Highlights from Special Issue: Junctional Targets of Skin and Heart Diseases

Abstract

In this issue, guest editors Kathy Green and Mario Delmar, who are leaders in the fields of epidermal desmosomes and heart intercalated discs respectively, have joined forces to collate a two-part series of reviews focused on junctional proteins and genes that are targets of skin and heart diseases.     

Guest Editor's Introduction to the Special Section on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (WABI) -- Part 2

The three papers in this special section come from the Fifth International Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics (WABI '05).     

Crystallins as Important Pathogenic Targets for Accumulation of Structural Damages Resulting in Protein Aggregation and Cataract Development: Introduction to This Special Issue of Biochemistry (Moscow)

Biochemistry (Moscow) - This issue of Biochemistry (Moscow) is dedicated to the role of protein misfolding and aggregation in cataract development. In fact, many genetic mutations or chemical and...     

Loss of Corneodesmosin Leads to Severe Skin Barrier Defect, Pruritus, and Atopy: Unraveling the Peeling Skin Disease

Generalized peeling skin disease is an autosomal-recessive ichthyosiform erythroderma characterized by lifelong patchy peeling of the skin. After genome-wide linkage analysis, we have identified a homozygous nonsense mutation in CDSN in a large consanguineous family with generalized peeling skin, pruritus, and food allergies, which leads to a complete loss of corneodesmosin. In contrast to hypotrichosis simplex, which can be associated with specific dominant CDSN mutations, peeling skin disease is characterized by a complete loss of CDSN expression. The skin phenotype is consistent with a recent murine Cdsn knockout model. Using three-dimensional human skin models, we demonstrate that lack of corneodesmosin causes an epidermal barrier defect supposed to account for the predisposition to atopic diseases, and we confirm the role of corneodesmosin as a decisive epidermal adhesion molecule. Therefore, peeling skin disease will represent a new model disorder for atopic diseases, similarly to Netherton syndrome and ichthyosis vulgaris in the recent past.     

Signifying the Pandemics: Metaphors of AIDS, Cancer, and Heart Disease

This article offers a symbolic analysis of the cultural construction and signification of three of the major "pandemics" of the late 20th century: AIDS, cancer, and heart disease. It is based on unstructured interviews conducted in Israel between 1993–94 with 75 nurses and 40 physicians and between 1993–95 with 60 university students. Two key symbols, "pollution" and "transformation" are shown to constitute AIDS and cancer within a symbolic space that I suggest is "beyond culture" where body boundaries are dissolved and cultural categories are dismantled. Heart disease, in contrast, is metaphorized as a defect in the "body machinery." The article concludes by arguing that heart attack is depicted as the pathology of the Fordist, modernist body, while AIDS/cancer are pathologies of the postmodern body in late capitalism. [AIDS, cancer, heart disease, semiotics, metaphorization]     

Junctional complexes of the branchia and gut of the tunicate,Pyrosoma atlanticum (Pyrosomatida,Thaliacea)

Summary The branchia of pyrosomes has been found to be like that of ascidians in that it shares with the latter, besides the presence of peribranchial chambers, stigmata bordered by clusters of seven rows of flattened cells, each bearing a single row of long cilia. The intercellular junctions between ciliated cells of the branchial basket and between the cells lining the gut, in pyrosomes, have been studied in thin sections and by freeze-fracture. In both tissues tight and gap junctions are present, but the former are much more extensive in the gut. The gap junctions in the branchial basket exhibit some atypical features. Moreover, although there are extensive zonulae adhaerentes between the ciliated cells of the branchial basket, there are none between the epithelial cells of the intestinal tract. This feature of the branchiae, together with the alignment of their cells into highly ordered rows of seven cells, are similar to those found in some groups of ascidians. The evolutionary relationships between pyrosomes and the aplousobranch ascidians are considered in the light of these results.     

Classification of the flea families (Siphonaptera): II. Family Hystrichopsyllidae (part 2)

Morphology of the flea family Hystrichopsyllidae is considered. The subfamilies Stenoponiinae, Neopsyllinae, Doratopsyllinae, and Ctenophthalminae are distinguished. In all, 148 states of the characters of the head, thorax, modified abdominal segments, and aedeagus have been analyzed within the family Hystrichopsyllidae and the whole order Siphonaptera as well.     

Green synthesis,structure feature and energy transfer of yellow-emitting (Y,Gd)2O2SO4:Dy phosphors

A green chemical precipitation route was used to yield a hydrated basic sulfate precursor upon calcination at 1000°C into a series of (Y,Gd)₂O₂SO₄:Dy particles. The phosphors exhibited characteristic Dy³⁺ emissions from ⁴F_9/2→⁶H_J (J = 15/2, 13/2, 11/2) transitions under ultraviolet light excitation; the quenching concentration of Dy³⁺ was determined to be 2.5 at.%. Substitution of Gd³⁺ for Y³⁺ led to an additional strong sharp band at ~277 nm (⁸S_7/2→⁶I_J transition of Gd³⁺) in the photoluminescence excitation spectra, upon which the (Gd_0.975Dy_0.025)₂O₂SO₄ phosphor achieved a ~2.8-fold higher photoluminescence intensity via an effective energy transfer from Gd³⁺ to Dy³⁺ compared with the 354 nm excitation of Dy³⁺. Both the photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation intensities of (Y,Gd)₂O₂SO₄:Dy phosphors increased with rising Gd³⁺ concentration and calcination temperature in the range 750–1000°C. A higher Gd³⁺ concentration slightly prolonged the effective fluorescence lifetime.     

Identification of egg parasitoids of rice leafhoppers and planthoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae and Delphacidae) of economic importance in Taiwan,part 2: Trichogrammatidae (Hymenoptera)

Trichogrammatid egg parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) of rice leafhoppers and planthoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae and Delphacidae) known from Taiwan are identified taxonomically and illustrated, and their host associations are determined by rearings using sentinel eggs of the key pest species. The previously published records of such egg parasitoids in Taiwan are critically analyzed in the unfortunate absence of almost any voucher specimens. Pseudoligosita nephotetticum (Mani) is shown to be the most common egg parasitoid of the two leafhopper and three planthopper pests of rice in Taiwan: the zig-zag leafhopper Maiestas dorsalis (Motschulsky) (a new host record), the green rice leafhopper Nephotettix cincticeps (Uhler), and the delphacids Laodelphax striatella (Fallén) (small brown planthopper), Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (brown planthopper), and Sogatella furcifera (Horváth) (whitebacked planthopper). Paracentrobia (Brachistella) andoi (Ishii) syn. nov., originally described from Japan as Japania andoi Ishii, and Paracentrobia (Brachistella) garuda Subba Rao syn. nov. from Thailand are synonymized under Paracentrobia (Brachistella) bicolor (Girault) from northern Queensland, Australia; Pseudoligosita tachikawai (Yashiro) syn. nov., originally described as Oligosita tachikawai Yashiro from Japan, is synonymized under Pseudoligosita nephotetticum. Lectotypes are designated for Japania andoi and Oligosita shibuyae Ishii.