Balloon-Borne Hard X-Ray Imaging and Future Surveys

Several payloads for hard X-ray (20-600 keV) imaging with coded aperture telescopes have been developed for balloon flight observations of cosmic x-ray sources. We briefly review the characteristics of these, particularly the EXITE2 system. The recent NASA program to develop an extended long duration (100d) balloon flight capability employing super-pressure balloons would allow a qualitatively new hard x-ray imaging experiment: the Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope-Long Integration Time Experiment (EXIST-LITE). The longer continuous viewing times (per source) available from an LDB platform than from low earth orbit would enable both surveys and objectives complementary to the EXIST mission proposed for a MIDEX satellite. We summarize the scientific objectives of EXIST-LITE, a possible instrumentation approach incorporating a large area array of Cd-Zn-Te (CZT) detectors, and our program for the development and balloon flight testing of relatively thick (5mm) CZT detector arrays.Comment: 10 pages Latex and includes 3 figures (postscript). Invited talk at COSPAR (Birmingham, UK; July 96); to appear in Adv. in Sp. Res. (1998

Genetic Determinants of Amidating Enzyme Activity and its Relationship with Metal Cofactors in Human Serum

Abstract BACKGROUND: α-amidation is a final, essential step in the biosynthesis of about half of all peptide hormones and neurotransmitters. Peptidylglycine α-amidating monooxygenase (PAM), with enzymatic domains that utilize Cu and Zn, is the only enzyme that catalyzes this reaction. PAM activity is detected in serum, but its significance and utility as a clinical biomarker remain unexplored. METHODS: We used well-established enzymatic assays specific for the peptidylglycine-α -hydroxylating monooxygenase (PHM) and peptidyl-α-hydroxyglycine α-amidating lyase (PAL) domains of PAM to quantify amidating activity in the sera of 144 elderly men. Relationships between PHM and PAL activity and serum levels of their respective active-site metals, Cu and Zn, were analyzed. Study participants were also genotyped for eight non-coding single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in PAM, and relationships between genotype and serum enzyme activity and metal levels were analyzed. RESULTS: Serum PHM and PAL activities were normally distributed and correlated linearly with each other. Serum PAL activity, but not serum PHM activity, correlated with serum Cu; neither activity correlated with serum Zn. Study subjects possessing the minor alleles for rs32680 had lower PHM and PAL activities, and subjects with minor alleles for rs11952361 and rs10515341 had lower PHM activities. CONCLUSIONS: Our results characterize large variation in serum amidating activity and provide unique insight into its potential origin and determinants. Common non-coding polymorphisms affect serum amidating activity and Cu levels. Serum amidating activity should be explored as a biomarker for functionality in the elderly and in additional study groups

Human miR-1271 is a miR-96 paralog with distinct non-conserved brain expression pattern

Recent deep-sequencing efforts have identified many novel non-conserved small RNAs that are expressed at low levels in certain mammalian cells. Whether these small RNAs are important for mammalian physiology is debatable, therefore we explored the function of one such RNA, human miR-1271. This small RNA is similar in sequence to miR-96, a highly conserved microRNA that when mutated causes hearing loss in humans and mice. Although the miR-1271 and miR-96 sequences differ slightly, our in vitro assays indicate that they have an identical regulatory activity. We have identified brain-expressed mRNAs from genes including, GPHN, RGS2, HOMER1 and KCC2, which share the same miR-96 and miR-1271 regulatory elements. Interestingly, human miR-1271 is expressed abundantly in brain tissue, where miR-96 is not highly expressed. The rodent miR-1271 precursor contains several sequence differences in the precursor stem, which appear to reduce the efficiency of microRNA processing. Our data indicate that although miR-1271 and miR-96 function identically in vitro, they function to some extent uniquely in vivo. Given the expression patterns and nature of the target genes, miR-1271 may have a significant, although non-conserved, role in regulating aspects of neural development or function in humans

Combined fit to the spectrum and composition data measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory including magnetic horizon effects

The measurements by the Pierre Auger Observatory of the energy spectrum and mass composition of cosmic rays can be interpreted assuming the presence of two extragalactic source populations, one dominating the flux at energies above a few EeV and the other below. To fit the data ignoring magnetic field effects, the high-energy population needs to accelerate a mixture of nuclei with very hard spectra, at odds with the approximate E$^{-2}$ shape expected from diffusive shock acceleration. The presence of turbulent extragalactic magnetic fields in the region between the closest sources and the Earth can significantly modify the observed CR spectrum with respect to that emitted by the sources, reducing the flux of low-rigidity particles that reach the Earth. We here take into account this magnetic horizon effect in the combined fit of the spectrum and shower depth distributions, exploring the possibility that a spectrum for the high-energy population sources with a shape closer to E$^{-2}$ be able to explain the observations