Lazy group members are substitute helpers in carrion crows

In many cooperatively breeding societies, helping effort varies greatly among group members, raising the question of why dominant individuals tolerate lazy subordinates. In groups of carrion crows Corvus corone corone, helpers at the nest increase breeders'' reproductive success, but chick provisioning is unevenly distributed among non-breeders, with a gradient that ranges from individuals that work as much as the breeders to others that completely refrain from visiting the nest. Here we show that lazy non-breeders represent an insurance workforce that fully compensates for a reduction in the provisioning effort of another group member, avoiding a decrease in reproductive success. When we temporarily impaired a carer, decreasing its nest attendance, the laziest non-breeders increased their provisioning rate and individuals that initially refrained from visiting the nest started helping. Breeders, in contrast, did not increase chick provisioning. This shows that lazy non-breeders can buffer a sudden unfavourable circumstance and suggests that group stability relies on the potential contribution of group members in addition to their current effort.     

Protease activated receptors 1 and 4 sensitize TRPV1 in nociceptive neurones

The basal ganglia (BG) are composed of several nuclei involved in neural processing related to the execution of motor, cognitive and emotional activities. Preclinical and clinical data have implicated a role for these structures in pain processing. Recently neuroimaging has added important information on BG activation in conditions of acute pain, chronic pain and as a result of drug effects. Our current understanding of alterations in cortical and sub-cortical regions in pain suggests that the BG are uniquely involved in thalamo-cortico-BG loops to integrate many aspects of pain. These include the integration of motor, emotional, autonomic and cognitive responses to pain.     

The timing of perinatal hypoxia/ischemia events in term neonates: a retrospective autopsy study. HSPs, ORP-150 and COX2 are reliable markers to classify acute, perinatal events

Background

The understanding of the cellular responses implicated in perinatal brain damages and the characterization of the various mechanisms involved might open new horizons for understanding the time of onset of a brain hypoxic-ischemic lesion and for effective therapeutic strategies.

Methods

We performed an immunohistochemical investigation on brain and brainstem sections of 47 peripartum deaths. The gradation and localization of the expression of antibodies such as TNFα, IL-1β, IL-6, HSPs, β APP, anti-TrypH, GAP43, GFAP, COX2, ORP-150, could be correlated with an hypoxic-ischemic damage to document a significant correlation between response and the time of onset acute (≤8 hs) or non-acute (≥8 hs ≤48 hs).

Results and Discussions

In non-acute cases HSP70 reaction was prominent in the neuron cytoplasm, while in acute cases a mild reaction was evident in sporadic fields. HSP90 exhibited a similar pattern of positivity as HSP70. In acute group, ORP150 expressed an intense reaction showing a granular pattern in the cytoplasm of the neurons in the cortex of the infarcted areas. In non-acute group the positive reaction was more intense in astrocytes and less extended in neurons. COX2 reaction exhibited the strongest positive reaction in the neuronal cell bodies of acute cases, while a immunolabeling was prominent in the glial cytoplasm in the non-acute cases.

Conclusions

Chaperones HSP70 and 90, ORP-150 reaction, and COX2 protein, have provided very interesting results. These results would suggest to the clinicians to extend the differential diagnosis of a too large perinatal hypoxic-ischemic insult category to delineate a more accurate chronological judgement.     

Functional dissection of the Drosophila Kallmann's syndrome protein DmKal-1

Background

The proportion of muscle fibre types and their size affect muscularity as well as functional properties of the musculature and meat quality. We aimed to identify QTL for microstructural muscle properties including muscle fibre size, their numbers and fibre type proportions as well as biophysical parameters of meat quality and traits related to body composition, i.e. pH, conductivity, area of M. longissimus dorsi and lean meat content. A QTL scan was conducted in a porcine experimental population that is based on Duroc and Berlin Miniature Pig.

Results

Least square regression interval mapping revealed five significant and 42 suggestive QTL for traits related to muscle fibre composition under the line-cross model as well as eight significant and 40 suggestive QTL under the half-sib model. For traits related to body composition and biophysical parameters of meat quality five and twelve significant plus nine and 22 suggestive QTL were found under the line-cross and half-sib model, respectively. Regions with either significant QTL for muscle fibre traits or significant QTL for meat quality and muscularity or both were detected on SSC1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 13, 14, 15, and 16. QTL for microstructural properties explained a larger proportion of variance than did QTL for meat quality and body composition.

Conclusion

Microstructural properties of pig muscle and meat quality are governed by genetic variation at many loci distributed throughout the genome. QTL analysis under both, the line-cross and half-sib model, allows detecting QTL in case of fixation or segregation of the QTL alleles among the founder populations and thus provide comprehensive insight into the genetic variation of the traits under investigation. Genomic regions affecting complex traits of muscularity and meat quality as well as microstructural properties might point to QTL that in first instance affect muscle fibre traits and by this in second instance meat quality. Disentangling complex traits in their constituent phenotypes might facilitate the identification of QTL and the elucidation of the pleiotropic nature of QTL effects.     

Versatile grafting of polysaccharides in homogeneous mild conditions by using atom transfer radical polymerization

A versatile atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) method for polysaccharide grafting in homogeneous mild conditions without using protecting group chemistry is presented. Water/DMF mixtures with different compositions were used as the solvent. The "grafting-from" approach was used in order to prepare suitable pullulan and dextran ATRP macroinitiators with a well controlled degree of functionalization. Methacrylate and acrylamide monomers were grafted obtaining good control over the number, molecular weight and polydispersity of the grafted chains without homopolymer formation and polysaccharide degradation. The versatility of this method allowed us to prepare comblike derivatives with a wide range of properties (amphiphilic, ionic, and thermoresponsive) by simply changing the solvent composition and the catalyst. This could make possible the synthesis of new interesting biomaterials starting from a wide range of polysaccharides.     

Recombinant amyloidogenic domain of ApoA-I: analysis of its fibrillogenic potential

A variety of amyloid diseases are associated with fibrillar aggregates from N-terminal fragments of ApoA-I generated through a largely unexplored multi-step process. The understanding of the molecular mechanism is impaired by the lack of suitable amounts of the fibrillogenic polypeptides that could not be produced by recombinant methods so far. We report the production and the conformational analysis of recombinant ApoA-I 1-93 fragment. Similarly to the polypeptide isolated ex vivo, a pH switch from 7 to 4 induces a fast and reversible conformational transition to a helical state and leads to the identification of a key intermediate in the fibrillogenesis process. Limited proteolysis experiments suggested that the C-terminal region is involved in helix formation. The recombinant polypeptide generates fibrils at pH 4 on a time scale comparable with that of the native fragment. These findings open the way to studies on structural, thermodynamic, and kinetic aspects of ApoA-I fibrillogenesis.     

Low- and high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) characterisation of hyaluronan-based native and sulfated hydrogels

Hyaluronan-based hydrogels were synthesised using different crosslinking agents, such as 1,3-diaminopropane (1,3-DAP) and 1,6-diaminohexane (1,6-DAE). The hydrogels were sulfated to provide materials (Hyal-1,3-DAP, Hyal-1,6-DAE, HyalS-1,3-DAP and HyalS-1,6-DAE) that were characterised by both high- and low-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The (13)C NMR spectra of the materials were analysed to identify, characterise and study the crosslinking degree of the hydrogels. The crosslinking degree was also determined by potentiometric titration and the effectiveness of the two techniques was compared. Measurements of longitudinal relaxation times (spin-lattice) and of NOE enhancement were used to study the mobility of the hydrogels. Low-resolution NMR studies allowed the determination of the water transport properties in the hydrogels. In addition, the swelling degree for the various hydrogels was calculated as a function of the longitudinal and transversal relaxation times of the water molecules. Lastly, the self-diffusion coefficients of the water in interaction with the four polysaccharides were measured by the pulsed field gradient spin echo (PFGSE) sequence.     

The structures of the cell wall teichoic acids from the thermophilic microorganism Geobacillus thermoleovorans strain Fango

The structures of two teichoic acid fractions (TA1 and TA2) isolated from the thermophilic gram-positive bacterium Geobacillus thermoleovorans strain Fango were investigated by means of chemical and NMR spectroscopic methods. The most abundant species (TA1) exhibited a rather regular structure comprising two different repeating units of 1,3-glycerol phosphate nonstoichiometrically substituted by terminal-alpha-D-Gal p (t-alpha-D-Gal p). The second molecular species (TA2) presented a higher structural variability and t-alpha-D-Glc p and the disaccharides t-alpha-D-Glc pNAc-(1-->2)-alpha-D-Glc p and t-alpha-D-Glc pNAc-(1-->3)-alpha-D-Glc p were also present as minor substituents at O-2 of the glycerol phosphate residues. Minor substitution by alanine could also be detected.     

Analysis of cytoskeletal and motility proteins in the sea urchin genome assembly

The sea urchin embryo is a classical model system for studying the role of the cytoskeleton in such events as fertilization, mitosis, cleavage, cell migration and gastrulation. We have conducted an analysis of gene models derived from the Strongylocentrotus purpuratus genome assembly and have gathered strong evidence for the existence of multiple gene families encoding cytoskeletal proteins and their regulators in sea urchin. While many cytoskeletal genes have been cloned from sea urchin with sequences already existing in public databases, genome analysis reveals a significantly higher degree of diversity within certain gene families. Furthermore, genes are described corresponding to homologs of cytoskeletal proteins not previously documented in sea urchins. To illustrate the varying degree of sequence diversity that exists within cytoskeletal gene families, we conducted an analysis of genes encoding actins, specific actin-binding proteins, myosins, tubulins, kinesins, dyneins, specific microtubule-associated proteins, and intermediate filaments. We conducted ontological analysis of select genes to better understand the relatedness of urchin cytoskeletal genes to those of other deuterostomes. We analyzed developmental expression (EST) data to confirm the existence of select gene models and to understand their differential expression during various stages of early development.