Purification and characterization of chick intestine brush border membrane Effects of 1α(OH) vitamin D3 treatment

A new technique has been developed for the isolation of membrane vesicles from the vitamin D-deficient and vitamin D-treated chick intestinal brush border membrane. The technique involves removal of nuclei from a low speed pellet by discontinuous sucrose gradient centrifugation. The resulting intact brush borders are then homogenized in 0.5 M Tris and the membrane fragments purified on a glycerol gradient. This preparation represents a 20-fold purification of the brush border marker sucrase. After 1α-hydroxyvitamin D₃ treatment there is a significant increase in membrane phospholipid phosphorous, an alteration in the fatty acid composition of the phosphatidylcholine fraction of membrane phospholipid, and a decrease in sucrase specific activity.     

Xanthine oxidase,an indicator of secretory differentiation in mammary cells

Elevated levels of xanthine oxidase were found in (1) lactating mouse mammary glands, compared with virgin and midpregnant glands; and (2) primary mouse mammary cells cultured on floating collagen gels, compared with non-secretory cells on attached gels. In primary culture, increase in xanthine oxidase activity above a basal level coincided with secretory activity as measured by casein production; intracellular levels of casein and xanthine oxidase showed a high degree of correspondence. It is suggested that xanthine oxidase levels can be used as an indicator of in vivo and in vitro secretory differentiation in mammary epithelial cells.     

A comparison of three noise reduction procedures applied to bird vocal signals

ABSTRACT.   Recordings of avian vocal signals in natural habitats include ambient noise. Often this background noise corrupts across all frequencies and is of substantial amplitude. Reducing this ambient noise to prepare vocal signals for playback stimuli or to remove habitat-specific noise signatures prior to analyzing a signal's acoustic characteristics can be useful. We conducted experimental evaluations of three noise reduction procedures to determine their effectiveness. We embedded two bird vocalizations ("clean" signals) in four kinds of natural noise, resulting in eight noise-signal combinations. We then applied three noise reduction procedures (Noise Profile, Band Pass, and Noise Estimate) to each of the embedded signals and compared the recovered signals to the original (clean) signals. Noise Profile filtering was effective in reducing noise and returning fairly high-quality signals from even severe levels of masking noise. The other two noise reduction procedures did not perform as well. For the two most corrupting maskers, however, Noise Profile filtering also altered the signal properties by reducing signal amplitude at those frequencies containing high levels of noise. Apart from this loss of amplitude, the quantitative features of the filtered signals were similar to those of the original model sounds. We conclude that Noise Profile filtering produces good results for cases where noise is approximately constant over the signal duration and the signal intensity exceeds noise intensity over the frequencies of interest.     

Datasets for evolutionary comparative genomics

Many decisions about genome sequencing projects are directed by perceived gaps in the tree of life, or towards model organisms. With the goal of a better understanding of biology through the lens of evolution, however, there are additional genomes that are worth sequencing. One such rationale for whole-genome sequencing is discussed here, along with other important strategies for understanding the phenotypic divergence of species.