蚯蚓对瓦氏黄颡鱼摄食达氏鳇卵的干扰实验

自然水域中中华鲟(Acipenser sinensis)卵常受到敌害鱼类捕食的威胁,瓦氏黄颡鱼Pelteobagrus vachelli(Richerdson)是中华鲟卵的重要敌害鱼类。以中华鲟卵的敌害鱼类瓦氏黄颡鱼为研究对象,选择环毛蚓(Pheretima tschiliensis)为瓦氏黄颡鱼的饵料,以达氏鳇卵(Kalugasturgeon)替代中华鲟卵进行室内实验,通过研究适合瓦氏黄颡鱼摄食的环毛蚓规格,以及环毛蚓干扰瓦氏黄颡鱼摄食达氏鳇卵投放比例,探讨中华鲟卵的保护方法。在水温为(20.0±1.5)℃的条件下,研究了3种不同体长规格[体长(15.3±1.4)cm、(12.0±2.1)cm、(7.7±0.5)cm]实验鱼个体分别摄食3种不同体长规格环毛蚓(体高为0.3cm,体长分别为8、4、2cm)和达氏鳇卵的摄食率;研究了体长为4cm的环毛蚓对3种不同体长实验鱼摄食达氏鳇卵的干扰效果。实验结果表明:3种体长规格瓦氏黄颡鱼均摄食达氏鳇卵;3种体长规格瓦氏黄颡鱼共同摄食的替代饵料规格为体长4cm及以下的环毛蚓;适宜干扰实验所选体长实验鱼摄食达氏鳇卵的饵料为体长4 cm的环毛蚓;当环毛蚓与达氏鳇卵数量比例为1∶1时,可实现达氏鳇卵的保护。研究证明在实验条件下可实现环毛蚓对中华鲟卵敌害鱼类——瓦氏黄颡鱼实施摄食干扰,提示下一步可以尝试选择环毛蚓作为替代中华鲟卵的饵料,进行干扰食卵鱼类摄食中华鲟卵的野外验证试验。     

Mycorrhizal symbioses: how to be seen as a good fungus

Plants continually encounter many microorganisms. Some are good, but many are bad. Two studies show how beneficial fungi tell the plant to let them in and how the fungus avoids setting off the plant's defense reaction.     

EMG signal decomposition: how can it be accomplished and used?

Electromyographic (EMG) signals are composed of the superposition of the activity of individual motor units. Techniques exist for the decomposition of an EMG signal into its constituent components. Following is a review and explanation of the techniques that have been used to decompose EMG signals. Before describing the decomposition techniques, the fundamental composition of EMG signals is explained and after, potential sources of information from and various uses of decomposed EMG signals are described.     

Ribozymes and the anti-gene therapy: how a catalytic RNA can be used to inhibit gene function.

Ribozymes are RNA molecules that possess the dual properties of RNA sequence-specific recognition and site-specific cleavage of other RNA molecules. These properties provide powerful tools for studies requiring gene inhibition, when the DNA sequence is known. The use of these molecules goes beyond basic research, with a potential impact in therapeutical practice in medicine in the near future. In this review, we briefly describe the progress towards developing this class of molecules and its applications for the control of gene expression.     

FMRFamide tagging—how an ionotropic receptor can be used to measure peptide secretion

In this chapter, we describe a technique, FMRFamide tagging, that in principle can be used to measure the release of any sequenced neuropeptide. The method relies upon the addition of an “electrophysiologically active” tag to the prohormone that encodes the neuropeptide of interest. Secretion of the electrophysiological tag (and thus the peptide of interest) is detected by activation of the ionotropic “tag receptor.” Both the tagged prohormone and the tag receptor are expressed in the cell type under investigation. Since the tag and the neuropeptide of interest are on the same prohormone they are co-secreted and thus secretion of the tag reflects the co-secretion of the neuropeptide of interest. This method can be used to detect neuropeptide secretion on a millisecond timescale.     

Molecular motors: how to make models that can be used to convey the concept of molecular ratchets and thermal capture

A wide variety of cellular processes use molecular motors, including processive motors that move along some form of track (e.g., myosin with actin, kinesin or dynein with tubulin) and polymerases that move along a template (e.g., DNA and RNA polymerases, ribosomes). In trying to understand how these molecular motors actually move, many apply their understanding of how man-made motors work: the latter use some form of energy to exert a force or torque on its load. However, quite a different mechanism has been proposed to possibly account for the movement of molecular motors. Rather than hydrolyzing ATP to push or pull their load, they might use their own thermal vibrational energy as well as that of their load and their environment to move the load, capturing those movements that occur along a desired vector or axis and resisting others; ATP hydrolysis is required to make backward movements impossible. This intriguing thermal capture or Brownian ratchet model is relatively more difficult to convey to students. In this report, we describe several teaching aids that are very easily constructed using widely available household materials to convey the concept of a molecular ratchet.     

Defining 5S rRNA structure space: point mutation data can be used to predict the phenotype of multichange variants

A portion of the 5S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) structure space in the vicinity of the Vibrio proteolyticus 5S rRNA sequence is explored in detail with the intention of establishing principles that will allow a priori prediction of which sequences would be valid members of a particular RNA structure space. Four hundred and one sequence variants differing from the V. proteolyticus 5S rRNA wild-type sequence in 1-7 positions were characterized using an in vivo assay system. Most significantly, it was found that in general, the phenotypic effects of single changes were independent of the phenotypic effect of a second change. As a result, it was possible to use the new data in conjunction with results from prior studies of the same RNA to develop "truth tables" to predict which multiple change variants would be functional and which would be nonfunctional. The actual phenotype of 93.8% of the multichange variants studied was consistent with the predictions made using truth tables thereby providing for perhaps the first time an upper limit estimate of how frequent unexpected interactions are. It was also observed that single changes at positions involved in secondary structure were no more likely to be invalid than changes in other regions. In particular, internal changes in long standard stems were in fact almost always tolerated. Changes at positions that were hypervariable in the context of an alignment of related sequences were, as expected, usually found to be valid. However, the potential validity of changes that were idiosyncratic to a single lineage of related sequences when placed in the V. proteolyticus 5S rRNA context was unpredictable.     

Anthropometric variables accurately predict dual energy x-ray absorptiometric-derived body composition and can be used to screen for diabetes

The current world-wide epidemic of obesity has stimulated interest in developing simple screening methods to identify individuals with undiagnosed diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2) or metabolic syndrome (MS). Prior work utilizing body composition obtained by sophisticated technology has shown that the ratio of abdominal fat to total fat is a good predictor for DM2 or MS. The goals of this study were to determine how well simple anthropometric variables predict the fat mass distribution as determined by dual energy x-ray absorptometry (DXA), and whether these are useful to screen for DM2 or MS within a population. To accomplish this, the body composition of 341 females spanning a wide range of body mass indices and with a 23% prevalence of DM2 and MS was determined using DXA. Stepwise linear regression models incorporating age, weight, height, waistline, and hipline predicted DXA body composition (i.e., fat mass, trunk fat, fat free mass, and total mass) with good accuracy. Using body composition as independent variables, nominal logistic regression was then performed to estimate the probability of DM2. The results show good discrimination with the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) having an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.78. The anthropometrically-derived body composition equations derived from the full DXA study group were then applied to a group of 1153 female patients selected from a general endocrinology practice. Similar to the smaller study group, the ROC from logistical regression using body composition had an AUC of 0.81 for the detection of DM2. These results are superior to screening based on questionnaires and compare favorably with published data derived from invasive testing, e.g., hemoglobin A1c. This anthropometric approach offers promise for the development of simple, inexpensive, non-invasive screening to identify individuals with metabolic dysfunction within large populations.     

Electron microscopy can be used to measure DNA supertwisting

Incorporation of starch or casein into protoplast-regeneration medium facilitated shotgun cloning of -amylase and neutral protease genes from an unidentified Bacillus sp. in Bacillus subtilis by polyethylene glycol-induced protoplast transformation. This modification and the use of the plasmid vector pPL603b enabled us to simultaneously select for promoter-bearing recombinant plasmids that expressed amylase or protease activity. The inserts were found to be 4 and 4.6 kb, respectively. Although protease activity directed by the cloned gene was only 2- to 4-fold higher than for the donor strain, that of -amylase was 28-fold higher.