern arbeitet. Hologramme können mit einer nominellen Vergößerung von M > 106 aufgenommen werden. Eine ultrascharfe Wolframspitze liefert dabei die zur Holographie benötigte kohärente Strahlung. Die Elektronenquelle wird in einem Elektronen-Projektionsmikroskop bis auf Abstände < 1 mm an ein semitransparentes Objekt angenähert. Ein Teil der aus der Punktquelle emittierten Wellenfunktion eines Elektrons wird an dem Objekt gestreut (Objektwelle). Dieser interferiert mit dem ungestreuten Anteil der Wellenfunktion (Referenzwelle) und es entsteht ein Hologramm. Um daraus Informationen über die Lage der Streuzentren zu gewinnen, muß die Wellenfront in der Objektebene rekonstruiert werden. Dazu muß das Hologramm mit kohärenter Strahlung beleuchtet werden. Dies kann numerisch mit einem Rekonstruktionsalgorithmus beruhend auf der Kirchhoff-Helmholtz-Transformation erfolgen. Die zur Rekonstruktion verwendete Software LEEPS bietet auch die Möglichkeit, Hologramme zu simulieren, mit denen die Abbildungen im Elektronen-Projektionsmikroskop verglichen werden können. Phthalocyaninatopolysioloxan, DNA und das cis-Platin-Addukt an DNA wurden auf unterschiedlichen Objektträgern präpariert und holographisch abgebildet. Die Hologramme der stäbchenförmigen Moleküle rekonstruieren als Stränge mit einem Durchmesser von ca. 2 nm, was sehr gut dem Moleküldurchmesser entspricht. Die Doppelhelix der DNA konnte ebenfalls aufgelöst werden. Die zu den Experimenten durchgeführten Simulationen bestätigten die experimentellen Ergebnisse. Weitere Simulationen zeigten, daß bei Verwendung eines größeren Bildschirms und höherer Energie eine Auflösung im Subnanometer-Bereich möglich sein sollte

Influence of a six month endurance exercise program on the immune function of prostate cancer patients undergoing Antiandrogen or Chemotherapy: design and rationale of the ProImmun study

Background: Exercise seems to minimize prostate cancer specific mortality risk and treatment related side effects like fatigue and incontinence. However the influence of physical activity on the immunological level remains uncertain. Even prostate cancer patients undergoing palliative treatment often have a relatively long life span compared to other cancer entities. To optimize exercise programs and their outcomes it is essential to investigate the underlying mechanisms. Further, it is important to discriminate between different exercise protocols and therapy regimes. Methods/Design: The ProImmun study is a prospective multicenter patient preference randomized controlled trial investigating the influence of a 24 week endurance exercise program in 80–100 prostate cancer patients by comparing patients undergoing Antiandrogen therapy combined with exercise (AE), Antiandrogen therapy without exercise (A), Chemotherapy with exercise(CE) or Chemotherapy without exercise (C). The primary outcome of the study is a change in prostate cancer relevant cytokines and hormones (IL-6, MIF, IGF-1, Testosterone). Secondary endpoints are immune cell ratios, oxidative stress and antioxidative capacity levels, VO2 peak, fatigue and quality of life. Patients of the intervention group exercise five times per week, while two sessions are supervised. During the supervised sessions patients (AE and CE) exercise for 33 minutes on a bicycle ergometer at 70-75% of their VO2 peak. To assess long term effects and sustainability of the intervention two follow-up assessments are arranged 12 and 18 month after the intervention. Discussion: The ProImmun study is the first trial which primarily investigates immunological effects of a six month endurance exercise program in prostate cancer patients during palliative care. Separating patients treated with Antiandrogen therapy from those who are additionally treated with Chemotherapy might allow a more specific view on the influence of endurance training interventions and the impact of different therapy protocols on the immune function. Trial registration: German Clinical Trials Register: DRKS0000473

The role of hepatic transforming growth factor beta1-stimulated clone 22 D1 (TSC22D1 in the regulation of systemic cholesterol metabolis

Energy storage and consumption of the healthy human body are well geared to the needs under physiological conditions. Any disturbances in this balance can result in metabolic diseases such as obesity. A key feature of metabolic disorders is an abnormal lipid profile, as characterized by elevated serum triglycerides, elevated low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and reduced high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. These alterations can increase the risk for the development of type 2 diabetes or atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. In this study, the transcriptional co-factor transforming growth factor beta1-stimulated clone 22 D1 (TSC22D1) was identified as novel regulator of systemic cholesterol metabolism. Acute or chronic knockdown of TSC22D1 in livers of wild-type mice resulted in a significant decrease of serum HDL cholesterol and mildly elevated liver cholesterol. These changes are caused by a reduced expression of key genes involved in cholesterol efflux such as Apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA1), or transporters as ATP binding cassette protein A1 (ABCA1), ABCG5 and ABCG8. Interestingly, serum HDL cholesterol could be elevated by overexpression of hepatic TSC22D1 in wild type mice. Moreover, TSC22D1 expression was found to be differentially regulated in mouse models of opposing energy supply. Whereas levels of TSC22D1 transcripts were significantly reduced in states of energy wasting as in cancer cachexia, they were increased by energy surplus as under obese conditions. Along these lines, hepatic TSC22D1 expression was increased in ob/ob mice, which are highly resistant to the development of atherosclerosis due to their elevated HDL levels. Again, TSC22D1 knockdown significantly lowered serum HDL cholesterol and reduced expression of ApoA1, ABCA1, ABCG5 and ABCG8. Intriguingly, plasma concentrations of HDL/ApoA1 inversely correlate with the risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in humans. Thus, hepatic TSC22D1 transcription factor complex may represent an interesting new target for beneficial manipulation of HDL cholesterol levels

A Novel Thermal-Visual Place Learning Paradigm for Honeybees (Apis mellifera)

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) have fascinating navigational skills and learning capabilities in the field. To decipher the mechanisms underlying place learning in honeybees, we need paradigms to study place learning of individual honeybees under controlled laboratory conditions. Here, we present a novel visual place learning arena for honeybees which relies on high temperatures as aversive stimuli. Honeybees learn to locate a safe spot in an unpleasantly warm arena, relying on a visual panorama. Bees can solve this task at a temperature of 46C, while at temperatures above 48C bees die quickly. This new paradigm, which is based on pioneering work on Drosophila, allows us now to investigate thermal-visual place learning of individual honeybees in the laboratory, for example after controlled genetic knockout or pharmacological intervention

Consumption habits: the case of the Producers' Fair of the National University of La Matanza

El Instituto de Medio Ambiente de la Universidad Nacional de la Matanza organiza, con el apoyo del Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, desde el año 2015 ferias de agricultura familiar en su campus. Los objetivos de la Feria cuyo lema es “Del Productor al Consumidor”, que en cada evento cuenta con unos 40 feriantes, son sensibilizar a la comunidad educativa y a la población local en relación con la agricultura familiar y a la Economía Social y Solidaria y dar a conocer formas de producción más amigables con el ambiente dentro de un modelo de producción socialmente inclusivo. El artículo enmarca la feria en la realidad nacional en relación con la seguridad alimentaria y resume los resultados de dos tomas de opinión que se han realizado a los consumidores para relevar sus hábitos de consumo y expectativas de alimentos adquiridos en una feria de agricultura familiar.the environment institute of the national university of la Matanza organizes, with the support from the national institute of agrarian technology and since 2015, family agriculture fairs on its campus. the aims of the fair, whose slogan is "From the producer to the consumer" and which counts with some forty participants in each event, are raising awareness in the educational community and the local population about family agriculture and social, solidary economy and publi cizing the most environment-friendly ways of production within a socially inclusive production model. the article frames the fair within the national reality in regards to food safety and it summarizes the results of two opinion surveys from consumers carried out to gather information about their consumption habits and their expectations about food acquired at a family agriculture fair.food acquired at a family agriculture fair.Fil: Jäger, Mariano. Universidad Nacional de la Matanza. Instituto de Medio Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Feito, Maria Carolina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Matanza. Instituto de Medio Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Pelizzari, Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de la Matanza. Instituto de Medio Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Mateu, Silvana. Universidad Nacional de la Matanza. Instituto de Medio Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Battista, Susana. Universidad Nacional de la Matanza. Instituto de Medio Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Solari, Camila. Universidad Nacional de la Matanza. Instituto de Medio Ambiente; Argentin

Adolescents' self-reported health status, behaviours and health issues addressed during routine school doctor consultations in Switzerland: an observational study

BACKGROUND We aimed to investigate the self-reported health status and behaviours of 7th-grade adolescents, associations with gender and educational track, as well as health issues addressed during routine school doctor consultations in Switzerland. METHODS Data on health status and behaviours, specifically general well-being, stimulant and addictive substance use, bullying/violence, exercise, nutrition and health protection, and puberty/sexuality, were drawn from routinely collected self-assessment questionnaires from 1076 (of a total of 1126) students from 14 schools in the Swiss canton of Zug in 2020. Data on health issues addressed in school doctor consultations were collected by nine school doctors (for 595 individual consultations). Multilevel logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the association of gender and educational track with unfavourable health status or behaviours. RESULTS Although 92% (n = 989) of the students reported being happy or satisfied overall, 21% (n = 215) often or almost always felt sad, and 5-10% had repeatedly been seriously physically hurt (n = 67), sexually harassed with words (n = 88) or experienced uncomfortable physical contact (n = 60). Female gender and a lower educational track were associated with unfavourable health status. In 90% (n = 533) of the school doctor consultations, at least one topic of disease prevention or health promotion was addressed, whereby the topics addressed depended strongly on the individual school doctors. CONCLUSIONS Our findings revealed that unfavourable health status and behaviours were prevalent among adolescents but the health topics addressed in school doctor consultations were not tailored to students' self-reported health issues. A school-based approach that strengthens adolescents' health literacy and provides opportunities for patient-centred counselling has the potential to improve the current and future health of adolescents and, ultimately, adults. To realise this potential, it is essential for school doctors to be sensitised and trained to address students' health concerns. Emphasis should be placed on the importance of patient-centred counselling, the high prevalence of bullying, and gender and educational differences

VTrails: Inferring Vessels with Geodesic Connectivity Trees

The analysis of vessel morphology and connectivity has an impact on a number of cardiovascular and neurovascular applications by providing patient-specific high-level quantitative features such as spatial location, direction and scale. In this paper we present an end-to-end approach to extract an acyclic vascular tree from angiographic data by solving a connectivity-enforcing anisotropic fast marching over a voxel-wise tensor field representing the orientation of the underlying vascular tree. The method is validated using synthetic and real vascular images. We compare VTrails against classical and state-of-the-art ridge detectors for tubular structures by assessing the connectedness of the vesselness map and inspecting the synthesized tensor field as proof of concept. VTrails performance is evaluated on images with different levels of degradation: we verify that the extracted vascular network is an acyclic graph (i.e. a tree), and we report the extraction accuracy, precision and recall

Estudio alimentario sobre la comensalidad en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires y su periurbano

El presente trabajo es el resultado de parte de un estudio más abarcativo que fue financiado por Nutricia- Bagó Early Life Nutrition y Danone Argentina SA , en el que el Centro Argentino de Desarrollo Sustentable (CADDES) estudió las prácticasy significados del consumo de alimentos de familias que residen en la CiudadAutónoma de Buenos Aires y en el periurbano que la rodea, haciendo foco en lasprácticas vinculadas al cuidado de la salud y en los alimentos lácteos. Se estudió particularmente la relación entre los contextos socioeconómicos de sustentabilidaddel sistema alimentario de la metrópolis y la representación que la gente tienesobre la comida y la bebida, respecto de su propia salud, y más específicamenteen torno a los menores (bebes, niños y adolescentes).Fil: Jäger, Mariano Daniel. Universidad Nacional de la Matanza. Instituto de Medio Ambiente; Argentina. Centro Argentino de Desarrollo Sustentable; ArgentinaFil: Feito, Maria Carolina. Centro Argentino de Desarrollo Sustentable; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Matanza; ArgentinaFil: Le Gall, Julie. Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développerment; FranciaFil: Vera, Noelia. Universidad Nacional de La Matanza; Argentina. Centro Argentino de Desarrollo Sustentable; ArgentinaFil: Martínez, Romina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; Argentina. Centro Argentino de Desarrollo Sustentable; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Jose Clemente Paz; ArgentinaFil: Castellano, Verónica. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Centro Argentino de Desarrollo Sustentable; ArgentinaFil: Parellada, Gabriel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; Argentin

Exploring Refractory Organics in Extraterrestrial Particles

The origin of organic compounds detected in meteorites and comets, some of which could have served as precursors of life on Earth, remains an open question. The aim of the present study is to make one more step in revealing the nature and composition of organic materials of extraterrestrial particles by comparing infrared spectra of laboratory-made refractory organic residues to spectra of cometary particles returned by the Stardust mission, interplanetary dust particles, and meteorites. Our results reinforce the idea of a pathway for the formation of refractory organics through energetic and thermal processing of molecular ices in the solar nebula. There is also the possibility that some of the organic material had formed already in the parental molecular cloud before it entered the solar nebula. The majority of the IR “organic” bands of the studied extraterrestrial particles can be reproduced in the spectra of the laboratory organic residues. We confirm the detection of water, nitriles, hydrocarbons, and carbonates in extraterrestrial particles and link it to the formation location of the particles in the outer regions of the solar nebula. To clarify the genesis of the species, high-sensitivity observations in combination with laboratory measurements like those presented in this paper are needed. Thus, this study presents one more piece of the puzzle of the origin of water and organic compounds on Earth and motivation for future collaborative laboratory and observational projects

Systematic screening for novel, serologically reactive Hepatitis E Virus epitopes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The National Institutes of Health classified Hepatitis E as an emerging disease since Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) is the major cause of acute hepatitis in developing countries. Interestingly, an increasing number of sporadic cases of HEV infections are described in industrialized countries as zoonosis from domestic livestock. Despite the increasing relevance of this pathogen in clinical virology, commercial antibody assays are mainly based on fragments of HEV open reading frame (ORF) 2 and ORF3. The largest ORF1 (poly-)protein, however, is not part of current testing formats.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>From a synthesized full length HEV genotype 1 cDNA-bank we constructed a complete HEV gene library consisting of 15 respective HEV ORF domains. After bacterial expression and purification of nine recombinant HEV proteins under denaturating conditions serum profiling experiments using 55 sera from patients with known infection status were performed in microarray format. SPSS software assessed the antigenic potential of these nine ORF domains in comparison to seven commercial HEV antigens (genotype 1 and 3) by performing receiver operator characteristics, logistic regression and correlation analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>HEV antigens produced with our method for serum profiling experiments exhibit the same quality and characteristics as commercial antigens. Serum profiling experiments detected Y, V and X domains as ORF1-antigens with potentially comparable diagnostic significance as the well established epitopes of ORF2 and ORF3. However no obvious additional increase in sensitivity or specificity was achieved in diagnostic testing as revealed by bioinformatic analysis. Additionally we found that the C-terminal domain of the potential transmembrane protein ORF3 is responsible for IgG and IgM seroreactivity. Data suggest that there might be a genotype specific seroreactivity of homologous ORF2-antigens.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The diagnostic value of identified ORF1 epitopes might not necessarily improve sensitivity and specificity, but broaden the overall quality of existing test systems. ORF2 and ORF3-antigens are still commonly used in diagnostic assays and possibly hold the potential to serologically differentiate between genotype 1 and 3 infections. Our systematic approach is a suitable method to investigate HEV domains for their serologic antigenicity. Epitope screening of native viral domains could be a preferable tool in developing new serologic test components.</p