Seroprevalence of Neospora caninum in dairy buffaloes in Lahore District, Pakistan

Seroprevalence of Neospora caninum in dairy buffaloes ( Bubalus bubalis ) was assessed in the Lahore District of Punjab Province, Pakistan. The study revealed an overall prevalence of 54.7% for N. caninum antibodies determined through a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay performed on randomly collected serum samples. The highest prevalence was observed in buffaloes >3-5 yr of age (64.1%), followed by 57.9% for 5 to 6 yr olds, and 55.8% in 1-yr-old neonates, with high probability of infection under intensive dairy farming conditions. The pattern of prevalence was closely associated with the season as reflected by the highest prevalence (70.5%) in summer (May-August) and lowest (39.6%) in winter (November-January). Aborting buffaloes illustrated significantly higher (78.9%) exposure compared with non-aborting dams (59.8%). Prevalence in animals with canine contact was significantly higher (60.3%) than without contact (48.1%). This is the first reported prevalence of N. caninum in Pakistan.     

Seahawk: moving beyond HTML in Web-based bioinformatics analysis

Background  

Traditional HTML interfaces for input to and output from Bioinformatics analysis on the Web are highly variable in style, content and data formats. Combining multiple analyses can therfore be an onerous task for biologists. Semantic Web Services allow automated discovery of conceptual links between remote data analysis servers. A shared data ontology and service discovery/execution framework is particularly attractive in Bioinformatics, where data and services are often both disparate and distributed. Instead of biologists copying, pasting and reformatting data between various Web sites, Semantic Web Service protocols such as MOBY-S hold out the promise of seamlessly integrating multi-step analysis.     

Histone protein surface accessibility dictates direction of RSC-dependent nucleosome mobilization

Chromatin remodeling enzymes use energy derived from ATP hydrolysis to mobilize nucleosomes and alter their structure to facilitate DNA access. The Remodels the Structure of Chromatin (RSC) complex has been extensively studied, yet aspects of how this complex functionally interacts with nucleosomes remain unclear. We introduce a steric mapping approach to determine how RSC activity depends on interaction with specific surfaces within the nucleosome. We find that blocking SHL + 4.5/–4.5 via streptavidin binding to the H2A N-terminal tail domains results in inhibition of RSC nucleosome mobilization. However, restriction enzyme assays indicate that remodeling-dependent exposure of an internal DNA site near the nucleosome dyad is not affected. In contrast, occlusion of both protein faces of the nucleosome by streptavidin attachment near the acidic patch completely blocks both remodeling-dependent nucleosome mobilization and internal DNA site exposure. However, we observed partial inhibition when only one protein surface is occluded, consistent with abrogation of one of two productive RSC binding orientations. Our results indicate that nucleosome mobilization requires RSC access to the trailing but not the leading protein surface, and reveals a mechanism by which RSC and related complexes may drive unidirectional movement of nucleosomes to regulate cis-acting DNA sequences in vivo.     

Metal based drugs: design,synthesis and in-vitro antimicrobial screening of Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) complexes with some new carboxamide derived compounds: crystal structures of N-[ethyl(propan-2-yl)carbamothioyl]thiophene-2-carboxamide and its copper(II) complex

A new series of compounds derived from thiophene-2-carboxamide were synthesized and characterized by IR, ¹H-NMR and ¹³C-NMR, mass spectrometry and elemental analysis. These compounds were further used to prepare their Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) metal complexes. All metal(II) complexes were air and moisture stable. Physical, spectral and analytical data have shown the Ni(II) and Cu(II) complexes to exhibit distorted square-planar and Co(II) and Zn(II) complexes tetrahedral geometries. The ligand (L¹) and its Cu(II) complex were characterized by the single-crystal X-ray diffraction method. All the ligands and their metal(II) complexes were screened for their in-vitro antimicrobial activity. The antibacterial and antifungal bioactivity data showed that the metal(II) complexes were found to be more potent than the parent ligands against one or more bacterial and fungal strains.     

A Census of Nuclear Cyanobacterial Recruits in the Plant Kingdom

The plastids and mitochondria of the eukaryotic cell are of endosymbiotic origin. These events occurred ~2 billion years ago and produced significant changes in the genomes of the host and the endosymbiont. Previous studies demonstrated that the invasion of land affected plastids and mitochondria differently and that the paths of mitochondrial integration differed between animals and plants. Other studies examined the reasons why a set of proteins remained encoded in the organelles and were not transferred to the nuclear genome. However, our understanding of the functional relations of the transferred genes is insufficient. In this paper, we report a high-throughput phylogenetic analysis to identify genes of cyanobacterial origin for plants of different levels of complexity: Arabidopsis thaliana, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Physcomitrella patens, Populus trichocarpa, Selaginella moellendorffii, Sorghum bicolor, Oryza sativa, and Ostreococcus tauri. Thus, a census of cyanobacterial gene recruits and a study of their function are presented to better understand the functional aspects of plastid symbiogenesis. From algae to angiosperms, the GO terms demonstrated a gradual expansion over functionally related genes in the nuclear genome, beginning with genes related to thylakoids and photosynthesis, followed by genes involved in metabolism, and finally with regulation-related genes, primarily in angiosperms. The results demonstrate that DNA is supplied to the nuclear genome on a permanent basis with no regard to function, and only what is needed is kept, which thereby expands on the GO space along the related genes.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">AtMYB12</Emphasis> gene: a novel visible marker for wheat transformation

Efficiency of plant transformation is less than optimal for many important species, especially for monocots which are traditionally recalcitrant to transformation, such as wheat. And due to limited number of selectable marker genes, identification or selection of those cells that have integrated DNA into appropriate plant genome and to regenerate fully developed plants from the transformed cells, becomes even more difficult. Some of the widely used marker genes belong to the categories of herbicide or antibiotic resistance genes and flourescent protein genes. As they become an integral part of plant genome along with promoters prokaryotic or eukaryotic origin, there are certain health and environmental concerns about the use of these reporter genes. These marker genes are also inefficient with respect to time and space. In this study we have found a novel visible selection agent AtMYB12, to screen transgenic wheat, with in days after transformation. Transformed coleoptiles as well as cells regenerating from transformed cultured scutella, phenotypically exhibit purple pigmentation, making selection possible in limited and reasonable cost, time and space.     

Mechanisms underlying blockade of allograft acceptance by TLR ligands

Immune activation via TLRs is known to prevent transplantation tolerance in multiple animal models. To investigate the mechanisms underlying this barrier to tolerance induction, we used complementary murine models of skin and cardiac transplantation in which prolonged allograft acceptance is either spontaneous or pharmacologically induced with anti-CD154 mAb and rapamycin. In each model, we found that prolonged allograft survival requires the presence of natural CD4(+)Foxp3(+) T regulatory cells (Tregs), and that the TLR9 ligand CpG prevents graft acceptance both by interfering with natural Treg function and by promoting the differentiation of Th1 effector T cells in vivo. We further demonstrate that although Th17 cells differentiate from naive alloreactive T cells, these cells do not arise from natural Tregs in either CpG-treated or untreated graft recipients. Finally, we show that CpG impairs natural Treg suppressor capability and prevents Treg-dependent allograft acceptance in an IL-6-independent fashion. Our data therefore suggest that TLR signals do not prevent prolonged graft acceptance by directing natural Tregs into the Th17 lineage or by using other IL-6-dependent mechanisms. Instead, graft destruction results from the ability of CpG to drive Th1 differentiation and interfere with immunoregulation established by alloreactive natural CD4(+)Foxp3(+) Tregs.     

Human TOLLIP Regulates TLR2 and TLR4 Signaling and Its Polymorphisms Are Associated with Susceptibility to Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, one of the leading causes of death worldwide, stimulates inflammatory responses with beneficial and pathologic consequences. The regulation and nature of an optimal inflammatory response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis remains poorly understood in humans. Insight into mechanisms of negative regulation of the TLR-mediated innate immune response to M. tuberculosis could provide significant breakthroughs in the design of new vaccines and drugs. We hypothesized that TOLLIP and its common variants negatively regulate TLR signaling in human monocytes and are associated with susceptibility to tuberculosis. Using short hairpin RNA knockdown of TOLLIP in peripheral blood human monocytes, we found that TOLLIP suppresses TNF and IL-6 production after stimulation with TLR2 and TLR4 ligands. In contrast, secretion of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 was induced by TOLLIP. We also discovered two common polymorphisms that are associated with either decreased levels of mRNA expression (rs3750920) or increased IL-6 production (rs5743899) in a sample of 56 healthy volunteers. Furthermore, in a case-population study in Vietnam with 760 cord blood samples and 671 TB case patients, we found that SNPs rs3750920 and rs5743899 were associated with susceptibility to tuberculosis (p = 7.03 × 10(-16) and 6.97 × 10(-7), respectively). These data demonstrate that TOLLIP has an anti-inflammatory effect on TLR signaling in humans and that TOLLIP deficiency is associated with an increased risk of tuberculosis. To our knowledge, these data also show the first associations of TOLLIP polymorphisms with any infectious disease. These data also implicate an unexpected mechanism of negative regulation of TLR signaling in human tuberculosis pathogenesis.