Changes in the Activity of the Maturation-Promoting Factor Are Correlated with Those of a Major Cyclic AMP and Calcium-Independent Protein Kinase During the First Mitotic Cell Cycles in the Early Starfish Embryo

Many studies suggest that MPF activation depends on protein phosphorylation or that MPF is itself a protein kinase. In the present report, cyclic variations of MPF activity have been correlated in vivo with changes in the extent of protein phosphorylation or in vitro with changes of a major protein kinase during the first cell cycles of fertilized starfish eggs. This cycling protein kinase neither requires cAMP nor Ca²⁺. Neither colchicine nor aphidicoline, which inhibits cleavage and chromosome replication respectively, was found to suppress the synchronous and cyclic variations of both MPF and protein kinase activities. Protein synthesis was found to be required for both MPF and protein kinase activities to reappear after their simultaneous drop at the time of mitotic or meiotic cleavages. Production of either MPF or protein kinase activities is not the immediate result of protein synthesis since there is a delay at each cell cycle between the time when protein synthesis is required and the time when both MPF and protein kinase activities are produced. This suggests that both MPF and protein kinase activities might involve some post-translational modification of a precursor protein synthesized during the preceeding cell cycle.     

Biomarkers of neurodegenerative disorders： How good are they？

Biomarkers are very important indicators of normal and abnormal biological processes. Specific changes in pathologies,biochemistries and genetics can give us comprehensive information regarding the nature of any particular disease. A good biomarker should be precise and reliable, distinguishable between normal and interested disease, and differentiable between different diseases. It is believed that biomarkers have great potential in predicting chances for diseases, aiding in early diagnosis, and setting standards for the development of new remedies to treat diseases. New technologies have enabled scientists to identify biomarkers of several different neurodegenerative diseases. The followings, for instance,are only a few of the many new biomarkers that have been recently identified: the phosphorylated tau protein and aggregated β-amyloid peptide for Alzheimer‘s disease (AD), α-synuclein contained Lewy bodies and altered dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging for Parkinson‘s disease (PD), SOD mutations for familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and CAG repeats resulted from Huntington‘s gene mutations in Huntington‘s disease (HD). This article will focus on the most-recent findings of biomarkers belonging to the four mentioned neurodegenerative diseases.     

盐度对互花米草枯落物分解释放硅、碳、氮元素的影响

为了研究潮汐湿地盐度对枯落物分解过程中硅、碳、氮元素释放的影响,通过室内模拟不同盐度(0、5、15和30)对互花米草枯落物茎和叶分解释放过程中硅、碳、氮元素的动态变化进行测定。结果表明:(1)互花米草茎和叶枯落物失重率和分解速率均随盐度增加而降低。(2)互花米草茎和叶枯落物分解水体中硅含量均随着盐度升高而增加,并且盐度30处理下,枯落物分解硅释放量显著高于盐度0和5(P0.05)。而分解末期生物硅残留量则随盐度升高而降低。(3)不同盐度处理茎枯落物分解碳释放量无显著差异,但叶枯落物分解碳释放量在盐度5、15和30处理中显著高于淡水(P0.05)。(4)互花米草茎枯落物分解释放到水中的NH_4~+-N含量随着盐度的升高而减少,NO_3~--N含量与之相反。研究单因素盐度对枯落物分解及元素释放的影响,可以为预测潮汐湿地枯落物分解对盐水入侵的响应机制提供参考,为湿地生源要素生物地球化学循环过程研究提供基础依据。     

A computational framework for modeling cell–matrix interactions in soft biological tissues

Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology - Living soft tissues appear to promote the development and maintenance of a preferred mechanical state within a defined tolerance around a so-called set...     

Break-induced loss of heterozygosity in fission yeast: dual roles for homologous recombination in promoting translocations and preventing de novo telomere addition

Loss of heterozygosity (LOH), a causal event in tumorigenesis, frequently encompasses multiple genetic loci and whole chromosome arms. However, the mechanisms leading to such extensive LOH are poorly understood. We investigated the mechanisms of DNA double-strand break (DSB)-induced extensive LOH by screening for auxotrophic marker loss approximately 25 kb distal to an HO endonuclease break site within a nonessential minichromosome in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Extensive break-induced LOH was infrequent, resulting from large translocations through both allelic crossovers and break-induced replication. These events required the homologous recombination (HR) genes rad32(+), rad50(+), nbs1(+), rhp51(+), rad22(+), rhp55(+), rhp54(+), and mus81(+). Surprisingly, LOH was still observed in HR mutants, which resulted predominantly from de novo telomere addition at the break site. De novo telomere addition was most frequently observed in rad22Delta and rhp55Delta backgrounds, which disrupt HR following end resection. Further, levels of de novo telomere addition, while increased in ku70Delta rhp55Delta strains, were reduced in exo1Delta rhp55Delta and an rhp55Delta strain overexpressing rhp51. These findings support a model in which HR prevents de novo telomere addition at DSBs by competing for resected ends. Together, these results suggest that the mechanisms of break-induced LOH may be predicted from the functional status of the HR machinery.     

Finite strain elastodynamics of intracranial saccular aneurysms.

Various investigators suggest that intracranial saccular aneurysms are dynamically unstable, that they resonate in response to pulsatile blood flow. This hypothesis is based on linearized analyses or experiments on rubber "models", however, and there is a need for a more critical examination. Toward this end, we (a) derive a new nonlinear equation of motion for a pulsating spherical aneurysm that is surrounded by cerebral spinal fluid and whose behavior is described by a Fung-type pseudostrain-energy function that fits data on human lesions, and (b) use methods of nonlinear dynamics to examine the stability of such lesions against perturbations to both in vivo and in vitro conditions. The numerical results suggest that this sub-class of lesions is dynamically stable. Moreover, with the exception of transients associated with initial perturbations, inertial effects appear to be insignificant for fundamental forcing frequencies less than 10 Hz and hence for typical physiologic and laboratory conditions. We submit, therefore, that further study of the mechanics of saccular aneurysms should be focused on quasi-static stress analyses that investigate the roles of lesion geometry and material properties, including growth and remodeling.     

Automated measurement and statistical modelling of elastic laminae in arteries

Structural features of elastic laminae within arteries can provide vital information for both the mechanobiology and the biomechanics of the wall. In this paper, we propose, test and illustrate a new computer-based scheme for automated analysis of regional distributions of elastic laminae thickness, inter-lamellar distances and fragmentation furcation points (FPs) from standard histological images. Our scheme eliminates potential artefacts produced by tissue cutting, automatically aligns tissue according to physiologic orientations and performs cross-sectional measurements along radial directions. A statistical randomised complete block design and F test were used to assess the potential (non)-uniformity of lamellar thicknesses and separations along both radial and circumferential directions. Illustrative results for both normotensive and hypertensive thoracic porcine aorta revealed marked heterogeneity along the radial direction in nearly stress-free samples. Clearly, regional measurements can provide more detailed information about morphologic changes that cannot be gained by globally averaged evaluations alone. We also found that quantifying FP densities offers new information about potential elastin fragmentation, particularly in response to increased loading due to hypertension.