A New Labyrinthulid Isolate That Produces Only Docosahexaenoic Acid

We show here that a new labyrinthulid strain, L72, isolated from a fallen leaf in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan, produced only docohexaenoic acid (DHA) among all the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs). The main fatty acid composition was 16:0 (28.9%), 18:0 (7.2%), 18:1 (5.7%), 18:2 (10.4%), and DHA (45.9%) without any other LCPUFA. The lipid content of the strain was 27.4%. The cells had many lipid bodies, which were densely located in all of the cells. On phylogenetic analysis using the 18S rDNA sequence, the strain was located in the labyrinthulids group, forming a monophyletic group with Labyrinthula sp. (strain s) and Labyrinthuila sp. (strain L59). We further tested the culture optimization of strain L72 to evaluate the ability of the strain to produce DHA. The optimum salt concentration and the temperature of the strain were 100% of artificial seawater and 20°C. Strain L72 could grow well on soybean oil (SBO) or soybean lecithin (SBL) as the carbon source. When 20 g/l of SBL was added to the medium, DHA production reached the maximum amount at 0.67 g/l for 14 d. The two important facts, that the strain can use SBL as the main nutrient and contains only DHA among the LCPUFAs, will be of great advantage for industry.     

Glass transition and enthalpy relaxation of amorphous lactose glass

The glass transition temperature, T(g), and enthalpy relaxation of amorphous lactose glass were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) for isothermal aging periods at various temperatures (25, 60, 75, and 90 degrees C) below T(g). Both T(g) and enthalpy relaxation were found to increase with increasing aging time and temperature. The enthalpy relaxation increased approximately exponentially with aging time at a temperature (90 degrees C) close to T(g) (102 degrees C). There was no significant change observed in the enthalpy relaxation around room temperature (25 degrees C) over an aging period of 1month. The Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) model was able to fit the experimental enthalpy relaxation data well. The relaxation distribution parameter (beta) was determined to be in the range 0.81-0.89. The enthalpy relaxation time constant (tau) increased with decreasing aging temperature. The observed enthalpy relaxation data showed that molecular mobility in amorphous lactose glass was higher at temperatures closer to T(g). Lactose glass was stable for a long time at 25 degrees C. These findings should be helpful for improving the processing and storage stability of amorphous lactose and lactose containing food and pharmaceutical products.     

Programming of regulatory T cells from pluripotent stem cells and prevention of autoimmunity

Regulatory T (Treg) cells are being used to treat autoimmunity and prevent organ rejection; however, Treg cell-based therapies have been hampered by the technical limitation in obtaining a high number of functional Treg cells. In this study, we show how to generate functional Treg cells from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and to determine the potential role of such cells for Treg cell-based immunotherapy against autoimmunity in a therapeutic setting. Ligation of a Notch ligand and transduction of the gene Foxp3 induce iPS cells to differentiate into Treg cells. Expression of Foxp3 and coculture on Notch ligand-expressing stromal cells augment expression of CD3, TCR, CD4, CD25, and CTLA-4 on iPS cell-differentiated Treg cells, which are able to secrete TGF-β and IL-10 both in vivo and in vitro. Importantly, adoptive transfer of iPS cell-derived Treg cells expressing large amounts of Foxp3 and Bcl-x(L) significantly suppresses host immune responses and reduces arthritis development within murine models. These data suggest that Notch signaling and Foxp3 regulate the development and function of Treg cells derived from iPS cells. Our results provide a novel approach for generating potentially therapeutic Treg cells for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.     

Temperature-dependent development and reproductive traits of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Tetranychus macfarlanei</Emphasis> (Acari: Tetranychidae)

Development and reproductive traits of Tetranychus macfarlanei Baker & Pritchard (Acari: Tetranychidae) were investigated on kidney bean, Phaseolus vulgaris L., at eleven constant temperatures. Tetranychus macfarlanei was able to develop and complete its life cycle at temperatures ranging from 17.5 to 37.5°C. At 15 and 40°C, a few eggs (2–4%) hatched but further development was arrested. Development from egg to adult was slowest at 17.5°C and fastest at 35°C for both females and males. Using Ikemoto and Takai’s linear model, the estimated lower developmental thresholds for egg-to-female adult, egg-to-male adult and egg-to-egg development were 12.9–13.0°C. The thermal constants for the respective stages were 110.85, 115.99 and 125.32 degree-days (DD). The intrinsic optimum temperatures (T _Φ) calculated by non-linear SSI model were determined as 24.4, 24.4 and 24.2°C for egg-to-female adult, egg-to-male adult and egg-to-egg development, respectively. The net reproductive rate (R ₀) was highest at 25°C (167.4 females per female) and lowest at 17.5°C (42.6 females per female). The intrinsic rate of natural increase, r _m, increased linearly with the rising of temperature from 0.102 at 17.5°C to 0.441 day⁻¹ at 35°C. These values suggested that T. macfarlanei could be growing quickly in response to increasing temperatures from 17.5 to 35°C and provide a basis for predicting its potential geographical range.     

BIND – An algorithm for loss-less compression of nucleotide sequence data

Recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies have enabled the current generation of life science researchers to probe deeper into the genomic blueprint. The amount of data generated by these technologies has been increasing exponentially since the last decade. Storage, archival and dissemination of such huge data sets require efficient solutions, both from the hardware as well as software perspective. The present paper describes BIND-an algorithm specialized for compressing nucleotide sequence data. By adopting a unique 'block-length' encoding for representing binary data (as a key step), BIND achieves significant compression gains as compared to the widely used general purpose compression algorithms (gzip, bzip2 and lzma). Moreover, in contrast to implementations of existing specialized genomic compression approaches, the implementation of BIND is enabled to handle non-ATGC and lowercase characters. This makes BIND a loss-less compression approach that is suitable for practical use. More importantly, validation results of BIND (with real-world data sets) indicate reasonable speeds of compression and decompression that can be achieved with minimal processor/ memory usage. BIND is available for download at http://metagenomics.atc.tcs.com/compression/BIND. No license is required for academic or non-profit use.     

Precipitating and relieving factors of migraine versus tension type headache

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: To determine the differences of precipitating and relieving factors between migraine and tension type headache METHODS: This is a cross sectional study. We retrospectively reviewed the records of 250 migraine patients and 250 patients diagnosed as tension type headache from the specialized headache clinic in Dept. of Neurology, Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Data were collected through a predesigned questionnaire containing information on age, sex, social status and a predetermined list of precipitating and relieving factors. RESULTS: In this study, the female patients predominated (67%). Most of the patients were within 21--30 years age group (58.6%). About 58% of them belonged to middle class families. The common precipitating factors like stress, anxiety, activity, journey, reading, cold and warm were well distributed among both the migraine and tension type headache (TTH) patients. But significant difference was demonstrated for fatigue (p < 0.05), sleep deprivation (p < 0.05), sunlight (p < 0.01) and food (p < 0.05), which were common among migraineurs. In consideration of relieving factors of pain, different maneuvers were commonly tried by migraineurs and significant difference were observed for both analgesic drug and massage (p < 0.05), which relieved migraine headache. But maneuvers like sleep, rest and posture were used by both groups. CONCLUSION: The most frequent precipitating factors for headache appear to be identical for both migraine and TTH patients. Even though some factors like fatigue, sleep deprivation, sunlight and food significantly precipitate migraine and drug, massage are effective maneuver for relieving pain among migrianeurs.     

Directed differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells towards T lymphocytes

Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) of antigen-specific CD8(+) cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) is a promising treatment for a variety of malignancies (1). CTLs can recognize malignant cells by interacting tumor antigens with the T cell receptors (TCR), and release cytotoxins as well as cytokines to kill malignant cells. It is known that less-differentiated and central-memory-like (termed highly reactive) CTLs are the optimal population for ACT-based immunotherapy, because these CTLs have a high proliferative potential, are less prone to apoptosis than more differentiated cells and have a higher ability to respond to homeostatic cytokines (2-7). However, due to difficulties in obtaining a high number of such CTLs from patients, there is an urgent need to find a new approach to generate highly reactive Ag-specific CTLs for successful ACT-based therapies. TCR transduction of the self-renewable stem cells for immune reconstitution has a therapeutic potential for the treatment of diseases (8-10). However, the approach to obtain embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from patients is not feasible. Although the use of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) for therapeutic purposes has been widely applied in clinic (11-13), HSCs have reduced differentiation and proliferative capacities, and HSCs are difficult to expand in in vitro cell culture (14-16). Recent iPS cell technology and the development of an in vitro system for gene delivery are capable of generating iPS cells from patients without any surgical approach. In addition, like ESCs, iPS cells possess indefinite proliferative capacity in vitro, and have been shown to differentiate into hematopoietic cells. Thus, iPS cells have greater potential to be used in ACT-based immunotherapy compared to ESCs or HSCs. Here, we present methods for the generation of T lymphocytes from iPS cells in vitro, and in vivo programming of antigen-specific CTLs from iPS cells for promoting cancer immune surveillance. Stimulation in vitro with a Notch ligand drives T cell differentiation from iPS cells, and TCR gene transduction results in iPS cells differentiating into antigen-specific T cells in vivo, which prevents tumor growth. Thus, we demonstrate antigen-specific T cell differentiation from iPS cells. Our studies provide a potentially more efficient approach for generating antigen-specific CTLs for ACT-based therapies and facilitate the development of therapeutic strategies for diseases.