Epigenetic interactions among three dTph1 transposons in two homologous chromosomes activate a new excision-repair mechanism in petunia.

Unstable anthocyanin3 (an3) alleles of petunia with insertions of the Activator/Dissociation-like transposon dTph1 fall into two classes that differ in their genetic behavior. Excision of the (single) dTph1 insertion from class 1 an3 alleles results in the formation of a footprint, similar to the "classical" mechanism observed for excisions of maize and snapdragon transposons. By contrast, dTph1 excision and gap repair in class 2 an3 alleles occurs via a newly discovered mechanism that does not generate a footprint at the empty donor site. This novel mechanism depends on the presence of two additional dTph1 elements: one located in cis, 30 bp upstream of the an3 translation start in the same an3 allele, and a homologous copy, which is located in trans in the homologous an3 allele. Absence of the latter dTph1 element causes a heritable suppression of dTph1 excision-repair from the homologous an3 allele by the novel mechanism, which to some extent resembles paramutation. Thus, an epigenetic interaction among three dTph1 copies activates a novel recombination mechanism that eliminates a transposon insertion.     

Protein phosphorylation in pancreatic islets: evidence for separate Ca2+ and cAMP-enhanced phosphorylation of two 57,000 Mr proteins

There is a phosphopeptide that has an Mr of 53,000 to 60,000 in insulin-secreting tissues and there is general agreement that this peptide can be phosphorylated in a calcium-dependent manner. The present report shows that there are at least two phosphoproteins with Mr's near 57,000 in rat pancreatic islet cytosol. One peptide has an Mr of 57,000, a pl of 7.5 - 8 and is phosphorylated in a Ca2+-enhanced manner, and the other has an Mr of 54,000, a pl of 5 - 5.5 and is phosphorylated in a cAMP-enhanced manner, as judged by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Sepharose 4B chromatography indicated that the former polypeptide resides in a native protein complex that has an Mr of about 500,000 and the latter in a complex that has an Mr of about 180,000. Tritiated azido cyclic AMP binds to an islet polypeptide that has an Mr of 54,000. The results suggest that Ca2+ and cAMP could regulate stimulus-secretion coupling in pancreatic islets via protein phosphorylation.     

Kevin: On the Transfer of Emotions 866

A white Rhodesian living in South Africa tells an ethnographer the story of his experiences as a charismatic Christian and a veteran of warfare involving terrorism. Like a testimony, the story is designed to produce an effect on its hearer. With an ethnopsychiatric approach, such a story must be understood dialogically, as an exchange in which a game of "who has the emotion" is played.     

Evolutionary stability: States and strategies

Different aspects and modifications of the definition of an evolutionarily stable (ES) strategy that have been considered in the literature can be incorporated in a unifying concept which regards the population context. This concept of evolutionary stability will generally characterize population states in both pure- and mixed-strategist models. In particular, it includes ES strategies, represented as a phenotype unique in an ES population. For an important class of mixed-strategist models, no strict ESS can exist. This will be the case whenever the success of an individual strategy is considered to follow as an average from the successes of its behavioural components. Instead, ESS results may be obtained from what will be called a “degenerate” form of the model, which is simply an ESS model on the level of elementary actions. Then, however, the correct interpretation of an ESS is not an individual phenotype but rather a population mixture of elementary actions. If an ES state exists in a mixed-strategist model it may be determined by an equilibrium condition; if there is an ES strategy, a different approach—mainly maximum considerations—is needed for finding it. An equilibrium condition does not hold for the components of an ES strategy straightforwardly; but it can be derived in terms of an auxiliary ESS model that considers first-order effects of the components. Several examples illustrate the significance of these results. Particularly, two models on “Games between Relatives” are reconsidered in order to display both their formal interrelation and the different meaning of their results in the context of mixed-strategist models.     

Effects of ornithine or arginine administration on serum amino acid levels

In healthy humans after overnight fasting, an oral administration of ornithine induced a new steady state: an accumulation of serum alanine and proline, a decrease in serum valine concentration, transient reductions in serum urea and urinary urea contents, and then an increased urea excretion. On the other hand, an oral administration of arginine resulted in an anabolic state: decreases in serum leucine and isoleucine concentrations, reductions in serum glucose and free fatty acid contents and a rapid increase in serum insulin level. It was assumed that the effect of ornithine administration may be exerted through an activation of hepatic System A transport and that of arginine is an insulin-mediated action.     

The leaf-clipping display: A newly-discovered expressive gesture in wild chimpanzees

Chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains, Tanzania were discovered to show an expressive gesture using leaves, termed as “leaf-clipping display”. This behavioural signal is directed by an adult male to an estrous female as a possessive behaviour, or by an adolescent male as a courtship display, or by an estrous female to an adolescent male also as a solicitation of copulation. The signal also is used toward human observers as a signal of food-demanding. This behaviour pattern might originate in a displacement tool-making behaviour in conflict situations. The leaf-clipping display has not been observed in any other chimpanzee populations studied, and may probably be one example of the tradition drift in wild chimpanzees.     

Ionic and energetic changes at competence in the naturally transformable bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae

Addition of competence factor extracts to trigger competence in a culture of Streptococcus pneumoniae induced an increase in the intracellular pH and the Na+ content of the bacteria without any change in the K+ pool or in the membrane potential. These ionic shifts were concomitant with a stimulation of glycolysis that resulted in an enhanced ATP pool. Thus, in transforming conditions, at extracellular pH 7.8, competent bacteria presented a particularly high energetic state resulting from an increase in delta pH and in the ATP pool, associated with an enhanced Na+ content. These features are discussed in the context of homeostasis regulation in response to an environmental stimulus.     

Effects of Infection on Honey Bee Population Dynamics: A Model

We propose a model that combines the dynamics of the spread of disease within a bee colony with the underlying demographic dynamics of the colony to determine the ultimate fate of the colony under different scenarios. The model suggests that key factors in the survival or collapse of a honey bee colony in the face of an infection are the rate of transmission of the infection and the disease-induced death rate. An increase in the disease-induced death rate, which can be thought of as an increase in the severity of the disease, may actually help the colony overcome the disease and survive through winter. By contrast, an increase in the transmission rate, which means that bees are being infected at an earlier age, has a drastic deleterious effect. Another important finding relates to the timing of infection in relation to the onset of winter, indicating that in a time interval of approximately 20 days before the onset of winter the colony is most affected by the onset of infection. The results suggest further that the age of recruitment of hive bees to foraging duties is a good early marker for the survival or collapse of a honey bee colony in the face of infection, which is consistent with experimental evidence but the model provides insight into the underlying mechanisms. The most important result of the study is a clear distinction between an exposure of the honey bee colony to an environmental hazard such as pesticides or insecticides, or an exposure to an infectious disease. The results indicate unequivocally that in the scenarios that we have examined, and perhaps more generally, an infectious disease is far more hazardous to the survival of a bee colony than an environmental hazard that causes an equal death rate in foraging bees.     

Cloning and identification of a novel cDNA coding thioredoxin-related transmembrane protein 2

Thioredoxin plays an important role in various cellular processes through redox regulation. Here we report the molecular cloning and characterization of one member of the thioredoxin superfamily, designated as TMX2. The TMX2 cDNA consists of 1644 nucleotides and contains an open reading frame encoding a protein of 372 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 42.5 kDa and an isoelectric point of 8.94 . The TMX2 protein may possess an N-terminal signal peptide, a potential transmembrane domain, an Myb DNA-binding domain repeat signature, a thioredoxin consensus pattern, an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane retention signal (KKXX-like motif), and a dileucine motif in the tail. Northern blot analysis shows it is widely expressed in human tissues.     

Rights, indirect harms and the non-identity problem

The non‐identity problem is the problem of grounding moral wrongdoing in cases in which an action affects who will exist in the future. Consider a woman who intentionally conceives while on medication that is harmful for a fetus. If the resulting child is disabled as a result of the medication, what makes the woman's action morally wrong? I argue that an explanation in terms of harmful rights violations fails, and I focus on Peter Markie's recent rights‐based defense. Markie's analysis rests on the notion of an indirect harm, and I show that the calculation of an indirect harm relies on an improper baseline for the determination of whether or not an action adversely affects a patient's interests. I also defend an impersonal duty‐based analysis of the wrongdoing in non‐identity cases against an objection by Markie. I close by arguing that the rights‐based analysis is insensitive to context and that context is morally relevant in the determination of the moral valence of actions in cases of non‐identity. This failure provides a pro tanto reason to favor an impersonal duty‐based analysis of the wrongdoing in non‐identity cases.     

An efficient method for producing an indexed, insertional-mutant library in rice

Generation of an indexed, saturated, insertional-mutant library is an aid to understanding the functions of genes in an organism. However, 10 years of work by many investigators have not yet yielded such a library in rice. The major reason is that determining the chromosomal locations of a very large number of random insertion mutants by flanking sequence analysis is highly labor intensive, and therefore, libraries that do exist have not been indexed. We report here an efficient procedure to construct an indexed, region-specific, insertional-mutant library of rice. The procedure makes use of efficient long-PCR-based high-throughput indexing, coupled with a random but anchored population of Ds transposants. Long-PCR indexing allows rapid and simultaneous determination of the chromosomal locations of a large number of mutants that surround a particular anchor line, thus converting a random library into an indexed one. Such a library can be used directly, without the need to screen a large random library for a desired mutant plant.     

Types of Systemic Reactions of Human Hemodynamics and Hemostasis to Multiple Occupational Migrations to the Polar Circle Regions

Effects of meridional migrations in shuttle from middle latitudes to regions beyond the Polar Circle, where an expedition and the organization of work shifts were being conducted, were studied. Three main types of systemic reactions of human hemodynamics and hemostasis were established. The first type was characterized by a moderate increase in the arterial blood pressure (BP) at the beginning of the shift with its subsequent normalization; by hypocoagulemia; and by an increase in the total phospholipid content, with a significant increase in the content of lysolecithins (an adaptive type). The second type was characterized by hypertension throughout the whole shift, by hypercoagulemia with significant changes in the phospholipid spectrum, and with a pronounced increase in the lysolecithin and cardiolipin fractions (a hypertensive type). The third type was characterized by a decrease in BP and an increase in heart rate (HR), by hypocoagulemia and an asthenic state associated with sleep disorders, and a decreased mental capacity (an asthenic type).     

Enzymatic Synthesis of N-formyl-L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine Methyl Ester (Aspartame Precursor) Utilizing an Extractive Reaction in Aqueous/Organic Biphasic Medium

N-Formyl-L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester (N-formyl aspartame, F-AspPheOMe) was synthesized enzymatically utilizing an extractive reaction in an aqueous/organic biphasic system. The N-formyl aspartame yield in a pure aqueous monophasic system was, in general, ca. 3% , however, it was over 80 % in a water/1-butanol biphasic system using a simultaneously extractive operation of an enzymatic reaction in an aqueous phase and a product separation from an aqueous to an organic phases.     

Unpinning of a rotating wave in cardiac muscle by an electric field.

The possibility of terminating cardiac arrhythmias with electric fields of moderate intensity is a challenging problem from a fundamental point of view and an important issue for clinical applications. In an effort to understand how anatomical re-entries are affected by electric fields, we found that a weak shock, with an amplitude of an order of magnitude less than the defibrillating shock, may unpin the vortices rotating around the defects (obstacles). The unpinning results from a depolarization of the tissue near the obstacle, induced by an external electric field within a distance of order lambda approximately 1 mm. Unpinning was observed both in the FitzHugh model of excitable tissue, and in a specific Beeler-Reuter model of cardiac tissue. This theoretical observation suggests that anatomical re-entries can be transformed into functional re-entries, an effect that can be tested in experiments with cardiac muscle.     

Parasitic infection and the polarized Th2 immune response can alter a vaccine-induced immune response

The AIDS epidemic in the Developing World represents a major global crisis. It is imperative that we develop an effective vaccine. Vaccines are economically the most efficient means of controlling viral infections. However, the development of a vaccine against HIV-1 has been a formidable task, and in developing countries chronic parasitic infection adds another level of complexity to AIDS vaccine development. Helminthic and protozoan infections, common in developing countries, can result in a constant state of immune activation that is characterized by a dominant Th2 type of cytokine profile, high IgE levels, and eosinophilia. Such an immune profile may have an adverse impact on the efficacy of vaccines, in particular, an HIV-1 vaccine. Indeed, the CD8 cellular immune response and the corresponding Th1 type cytokines that enhance the CD8 cellular immune response are important for clearing many viral infections. It is believed that an antigen specific CD8 cellular immune response will be an important component of an HIV-1 vaccine.     

Plasma Membrane Lipids Associated with Genetic Variability in Freezing Tolerance and Cold Acclimation of Solanum Species

Simultaneous comparisons were made between a freezing-tolerant, cold-acclimating (CA) wild potato species (Solanum commersonii) and a freezing-sensitive, nonacclimating (NA) cultivated species (Solanum tuberosum). Comparative studies allowed differentiation of plasma membrane lipid changes associated with increased freezing tolerance following CA from lipid changes that can result from metabolic adjustment to reduced temperature during CA. Following CA treatment lipid changes found in both the NA and CA species included a decrease in palmitic acid, an increase in unsaturated to saturated fatty acid ratio, an increase in free sterols, an increase in sitosterol, and a slight decrease in cerebrosides. Lipid changes detected only in the acclimating species included an increase in phosphatidylethanolamine, a decrease in sterol to phospholipid ratio, an increase in linoleic acid, a decrease in linolenic acid, and an increase in acylated steryl glycoside to steryl glycoside ratio. These changes were either absent or opposite in the NA species, suggesting an association of these lipid changes with CA. Furthermore, the lipid changes associated with increased freezing tolerance during CA were distinct from lipid differences between the two species in the NA state.     

Amebae of Dictyostelium discoideum respond to an increasing temporal gradient of the chemoattractant cAMP with a reduced frequency of turning: evidence for a temporal mechanism in ameboid chemotaxis

In an aggregation territory of Dictyostelium discoideum, outwardly moving, nondissipating waves of the chemoattractant cAMP sweep across each ameba. At the front of each wave, an ameba experiences an increasing temporal and a positive spatial gradient of cAMP. At the back of a wave, an ameba experiences a decreasing temporal and a negative spatial gradient of cAMP. Employing a perfusion chamber, we have mimicked the temporal dynamics of these waves in the absence of a spatial gradient and demonstrated that the frequency of lateral pseudopod formation and the frequency of turning are dramatically affected by the direction and dynamics of the temporal gradient. In addition, since an ameba will move in a directed fashion up a shallow, nonpulsatile gradient of cAMP, we also mimicked the increasing temporal gradient generated by an ameba moving up a shallow spatial gradient. The frequency of lateral pseudopod formation and the frequency of turning were depressed. Together, these results demonstrate that amebae can assess the direction of a temporal gradient of chemoattractant in the absence of a spatial gradient and alter both the frequency of pseudopod extension and turning, accordingly. Although these results do not rule out the involvement of a spatial mechanism in assessing a spatial gradient, they strongly suggest that the temporal dynamics of a cAMP wave or the temporal gradient generated by an ameba moving through a spatial gradient may play a major role in chemotaxis.     

Sex Difference in Contusion of the Medial Femoral Condyle Rim-Association with MRI Occult Meniscal Tears in the ACL Deficient Knee

BackgroundMeniscal tears, specifically lateral meniscal tears, have a larger than expected un-derdiagnosis rate in the presence of an ACL tear. The purpose of our study was to search for an MRI bone contusion pattern associated with MRI occult meniscal tears in patients with an ACL tear, specifically a contusion of the rim of the medial femoral condyle (RMFC). Our hypothesis was that there would be a significant association between RMFC contusions and MRI occult meniscal tears in patients with an ACL tear. We also searched for a difference between sexes with respect to the presence of the RMFC contusion in the setting of an occult meniscal tear. We also categorized the type, size, and location of these occult meniscal tears in the setting of an ACL tear.Methods This was a retrospective study that examined characteristics of occult meniscal tears and their association with a RMFC bone contusion. IRB approval was obtained. The date range of the study was June 2009 through December 2015. 6392 consecutive knee MRI reports in patients with an ACL deficient knee were reviewed. The study group included 22 patients with MRI occult meniscal tears, the control group included 110 patients. Relevant statistical values were calculated.ResultsThe most common type of occult meniscal tears were small radial and small longitudinal tears of the lateral meniscus. Occult meniscal tears were associated with an RMFC contusion in the study group (p=0.0457), particularly in males (p = 0.0003). In males with a torn ACL, the sensitivity of an RMFC contusion for an occult meniscal tear was 80%.ConclusionIn males with an ACL tear, there was a significant association between a contusion of the RMFC and an occult meniscal tear (commonly small radial or small peripheral partial-thickness longitudinal tears). RMFC contusions were reliably identified by radiologists in this study.Level of Evidence: II     

Chloroplast evolution in algae and land plants

Eukaryotes contain a chimeric assembly of genomes, each localized in a specialized subcellular compartment. The successful survival of an organism requires that these sequestered genomes be viewed as dependent variables in a coevolutionary complex. This discussion focuses on chloroplast evolution. A selected review of information available on chloroplast diversity is presented, followed by an analysis of the genetic modifications which may have occurred in the conversion of a free-living ancestral photosynthetic prokaryote into an organelle that has an obligately dependent and highly efficient interplay with the nuclear genome.