Synthesis, structure and solution chemistry of dioxidovanadium(V) complexes with a family of hydrazone ligands. Evidence of formation of centrosymmetric dimers via H-bonds in the solid state

[V^IVO(acac)₂] reacts with the methanol solution of tridentate ONO donor hydrazone ligands (H₂L^1-4, general abbreviation H₂L; are derived from the condensation of benzoyl hydrazine with 2-hydroxyacetophenone and its 5-substituted derivatives) in presence of neutral monodentate alkyl amine bases having stronger basicity than pyridine e.g., ethylamine, diethylamine, triethylamine and piperidine (general abbreviation B) to produce BH⁺[VO₂L]⁻ (1-16) complexes. Five of these sixteen complexes are structurally characterized revealing that the vanadium is present in the anionic part of the molecule, [VO₂L]⁻ in a distorted square pyramidal environment. The complexes 5, 6, 15 and 16 containing two H-atoms associated with the amine-N atom in their cationic part (e.g., diethylammonium and piperidinium ion) are involved in H-bonding with a neighboring molecule resulting in the formation of centrosymmetric dimers while the complex 12 (containing only one hydrogen atom in the cationic part) exhibits normal H-bonding. The nature of the H-bonds in each of the four centrosymmetric dimeric complexes is different. These complexes have potential catalytic activity in the aerial oxidation of l-ascorbic acid and are converted into the [VO(L)(hq)] complexes containing VO³⁺ motif on reaction with equimolar amount of 8-hydroxyquinoline (Hhq) in methanol.     

Effects of murine endotoxemia on lymphocyte subsets and clearance of staphylococcal pulmonary infection

In a model of staphylococcal pneumonia initiated during systemic endotoxemia in BALB/c mice, a significant reduction of the number of circulating CD4+ and CD8+ T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes, and NK cells, as well as lung-resident total T- and CD4+ T-lymphocytes was demonstrated. Staphylococcus aureus exposure only induced a similar decrease of lymphocyte subsets in the blood. However, the number of lung-resident total T- and CD4+ T-lymphocytes was increased. More viable bacteria were recovered from the lungs of S. aureus-infected mice than from those animals previously treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) followed by a staphylococcal challenge. These results indicate that LPS-induced reduction in the number of circulating lymphocyte subsets and lung-resident total T- and CD4+ T-lymphocytes do not increase susceptibility to staphylococcal respiratory infection. Moreover, LPS challenge prior to S. aureus exposure significantly improves clearance of the bacteria in the lung.     

MiRANN: a reliable approach for improved classification of precursor microRNA using Artificial Neural Network model

MicroRNA (miRNA) is a special class of short noncoding RNA that serves pivotal function of regulating gene expression. The computational prediction of new miRNA candidates involves various methods such as learning methods and methods using expression data. This article has proposed a reliable model - miRANN which is a supervised machine learning approach. MiRANN used known pre-miRNAs as positive set and a novel negative set from human CDS regions. The number of known miRNAs is now huge and diversified that could cover almost all characteristics of unknown miRNAs which increases the quality of the result (99.9% accuracy, 99.8% sensitivity, 100% specificity) and provides a more reliable prediction. MiRANN performs better than other state-of-the-art approaches and declares to be the most potential tool to predict novel miRNAs. We have also tested our result using a previous negative set. MiRANN, opens new ground using ANN for predicting pre-miRNAs with a promise of better performance.     

Tex14, a Plk1-regulated protein, is required for kinetochore-microtubule attachment and regulation of the spindle assembly checkpoint

Proper assembly of kinetochores (KTs) during mitosis is required for bipolar attachment of spindle microtubules (MTs) and the accumulation of spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) components. Here we show that testis-expressed protein 14 (Tex14), which has been implicated in midbody function, is recruited to KTs by Plk1 in a Cdk1-dependent manner during early mitosis. Exclusion of Tex14 from kinetochores results in an inability to efficiently localize outer KT components, impaired KT-MT attachment, chromosome congression defects, and whole-chromosome instability. In addition, we demonstrate that phosphorylation of Tex14 by Plk1 during metaphase promotes APC(Cdc20)-mediated Tex14 degradation. Inhibition of this phosphorylation event causes retention of Tex14 at KTs and results in delayed metaphase-to-anaphase transition and chromosome segregation defects. Our findings identify Tex14 as an important mediator of KT structure and function and the fidelity of chromosome separation.     

Uncertainties in Measuring Populations Potentially Impacted by Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding

A better understanding of the impact of global climate change requires information on the locations and characteristics of populations affected. For instance, with global sea level predicted to rise and coastal flooding set to become more frequent and intense, high-resolution spatial population datasets are increasingly being used to estimate the size of vulnerable coastal populations. Many previous studies have undertaken this by quantifying the size of populations residing in low elevation coastal zones using one of two global spatial population datasets available – LandScan and the Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). This has been undertaken without consideration of the effects of this choice, which are a function of the quality of input datasets and differences in methods used to construct each spatial population dataset. Here we calculate estimated low elevation coastal zone resident population sizes from LandScan and GRUMP using previously adopted approaches, and quantify the absolute and relative differences achieved through switching datasets. Our findings suggest that the choice of one particular dataset over another can translate to a difference of more than 7.5 million vulnerable people for countries with extensive coastal populations, such as Indonesia and Japan. Our findings also show variations in estimates of proportions of national populations at risk range from <0.1% to 45% differences when switching between datasets, with large differences predominantly for countries where coarse and outdated input data were used in the construction of the spatial population datasets. The results highlight the need for the construction of spatial population datasets built on accurate, contemporary and detailed census data for use in climate change impact studies and the importance of acknowledging uncertainties inherent in existing spatial population datasets when estimating the demographic impacts of climate change.     

Molecular identification and properties of a light-insensitive rice catalase-B expressed in E. coli

Catalase plays a central role in plant stress responses but is highly susceptible to photoinhibition. A rice catalase-B protein avoiding photoinhibition was developed by mutagenesis of specific amino acids: Leu-189 to Trp-189 and His-225 to Thr-225 and then recombinantly expressed in E. coli. In addition, the site specific mutation also induced 2–2.5-fold increase in enzyme velocity with high affinity for its substrate and showed nearly a 3-fold lower K _m than the wild protein. These characteristic of mutated rice catalase-B is highly promising in transgenic research to increase plant productivity under stress conditions.     

Structural studies of a methyl galacturonosyl-methoxyxylan isolated from the stem of Lagenaria siceraria (Lau)

A water-soluble polysaccharide was isolated from the aqueous extract of the stem of Lagenaria siceraria. The polysaccharide was found to be constituted of methyl d-galacturonate, 2-O-methyl-D-xylose, and d-xylose in a ratio of 1:1:1. On the basis of total acid hydrolysis, methylation analysis, periodate oxidation, NMR studies ((1)H, (13)C, 2D-COSY, TOCSY, NOESY, HSQC, and HMBC), and MALDI-TOF MS analysis, the structure of the repeating unit of the polysaccharide is determined as.