Comparative biological characterization of Berenice and Berenice-78 strains of Trypanosoma cruzi isolated from the same patient at different times

The Berenice-78 strain of T. cruzi is very different from the Berenice strain isolated 16 years earlier from the same patient. The authors verified its high infectivity and low virulence for C3H inbred mice that survived the acute phase of infection. In these animals, it was verified that the tropism of parasites was more accentuated for cardiac and skeletal musculature and the parasitaemic level progressively increased with successive blood passages with posterior stability. In relation to Berenice strain the same characteristics were observed as described by Brener, Chiari & Alvarenga (1974). The increase in its virulence for albino mice was again demonstrated. The authors discussed the possibility of reinfection of the patient called Berenice and the importance of knowledge about T. cruzi strains of low virulence for laboratory animals.     

A liquid diffraction analysis of sarcoplasmic reticulum. I. Compositional variation.

Intensities of x-ray scattering from a series of fragmented rabbit muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) samples have been measured over the range x = 0.05 to s = 0.25. By varying the relative concentrations of lipid and protein (chiefly the Mg++-dependent, Ca++- stimulated ATPase) in the membranes of this series, and by employing methods of analysis appropriate to the scattering from binary liquid mixtures, we have identified the separable contributions of protein and lipid, and the protein-lipid interaction contributions to the total scattering profiles. The shape of the protein term is consistent with scattering from a cylindrical ATPase particle 142 A in length and 35 A in diameter. These data imply that the dominant ATPase species is monomeric. The protein-lipid interaction term has been analyzed by a novel treatment based on a determination of the pair correlation function between the electrons of the protein molecule with the electrons of the lipid bilayer in terms of the asymmetry of the transbilayer disposition of the protein. Applied to our results, the analysis indicates a fully asymmetric disposition of ATPase, in which one end of the molecule is contiguous with either the lumenal or cytoplasmic surface of the bilayer.     

Förderung der Entwicklung und des Blühens von Pinguicula Lusitanica Durch Fütterung in Axenischer Kultur

Zusammenfassung Bei Pinguicula lusitanica wurde der Nutzen des Tierfangs in axenischer Kultur untersucht.Die Pflanze läßt sich auf Mineralsalzagar leicht bis zur Blütenbildung und Samenreife bringen. Sie bedarf dafür-wie es für viele Insectivoren aus Rohkulturen oder aus Standortsbeobachtungen bekannt ist-keiner über die Blätter aufgenommenen Zusatznahrung.Bei Fütterung mit Drosophila oder gekochtem Hühnereiweiß über die Blätter wird die Anzahl und die Größe der Blätter, deren Chlorophyllgehalt, das Frisch- und Trockengewicht der ganzen Pflanze, die Anzahl der Blüten, deren Erscheinungstermin und die Länge der Blütenstiele eindeutig gefördert.Auch, Gaben von Ammoniumphosphat, über die Blätter haben entsprechenden Erfolg.Der Grad der Förderung durch die Fütterung, ist stark abhängig vom Stickstoff- und Phosphorgehalt des Substrates, auf dem die Pflanzen wachsen; Einzelheiten darüber bedürfen aber noch weiterer Untersuchung. Pinguicula lusitanica kann das Futter durch Eigenfermente ohne Beteiligung von Bakterien verdauen.

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Development and flowering of Pinguicula lusitanica in axenic culture

Summary Although the first experiments on the feeding of carnivorous plants took place at the time of Darwin, it has up to now been proved unambiguously only for Drosera and Utricularia that the development of the plants is furthered by the prey of their leaves.In the present work, Pinguicula lusitanica in axenic agar culture showed significantly increased leaf development, more chlorophyll content and a greater number of flowers in response to feeding with Drosophila, egg yolk and ammonium phosphate. The flowering did, however, also occur on a pure mineral medium without supplementary feeding of any materials to the leaves.The feed was digested without the action of microorganisms.

     

Zum Formwachstum des herings (Clupea harengus L.)

Zusammenfassung Die Herausbildung der Körperform und die Umwachsung der Leibeshöhle wird an Hand von Querschnitten hinter der Dorsalflosse verfolgt. Dazu wurden 43 Heringe von 5–245 mm Körperlänge untersucht und mit dem Planimeter vermessen.Während der relative Eingeweidequerschnitt zeitlebends ziemlich konstant bleibt, abgesehen von frühesten Stadien und laichreifen Tieren, wächst der Stützgewebequerschnitt negativ, der Muskelquerschnitt positiv allometrisch bis zur Metamorphose, um dann annähernd isometrisch zuzunehmen.Die Seitenmuskulatur umwächst, am Schultergürtel beginnend, die Leibeshöhle. Dadurch ergeben sich für jeden Querschnittsort eigene Daten, wann der Zustand des ausgeformten Tieres erreicht wird. Für den hier untersuchten Querschnitt hinter der Dorsalen fällt dieser Zeitpunkt in den Beginn der Metamorphose.Der Umfang erreicht ebenfalls in der Metamorphose die relativen Werte des ausgeformten Tieres, er nimmt, wie zu erwarten, bei der Reifung zu. Die fur die fertigen Tiere charakteristische Umrißlinie wird schon bei der 15 mm langen Larve ausgebildet, durch die Gonadenreifung tritt wiederum eine Annäherung an die Kreisform ein.     

Isolation and characterization of a carbon monoxide utilizing strain of the acetogen Peptostreptococcus productus

From sludge obtained from the sewage digester plant in Marburg-Cappel a strictly anaerobic bacterium was enriched and isolated with carbon monoxide as the sole energy source. Based on morphological and physiological characteristics the isolate was identified as a strain of Peptostreptococcus productus, which was called strain Marburg. The organism was able to grow on CO (50% at 200 kPa) as the sole energy source at a doubling time of 3 h and converted this substrate to acetate and CO₂. The type strain of P. productus was not able to grow at the expense of CO. Electron microscopic investigations of strain Marburg cells revealed a cell wall which was different from that of other Gram-positive prokaryotes. DNA:DNA hybridization studies of the DNA isolated from strain Marburg and the type strain as well as some morphological and physiological properties of both strains confirmed the low degree or relatedness between the two strains.     

Über die Plastidenfarbstoffe von Pedinomonas (Protochloridales)

Zusammenfassung Papierchromatographische Trennung und anschließende spektralphotometrische Messung der Plastidenfarbstoffe von Pedinomonas tuberculata ergab, daß neben Chlorophyll a auch Chlorophyll b vorhanden ist.     

Analysis of CD44-containing lipid rafts: Recruitment of annexin II and stabilization by the actin cytoskeleton.

CD44, the major cell surface receptor for hyaluronic acid (HA), was shown to localize to detergent-resistant cholesterol-rich microdomains, called lipid rafts, in fibroblasts and blood cells. Here, we have investigated the molecular environment of CD44 within the plane of the basolateral membrane of polarized mammary epithelial cells. We show that CD44 partitions into lipid rafts that contain annexin II at their cytoplasmic face. Both CD44 and annexin II were released from these lipid rafts by sequestration of plasma membrane cholesterol. Partition of annexin II and CD44 to the same type of lipid rafts was demonstrated by cross-linking experiments in living cells. First, when CD44 was clustered at the cell surface by anti-CD44 antibodies, annexin II was recruited into the cytoplasmic leaflet of CD44 clusters. Second, the formation of intracellular, submembranous annexin II-p11 aggregates caused by expression of a trans-dominant mutant of annexin II resulted in coclustering of CD44. Moreover, a frequent redirection of actin bundles to these clusters was observed. These basolateral CD44/annexin II-lipid raft complexes were stabilized by addition of GTPgammaS or phalloidin in a semipermeabilized and cholesterol-depleted cell system. The low lateral mobility of CD44 in the plasma membrane, as assessed with fluorescent recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), was dependent on the presence of plasma membrane cholesterol and an intact actin cytoskeleton. Disruption of the actin cytoskeleton dramatically increased the fraction of CD44 which could be recovered from the light detergent-insoluble membrane fraction. Taken together, our data indicate that in mammary epithelial cells the vast majority of CD44 interacts with annexin II in lipid rafts in a cholesterol-dependent manner. These CD44-containing lipid microdomains interact with the underlying actin cytoskeleton.     

Evaluation of Cell Type Annotation R Packages on Single-cell RNA-seq Data

Annotating cell types is a critical step in single-cell RNA sequencing(scRNA-seq) data analysis. Some supervised or semi-supervised classification methods have recently emerged to enable automated cell type identification. However, comprehensive evaluations of these methods are lacking. Moreover, it is not clear whether some classification methods originally designed for analyzing other bulk omics data are adaptable to scRNA-seq analysis. In this study, we evaluated ten cell type annotation methods publicly available as R packages. Eight of them are popular methods developed specifically for single-cell research, including Seurat, scmap, SingleR, CHETAH, SingleCellNet, scID, Garnett, and SCINA. The other two methods were repurposed from deconvoluting DNA methylation data, i.e., linear constrained projection(CP) and robust partial correlations(RPC). We conducted systematic comparisons on a wide variety of public scRNA-seq datasets as well as simulation data. We assessed the accuracy through intra-dataset and inter-dataset predictions; the robustness over practical challenges such as gene filtering, high similarity among cell types, and increased cell type classes; as well as the detection of rare and unknown cell types. Overall, methods such as Seurat, SingleR, CP, RPC, and SingleCellNet performed well, with Seurat being the best at annotating major cell types. Additionally, Seurat, SingleR, CP, and RPC were more robust against downsampling. However, Seurat did have a major drawback at predicting rare cell populations, and it was suboptimal at differentiating cell types highly similar to each other,compared to SingleR and RPC. All the code and data are available from https://github.com/qianhuiSenn/scRNA_cell_deconv_benchmark.     

Radiotherapy during the COVID-19: a review about management and treatment strategies

BackgroundThe administration of radiotherapy should be encouraged despite the emergency of COVID-19; therefore, our aim is to analyze management and therapeutic interventions to be implemented in a Radiotherapy department to allow patients to continue their treatment and health professionals to continue their work safely.Materials and methodsA Pubmed search was performed, in which all articles specific to Radiotherapy and COVID-19 were included. Those articles that were too specific about the COVID-19, surgery and chemiotherapy, were excluded.Results315 articles were selected, of which 35 were about therapeutic strategies and 25 about management strategies. In the first category, 5 articles were about how radiotherapy could be a weapon to be used for COVID-19 positive patients with important lung problems. While 30 articles described priorities and new treatment plans for oncology patients who have to undergo radiotherapy during the pandemic. In the second category, almost all the articles explained how triage can be a preventive and monitoring way against COVID-19 in an operating unit with many patients and professionals, and other articles developed a telemedicine system, too, which allows patients to make scheduled visits without coming to the hospital and also for the staff, who can work remotely. In addition, 5 articles concerning psychological aspects of both patients and health care providers were included.ConclusionThis document can be used as a summary in the coming months/years, during the recovery phase from COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and as a starting point to be used in case of further pandemic break-out.