Effect of restricted blood flow on exercise-induced hormone changes in healthy men

To test the influence of the accumulation of metabolites on exercise-induced hormone responses, plasma concentrations of cortisol, growth hormone (GH), insulin, testosterone, thyrotropin (TSH), free thyroxine (fT₄) and triiodothyronine (T₃) were compared during exercise performed under normal conditions (control) and under conditions of restricted blood flow of exercising leg muscles (ischaemia) in nine healthy young men. Blood supply was reduced by 15%–20% by the application of 50 mmHg external pressure over the exercising leg. During 45-min cycling exercise during ischaemia the increase in GH concentration was twice as large as under normal conditions. Despite the below-threshold exercise intensity for activation of the pituitary-adrenocortical system under normal exercise conditions ischaemic exercise elicited cortisol and T₃ responses (concentration increases of 83% and 9.5%, respectively). Ischaemic exercise attenuated the decrease of plasma insulin concentration found under normal conditions. The concentrations of testosterone, TSH and fT₄ were not changed significantly during exercise performed in either condition. The results support the suggested essential role of muscle metaboreceptors in the control of hormone responses during muscle activity. Accepted: 6 November 1997     

The conformation of core oligosaccharides from Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium lipopolysaccharides as predicted by semi-empirical calculations

The preferred conformation of the hexose and heptose regions of core saccharides from Enterobacteriaceae lipopolysaccharides was calculated. The Hard Sphere Exo Anomeric (HSEA) approach was used and the minimum energy conformation of the Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli R1, R2, R3, R4 and K12 cores calculated. The results indicate that most of the cores are sterically crowded, with small degrees of freedom, and that the hexose and heptose parts form two separate regions. The core structures exhibit a 'front'-side and a 'back'-side, the former being similar for all the structures and the latter being characteristic for each core type.     

Local gapped subforest alignment and its application in finding RNA structural motifs.

RNA molecules whose secondary structures contain similar substructures often have similar functions. Therefore, an important task in the study of RNA is to develop methods for discovering substructures in RNA secondary structures that occur frequently (also referred to as motifs). In this paper, we consider the problem of computing an optimal local alignment of two given labeled ordered forests F1 and F2. This problem asks for a substructure of F1 and a substructure of F2 that exhibit a high similarity. Since an RNA molecule's secondary structure can be represented as a labeled ordered forest, the problem we study has a direct application to finding potential motifs. We generalize the previously studied concept of a closed subforest to a gapped subforest and present the first algorithm for computing the optimal local gapped subforest alignment of F1 and F2. We also show that our technique can improve the time and space complexity of the previously most efficient algorithm for optimal local closed subforest alignment. Furthermore, we prove that a special case of our local gapped subforest alignment problem is equivalent to a problem known in the literature as the local sequence-structure alignment problem (lssa) and modify our main algorithm to obtain a much faster algorithm for lssa than the one previously proposed. An implementation of our algorithm is available at www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~bioinfo/LGSFAligner/. Its running time is significantly faster than the original lssa program.     

Genetic information from progeny trials: a comparison between progenies generated by open pollination and by controlled crosses

When conifer progenies generated by open pollination are assessed in field tests, it is usually assumed that all progenies of the same mother are true half-sibs. This assumption may be invalid, leading to overestimation of additive genetic variation and heritability and to biased breeding values. From one Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and one Norway spruce (Picea abies) seed orchard, containing 28 and 36 parent clones, respectively, progenies generated by open pollination (OP) and by controlled crosses (CC) were planted in adjacent trials at two to three sites in southern Sweden. The tree height and diameter at breast height were measured, and genetic parameters based on these traits were estimated for OP and CC progenies separately, in order to enable comparisons. Narrow-sense heritability estimates for Scots pine and Norway spruce OP progenies (in the ranges 0.04–0.13 and 0.15–0.38, respectively) did not differ significantly from CC estimates (0.07–0.12 and 0.23–0.30), suggesting that OP-based heritability values were not overestimated to any great extent. Similarly, genetic correlations between OP and CC progenies were in the ranges of 0.87–0.88 and 0.74–0.77 for Scots pine and Norway spruce, respectively, being significantly lower than unity only in the case of Norway spruce. OP-based breeding values for both species should therefore correspond well with those predicted from CC progenies, albeit not perfectly for Norway spruce. In conclusion, the assumption of true half-sibs for OP progenies was not violated to the extent that genetic parameter estimates or breeding value predictions were seriously biased.     

Colonization pattern of the biocontrol strain Pseudomonas chlororaphis MA 342 on barley seeds visualized by using green fluorescent protein.

Pseudomonas chlororaphis MA 342 is a potent biocontrol agent that can be used against several seed-borne diseases of cereal crops, including net blotch of barley caused by the fungus Drechslera teres. In this study, strain MA 342 was tagged with the gfp gene (encoding the green fluorescent protein) in order to study the fate of cells after seed inoculation. The gfp-tagged strain, MA 342G2, had the same biocontrol efficacy as the wild type when it was applied at high cell concentrations to seeds but was less effective at lower cell concentrations. By comparing cell counts determined by microscopy to the number of CFU, we found that the number of culturable cells was significantly lower than the total number of bacteria on seeds which were inoculated and dried for 20 h. Confocal microscopy and epifluorescence stereomicroscopy were used to determine the pattern of MA 342G2 colonization and cell aggregation on barley seeds. Immediately after inoculation of seeds, bacteria were found mainly under the seed glume, and there was no particular aggregation pattern. However, after the seeds were sown, irregularly distributed areas of bacterial aggregation were found, which reflected epiphytic colonization of glume cells. There was a trend towards bacterial aggregation near the embryo but never within the embryo. Bacterial aggregates were regularly found in the groove of each seed formed by the base of the coleoptile and the scutellum. Based on these results, we suggest that MA 342 colocalizes with the pathogen D. teres, which facilitates the action of the fungistatic compound(s) produced by this strain.     

Control of Root-Knot Nematodes on Tomato by the Endoparasitic Fungus Meria coniospora

The endoparasitic nematophagous fungus Meria coniospora reduced root-knot nematode galling on tomatoes in greenhouse pot trials. The fungus was introduced to pots by addition of conidia at several inoculum levels directly to the soil or addition of nematodes infected with M. coniospora to the soil; both methods reduced root galling by root-knot nematodes. These studies represent a part of a recently initiated effort to evaluate the potential of endoparasitic nematophagous fungi for biocontrol of nematodes.     

Genetic response to human‐induced habitat changes in the marine environment: A century of evolution of European sprat in Landvikvannet,Norway

Habitat changes represent one of the five most pervasive threats to biodiversity. However, anthropogenic activities also have the capacity to create novel niche spaces to which species respond differently. In 1880, one such habitat alterations occurred in Landvikvannet, a freshwater lake on the Norwegian coast of Skagerrak, which became brackish after being artificially connected to the sea. This lake is now home to the European sprat, a pelagic marine fish that managed to develop a self‐recruiting population in barely few decades. Landvikvannet sprat proved to be genetically isolated from the three main populations described for this species; that is, Norwegian fjords, Baltic Sea, and the combination of North Sea, Kattegat, and Skagerrak. This distinctness was depicted by an accuracy self‐assignment of 89% and a highly significant F _ST between the lake sprat and each of the remaining samples (average of ≈0.105). The correlation between genetic and environmental variation indicated that salinity could be an important environmental driver of selection (3.3% of the 91 SNPs showed strong associations). Likewise, Isolation by Environment was detected for salinity, although not for temperature, in samples not adhering to an Isolation by Distance pattern. Neighbor‐joining tree analysis suggested that the source of the lake sprat is in the Norwegian fjords, rather than in the Baltic Sea despite a similar salinity profile. Strongly drifted allele frequencies and lower genetic diversity in Landvikvannet compared with the Norwegian fjords concur with a founder effect potentially associated with local adaptation to low salinity. Genetic differentiation (F _ST) between marine and brackish sprat is larger in the comparison Norway‐Landvikvannet than in Norway‐Baltic, which suggests that the observed divergence was achieved in Landvikvannet in some 65 generations, that is, 132 years, rather than gradually over thousands of years (the age of the Baltic Sea), thus highlighting the pace at which human‐driven evolution can happen.