Odourant dominance in olfactory mixture processing: what makes a strong odourant?

The question of how animals process stimulus mixtures remains controversial as opposing views propose that mixtures are processed analytically, as the sum of their elements, or holistically, as unique entities different from their elements. Overshadowing is a widespread phenomenon that can help decide between these alternatives. In overshadowing, an individual trained with a binary mixture learns one element better at the expense of the other. Although element salience (learning success) has been suggested as a main explanation for overshadowing, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. We studied olfactory overshadowing in honeybees to uncover the mechanisms underlying olfactory-mixture processing. We provide, to our knowledge, the most comprehensive dataset on overshadowing to date based on 90 experimental groups involving more than 2700 bees trained either with six odourants or with their resulting 15 binary mixtures. We found that bees process olfactory mixtures analytically and that salience alone cannot predict overshadowing. After normalizing learning success, we found that an unexpected feature, the generalization profile of an odourant, was determinant for overshadowing. Odourants that induced less generalization enhanced their distinctiveness and became dominant in the mixture. Our study thus uncovers features that determine odourant dominance within olfactory mixtures and allows the referring of this phenomenon to differences in neural activity both at the receptor and the central level in the insect nervous system.     

Trace Metal Mixture Toxicity in Aquatic Organism Reviewed from a Biotoxicity Perspective

Biotoxicity of individual metals is well investigated but that of metal mixture, an environmental reality, in the developing metal mixture, is relatively obscure. Experimental evidences had shown that this mixture could give rise to combined effects that were different from the effect of metals one by one. This review provides an overview of recent research on metal mixture toxicity and the methods employed to predict their toxic combined effects. The two established reference models, the concentration-addition model and the independent-addition model, were used for evaluating the combined effect from the biological activities of the metal mixtures. While the reference models had provided reasonable tools for analyzing the combined effects, the actual predictions for binary metal mixtures showed often somewhat less than additive combined effects compared to what has been observed. As the metal bioavailability is oriented by several environmental factors as well as the toxicodynamics of metals is highly compound-specific, the non-interactive combined effects may be confused with different processes of the interactions. Thus, for improving the predictability of combined effects in metal mixture toxicity, numerous qualitative and quantitative analysis are required for the processes governing the toxicokinetics and dynamics of metals in aquatic organisms.     

Combined arginine and ascorbic acid treatment induces apoptosis in the hepatoma cell line HA22T/VGH and changes in redox status involving the pentose phosphate pathway and reactive oxygen and nitrogen species

Arginine is a physiological substrate for nitric oxide synthase to generate nitric oxide (NO), which can influence tumor cell survival, while ascorbic acid is selectively toxic for cancer cells. This study explored the effect of an arginine/ascorbic acid combination on human cancer cell lines. The hepatoma cell line HA22T/VGH was the most sensitive of the tested cells to combination treatment. A combination of 5.74 mM of arginine and 0.57 mM of ascorbic acid induced HA22T/VGH cell death through apoptosis and an increase in levels of reactive oxygen species and NO, as well as its stable products NO₂⁻ and NO₃⁻. The combination also reduced the activity of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, and transaldolase in the pentose phosphate pathway, a major mechanism for producing NADPH, resulting in a marked decrease in intracellular NADPH levels. A dramatic decrease in intracellular glutathione (GSH) levels, a decrease in the mitochondrial membrane potential, ATP depletion and release of cytochrome c were also seen. Caspase-9 and caspase-3 were activated, apoptotic protein Bax expression increased and the expression of the anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL decreased. These results suggest that this combination induced HA22T/VGH cell death by interfering with redox state regulation by a reduction in pentose phosphate pathway activity and increasing oxidative and nitrosative stress.     

From phenotype to genotype: a Bayesian solution

The study of biological systems commonly depends on inferring the state of a 'hidden' variable, such as an underlying genotype, from that of an 'observed' variable, such as an expressed phenotype. However, this cannot be achieved using traditional quantitative methods when more than one genetic mechanism exists for a single observable phenotype. Using a novel latent class Bayesian model, it is possible to infer the prevalence of different genetic elements in a population given a sample of phenotypes. As an exemplar, data comprising phenotypic resistance to six antimicrobials obtained from passive surveillance of Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 are analysed to infer the prevalence of individual resistance genes, as well as the prevalence of a genomic island known as SGI1 and its variants. Three competing models are fitted to the data and distinguished between using posterior predictive p-values to assess their ability to predict the observed number of unique phenotypes. The results suggest that several SGI1 variants circulate in a few fixed forms through the population from which our data were derived. The methods presented could be applied to other types of phenotypic data, and represent a useful and generic mechanism of inferring the genetic population structure of organisms.     

延衰合剂对D-半乳糖衰老模型小鼠学习记忆及抗氧化能力的影响(英文)

为观察延衰合剂(Yanshuai mixture,YSM)的延缓衰老作用,采用D-半乳糖连续颈背部皮下注射诱导亚急性衰老小鼠模型,造模同时给予YSM低、中、高剂量灌胃,连续10周。观察小鼠衰老征象,Moriss水迷宫检测学习记忆功能,测定血清及脑组织中总抗氧化能力(T-AOC)、超氧化物歧化酶(SOD)、丙二醛(MDA)。结果显示,与模型组比较,YSM各剂量组均能使小鼠逃避潜伏期明显缩短,原平台象限游泳时间明显延长(P<0.05);YSM高剂量组T-AOC、SOD活性显著升高(P<0.01),MDA水平显著下降(P<0.01)。表明YSM可明显改善衰老小鼠学习记忆功能,提高抗氧化能力,从而可能具有较好的延缓衰老的作用。     

葡糖酸醋杆菌内源复制片段的克隆

采用改进的碱裂解法提取Gluconacetobacter hansenii ATCC23769自发不产膜突变体的内源隐蔽质粒。用不同的限制性内切酶对混合质粒直接进行酶切,酶切后的片段混合物与pUC18载体连接构建重组载体。重组载体回转入G.hansenii ATCC23769获得隐蔽质粒上具有复制能力的片段,序列结果分析表明:该片段上没有某些其他质粒所具有的Rep蛋白。利用该片段,构建了能同时在大肠杆菌和葡糖酸醋杆菌中复制的质粒载体,体内的抗生素抗性实验证明该载体具有良好的稳定性。     

大桑菊合剂的提取工艺研究

目的:大桑菊合剂为医院制剂,由桑叶、菊花、薄荷、连翘、鱼腥草等中药经乙醇提取制成,为完善大桑菊合剂的制备工艺,对该制剂的制备工艺进行初步的研究。方法:①实验设计:以加水量、提取时间、提取次数和醇沉浓度为考察因素,各因素均取3水平,采用正交试验L(934)优选制备工艺。②含量测定方法:以大桑菊饮合剂中总黄酮的含量为指标,以芦丁为标准品,利用紫外分光光度计于503nm下测定吸光值,计算样品中总黄酮的含量,以此作为筛选大桑菊合剂最佳制备工艺的重要指标。结果:最佳制备工艺为不浸泡,加8倍水,提取3次,每次1小时。结论:经正交设计优化的大桑菊合剂的中药制备工艺合理、可行。     

Regulation of cuticular and postpharyngeal hydrocarbons in the slave-making ant Polyergus rufescens: effect of Formica rufibarbis slaves

The purpose of this study was to compare cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of slave-making Polyergus rufescens ants reared alone or with their Formica rufibarbis slaves. Chemical analyses showed that due to the close contacts occurring when the Formica were tending the Polyergus, the synthesis of the cuticular hydrocarbons carried by the slaves was enhanced in the slave-makers. The postpharyngeal hydrocarbon levels increased during the first 15 days of life, whether or not the Polyergus were exposed to Formica. Our findings suggest that Polyergus is able to secrete all components of their cuticular hydrocarbon blend and that none are acquired through contact with Formica. In addition to presenting our experimental evidence, several hypotheses are proposed to explain the synthesis and regulation of hydrocarbon blends borne when these two species cohabitate within a single colony.     

Respiratory pattern of captive Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis)

Cetacean respiration usually happen in bouts. The most widely applied quantitative method used to analyze the structure of these bouts is the log_e-survivorship analysis, based on the assumption that the respiratory intervals are distributed as negative exponentials. However, for the data collected from three captive Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis), we failed to obtain a convergent result with the application of log_e-survivorship analysis. However, the two-Gaussian model, which was recently proposed to analyze the feeding behavior of cows, was successfully fitted to the data. According to the fitting results, the overall respiratory pattern of the captive Yangtze finless porpoises can be described as a dive with a mean duration of around 30–40 s, followed by two or three ventilations with a mean interval of approximately 9 s. The average intra-bout intervals during both active and inactive periods are constant at 7.7–9.9 s for all individuals. However, when shifting from active to inactive states, the adult male and female decrease their mean numbers of respirations per bout and average length of inter-bout respiratory intervals, while the estimates of both parameters increase for the juvenile female. It was pointed out that the two-Gaussian model might be more adequate for cetacean respiratory-bout structure analyses than the log_e-survivorship technique.     

A quantitative analysis on latent heat of an aqueous binary mixture

The latent heat during phase change of water-NaCl binary mixture was measured using a differential scanning calorimeter, and the magnitude for two distinct phase change events, water/ice and eutectic phase change, were analyzed considering the phase change characteristics of a binary mixture. During the analysis, the latent heat associated with each event was calculated by normalizing the amount of each endothermic peak with only the amount of sample participating in each event estimated from the lever rule for the phase diagram. The resulting latent heat of each phase change measured is 303.7 +/- 2.5 J/g for water/ice phase change, and 233.0 +/- 1.6 J/g for eutectic phase change, respectively regardless of the initial concentration of mixture. Although the latent heats of water/ice phase change in water-NaCl mixtures are closely correlated, further study is warranted to investigate the reason for smaller latent heat of water/ice phase change than that in pure water (335 J/g). The analysis using the lever rule was extended to estimate the latent heat of dihydrate as 115 J/g with the measured eutectic and water/ice latent heat values. This new analysis based on the lever rule will be useful to estimate the latent heat of water-NaCl mixtures at various concentrations, and may become a framework for more general analysis of latent heat of various biological solutions.