Development of pan-specific antibody against trimethyllysine for protein research

Background  

Trimethylation of the Nε-lysine residues in a protein is one of the most important events of posttranslational modifications. Simple methods for rapid detection and isolation of the Nε-trimethylated protein species are needed. This report introduces a novel method to prepare the affinity purified antibody specific for the Nε-trimethylated lysine (tMeK). The applications of the purified antibody are also reported in this paper.     

The effect of cumulative endurance exercise on leptin and adiponectin and their role as markers to monitor training load

Leptin and adiponectin play an essential role in energy metabolism. Leptin has also been proposed as a marker for monitoring training load. So far, no studies have investigated the variability of these hormones in athletes and how they are regulated during cumulative exercise. This study monitored leptin and adiponectin in 15 endurance athletes twice daily in the days before, during and after a 9-day simulated cycling stage race. Adiponectin significantly increased during the race (p = 0.001) and recovery periods (p = 0.002) when compared to the baseline, while leptin decreased significantly during the race (p < 0.0001) and returned to baseline levels during the recovery period. Intra-individual variability was substantially lower than inter-individual variability for both hormones (leptin 34.1 vs. 53.5%, adiponectin 19% vs. 37.2%). With regards to exercise, this study demonstrated that with sufficient, sustained energy expenditure, leptin concentrations can decrease within the first 24 hours. Under the investigated conditions there also appears to be an optimal leptin concentration which ensures stable energy homeostasis, as there was no significant decrease over the subsequent race days. In healthy endurance athletes the recovery of leptin takes 48-72 hours and may even show a supercompensation-like effect. For adiponectin, significant increases were observed within 5 days of commencing racing, with these elevated values failing to return to baseline levels after 3 days of recovery. Additionally, when using leptin and adiponectin to monitor training loads, establishing individual threshold values improves their sensitivity.     

In situ measurement of archaeal and bacterial specific growth rates in two stage high rate anaerobic treatment systems

The thymidine assay is applied and evaluated as a direct measure of archaeal and bacterial volumetric growth rate in the first and second stages of a full scale High Rate Anaerobic Treatment system (HRAT). By coupling the method to an epifluorescent microscopic technique we show how to measure microbial specific growth rates in situ. In the first stage reactor, the acidogenic (hydrolytic-fermentative) apparent bacterial specific growth rate measurements (2.2 d –1 ) agreed with that predicted by the hydraulic residence time. For the methanogenic archaeal populations in the second stage upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor the measurement was the same as published values. The results also showed that in the UASB reactor the archaeal growth dynamics in the liquid phase and 'sludge' granules were the same.     

Unilateral naris occlusion and the rat accessory olfactory bulb

Blocking airflow through half of the nasal cavity during early life results in a 25% reduction in the size of the ipsilateral main olfactory bulb. The present study indicates that the size of the accessory bulb is relatively unaffected by the procedure.