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Response of a rare endemic, Penstemon clutei, to burning and reduced belowground competition

Penstemon clutei, a rare perennial beard tongue endemic to the ponderosa pine forest of the Sunset Crater volcanic field of northern Arizona, presents an opportunity to test the hypothesis that restoration of historic ecosystem conditions may enhance the sustainability of a rare species. We tested prescribed burning and root trenching treatments as proxies for the surface fires and reduced tree densities characteristic of historic ponderosa pine ecosystems in a study area at OLeary Peak, part of the Sunset Crater volcanic field (Coconino National Forest, AZ). Prescribed burning killed many mature P. clutei plants and negatively affected density for at least 3 years post-burn. In contrast, trenching to cut root competition of overstory trees led to a 1200 percent increase in P. clutei plants. Precipitation influenced the response. Seed germination experiments showed that P. clutei does not have innate dormancy. Germination rates in the lab ranged from 5 to 70 percent under a range of environmental and fire-related conditions (i.e., cold stratification, light, exposure to ash, NH4), but these factors were not statistically significant. Tested seedling establishment rates in situ were very low (0.4(percent)). These experiments suggest that the observed P. clutei population increase following severe wildfires (1973 Burnt fire, 1996 Hochderffer fire) may have been due primarily to the removal of tree competition rather than to direct fire effects. Further experimentation is suggested to develop ecological information for thoughtful integration of ecosystem restoration with the habitat needs of rare plants

"To Be Nice or Not to Be Nice?” That’s Not the Question: A Case from Clinical Pastoral Education Supervision

A cluster of CPE educators in the former Eastern Region of APCE, present a case study of supervision, using the familiar format of reflections from educational, personality theory and theology

A Highly Predictive MicroRNA Panel for Determining Delayed Cerebral Vasospasm Risk Following Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Approximately one-third of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) patients develop delayed cerebral vasospasm (DCV) 3–10 days after aneurysm rupture resulting in additional, permanent neurologic disability. Currently, no validated biomarker is available to determine the risk of DCV in aSAH patients. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been implicated in virtually all human diseases, including aSAH, and are found in extracellular biofluids including plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). We used a custom designed TaqMan Low Density Array miRNA panel to examine the levels of 47 selected brain and vasculature injury related miRNAs in CSF and plasma specimens collected from 31 patients with or without DCV at 3 and 7 days after aSAH, as well as from eight healthy controls. The analysis of the first 18-patient cohort revealed a striking differential expression pattern of the selected miRNAs in CSF and plasma of aSAH patients with DCV from those without DCV. Importantly, this differential expression was observed at the early time point (3 days after aSAH), before DCV event occurs. Seven miRNAs were identified as reliable DCV risk predictors along with a prediction model constructed based on an array of additional 19 miRNAs on the panel. These chosen miRNAs were then used to predict the risk of DCV in a separate, testing cohort of 15 patients. The accuracy of DCV risk prediction in the testing cohort reached 87%. The study demonstrates that our novel designed miRNA panel is an effective predictor of DCV risk and has strong applications in clinical management of aSAH patients

On the scattering of D and D* mesons off the X(3872)

Both the mass (just below the D^{*0}Dbar^0 threshold) and the likely quantum numbers (J^{PC}=1^{++}) of the X(3872) suggest that it is either a weakly-bound hadronic ``molecule'' or a virtual state of charmed mesons. Assuming the X(3872) is a weakly-bound molecule, the scattering of neutral D and D* mesons off the X(3872) can be predicted from the X(3872) binding energy. We calculate the phase shifts and cross section for scattering of D^0 and D^{*0} mesons and their antiparticles off the X(3872) in an effective field theory for short-range interactions. This provides another example of a three-body process, along with those in nuclear and atomic systems, that displays universal properties. It may be possible to extract the scattering within the final state interactions of B_c decays and/or other LHC events.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, revtex

Targeting the LOX/hypoxia axis reverses many of the features that make pancreatic cancer deadly: inhibition of LOX abrogates metastasis and enhances drug efficacy

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the leading causes of cancer‐related mortality. Despite significant advances made in the treatment of other cancers, current chemotherapies offer little survival benefit in this disease. Pancreaticoduodenectomy offers patients the possibility of a cure, but most will die of recurrent or metastatic disease. Hence, preventing metastatic disease in these patients would be of significant benefit. Using principal component analysis (PCA), we identified a LOX/hypoxia signature associated with poor patient survival in resectable patients. We found that LOX expression is upregulated in metastatic tumors from Pdx1‐Cre KrasG12D/+ Trp53R172H/+ (KPC) mice and that inhibition of LOX in these mice suppressed metastasis. Mechanistically, LOX inhibition suppressed both migration and invasion of KPC cells. LOX inhibition also synergized with gemcitabine to kill tumors and significantly prolonged tumor‐free survival in KPC mice with early‐stage tumors. This was associated with stromal alterations, including increased vasculature and decreased fibrillar collagen, and increased infiltration of macrophages and neutrophils into tumors. Therefore, LOX inhibition is able to reverse many of the features that make PDAC inherently refractory to conventional therapies and targeting LOX could improve outcome in surgically resectable disease

A Tandem Mass Spectrometry Sequence Database Search Method for Identification of O-Fucosylated Proteins by Mass Spectrometry.

Thrombospondin type 1 repeats (TSRs), small adhesive protein domains with a wide range of functions, are usually modified with O-linked fucose, which may be extended to O-fucose-β1,3-glucose. Collision-induced dissociation (CID) spectra of O-fucosylated peptides cannot be sequenced by standard tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) sequence database search engines because O-linked glycans are highly labile in the gas phase and are effectively absent from the CID peptide fragment spectra, resulting in a large mass error. Electron transfer dissociation (ETD) preserves O-linked glycans on peptide fragments, but only a subset of tryptic peptides with low m/ z can be reliably sequenced from ETD spectra compared to CID. Accordingly, studies to date that have used MS to identify O-fucosylated TSRs have required manual interpretation of CID mass spectra even when ETD was also employed. In order to facilitate high-throughput, automatic identification of O-fucosylated peptides from CID spectra, we re-engineered the MS/MS sequence database search engine Comet and the MS data analysis suite Trans-Proteomic Pipeline to enable automated sequencing of peptides exhibiting the neutral losses characteristic of labile O-linked glycans. We used our approach to reanalyze published proteomics data from Plasmodium parasites and identified multiple glycoforms of TSR-containing proteins

Contradictory phylogenetic signals in the laurasiatheria anomaly zone

G.M.H. was funded by a UCD Ad Astra Fellowship. C.L. was funded by a UCD Ad Astra studentship. L.R. was funded by an SFI Centre for Research Training in Genomics Data Science grant (18/CRT/6214). L.M.D. was supported in part by NSF awards 1838273 and 2032063. E.C.T. and T.L. were funded by an SFI Frontiers for the Future Programme grant (19/FFP/6790).Relationships among laurasiatherian clades represent one of the most highly disputed topics in mammalian phylogeny. In this study, we attempt to disentangle laurasiatherian interordinal relationships using two independent genome-level approaches: (1) quantifying retrotransposon presence/absence patterns, and (2) comparisons of exon datasets at the levels of nucleotides and amino acids. The two approaches revealed contradictory phylogenetic signals, possibly due to a high level of ancestral incomplete lineage sorting. The positions of Eulipotyphla and Chiroptera as the first and second earliest divergences were consistent across the approaches. However, the phylogenetic relationships of Perissodactyla, Cetartiodactyla, and Ferae, were contradictory. While retrotransposon insertion analyses suggest a clade with Cetartiodactyla and Ferae, the exon dataset favoured Cetartiodactyla and Perissodactyla. Future analyses of hitherto unsampled laurasiatherian lineages and synergistic analyses of retrotransposon insertions, exon and conserved intron/intergenic sequences might unravel the conflicting patterns of relationships in this major mammalian clade.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe