Diversity patterns from sequentially restored grasslands support the ‘environmental heterogeneity hypothesis’

The ‘environmental heterogeneity hypothesis’ (EHH) has been proposed as a mechanism that enables species coexistence through resource partitioning. In accordance with this hypothesis, plant diversity is predicted to increase with variability in resources, but there has been weak support for this hypothesis from experimental studies. The objectives of this research were to 1) characterize how resource availability and heterogeneity (coefficient of variation) change as plant communities develop using sequentially restored grasslands, 2) determine if resource heterogeneity relates to plant diversity (effective number of species, richness and evenness) and 3) reveal if the strength of resource heterogeneity–diversity relationships is different among levels of resource availability. We quantified means and coefficients of variation in soil nitrate and light availability in grasslands established on former agricultural lands for different times and their relationship to plant diversity using a geostatistically‐informed design. Nitrate availability decreased exponentially with restoration age, but no directional change in nitrate heterogeneity across the chronosequence occurred due to high resource variability in some restorations. Light availability also decreased exponentially across the chronosequence, but there was no directional change in light heterogeneity. Nitrate heterogeneity was positively correlated with both plant richness and plant effective number of species at high levels of nitrate availability. However, no nitrate heterogeneity correlation was detected at low levels of nitrate availability. Light heterogeneity was positively correlated with plant effective number of species at low levels of light availability. However, no light heterogeneity correlation was detected at high levels of light availability. Plant evenness was not correlated with resource heterogeneity at any resource availability level. These results support the positive heterogeneity–diversity relationship predicted by EHH, and uniquely that this relationship develops within a decade of plant community development, but can be obscured by resource availability.     

Coupling dynamics and evolutionary information with structure to identify protein regulatory and functional binding sites

Binding sites in proteins can be either specifically functional binding sites (active sites) that bind specific substrates with high affinity or regulatory binding sites (allosteric sites), that modulate the activity of functional binding sites through effector molecules. Owing to their significance in determining protein function, the identification of protein functional and regulatory binding sites is widely acknowledged as an important biological problem. In this work, we present a novel binding site prediction method, Active and Regulatory site Prediction (AR-Pred), which supplements protein geometry, evolutionary, and physicochemical features with information about protein dynamics to predict putative active and allosteric site residues. As the intrinsic dynamics of globular proteins plays an essential role in controlling binding events, we find it to be an important feature for the identification of protein binding sites. We train and validate our predictive models on multiple balanced training and validation sets with random forest machine learning and obtain an ensemble of discrete models for each prediction type. Our models for active site prediction yield a median area under the curve (AUC) of 91% and Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) of 0.68, whereas the less well-defined allosteric sites are predicted at a lower level with a median AUC of 80% and MCC of 0.48. When tested on an independent set of proteins, our models for active site prediction show comparable performance to two existing methods and gains compared to two others, while the allosteric site models show gains when tested against three existing prediction methods. AR-Pred is available as a free downloadable package at https://github.com/sambitmishra0628/AR-PRED_source .     

Passive acoustic monitoring predicts daily variation in North Atlantic right whale presence and relative abundance in Roseway Basin,Canada

North Atlantic right whale monitoring in Roseway Basin, Canada, is primarily based on short‐term (<14 d) visual surveys conducted during August–September. Variability in survey effort has been the biggest limiting factor to studying changes in the population's occurrence and habitat use. Such efforts could be enhanced considerably using passive acoustic monitoring (PAM). We sought to determine if variation in whale presence, relative abundance, demography, and/or behavior (estimated through visual surveys) could be explained by variation in three right whale call types in this habitat. A generalized linear model was fit to 23 d of concurrent PAM and visual monitoring during four summers within the Roseway Basin Right Whale Critical Habitat boundaries. The model revealed significant positive relationships between relative abundance, call counts and presence of surface‐active group behavior. PAM can refine daily right whale presence estimates. While visual observations (n = 23 d) implied a 40% decline in right whale presence during 2014–2015 relative to 2004–2005, PAM data (n = 211 d) showed right whales were present between 71%–85% of survey days throughout all years analyzed. We demonstrate that PAM is a useful tool to extend periods of right whale monitoring, especially in areas where visual monitoring efforts may be limited.     

不同品种淫羊藿黄酮类有效成分的主成分分析及对肾阳虚大鼠保护作用的研究

采用HPLC测定不同品种淫羊藿黄酮类即淫羊藿苷、朝藿定A、朝藿定B、朝藿定C4种有效成分含量,结合主成分分析对不同品种淫羊藿进行质量分析与评价,并考察淫羊藿对大鼠肾阳虚保护作用.将实验动物随机分为阳虚模型对照组(模型组)、金匮肾气丸干预组(阳性组)、淫羊藿低(125 mg/kg)、中(250 mg/kg)、高(500 ...     

毒根斑鸠菊中的一个新倍半萜的分离与鉴定

为了更好的研究毒根斑鸠菊(Vernonia cumingiana Benth)叶茎的化学成分与活性测定,利用硅胶柱层析、Sephadex LH-20等柱色谱技术对毒根斑鸠菊叶茎提取物进行了分离,并采用现代波谱学技术(1 H NMR、13C NMR、HMBC、HMQC等)及X-射线单晶衍射技术并根据其理化性质鉴定了七个化...     

木犀草素通过调节凝血活性物质及凝血因子含量维持机体血液循环功能的稳定

目的 探讨木犀草素通过调节凝血活性物质及凝血因子含量维持机体血液循环功能的作用机制.方法 采用试剂盒和试管法测定木犀草素作用后的凝血酶原时间和血浆复钙时间;采用酶联免疫吸附法检测木犀草素对血液凝血活性物质血栓素(TXB2)、纤维酶原激活物抑制剂(PAI-1)、促红细胞生成素(EPO)和凝血因子Ⅶ(FⅦ)、凝血因子Ⅸ(F...     

The mechanism of aconitase: 1.8 A resolution crystal structure of the S642a:citrate complex

The crystal structure of the S642A mutant of mitochondrial aconitase (mAc) with citrate bound has been determined at 1.8 A resolution and 100 K to capture this binding mode of substrates to the native enzyme. The 2.0 A resolution, 100 K crystal structure of the S642A mutant with isocitrate binding provides a control, showing that the Ser --> Ala replacement does not alter the binding of substrates in the active site. The aconitase mechanism requires that the intermediate product, cis-aconitate, flip over by 180 degrees about the C alpha-C beta double bond. Only one of these two alternative modes of binding, that of the isocitrate mode, has been previously visualized. Now, however, the structure revealing the citrate mode of binding provides direct support for the proposed enzyme mechanism.     

Recent advances in the structure and function of isopenicillin N synthase

Isopenicillin N synthase is a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics, catalyzing the oxidative ring closure of -(L--aminoadipoyl)-L-cysteinyl-D-valine to form isopenicillin N. Recent advances in our understanding of the unique chemistry of this enzyme have come through the combined application of spectroscopic, molecular genetic and crystallographic approaches and led to important new insights into the structure and function of this enzyme. Here we review new information on the nature of the endogenous ligands that constitute the ferrous iron active site, sequence evidence for a novel structural motif involved in iron binding in this and related non-heme iron dependent dioxygenases, crystal structure studies on the enzyme and its substrate complex and the impact of these and site-directed mutagenesis studies for unraveling the mechanism of the isopenicillin N synthase reaction.     

Structure of Pyridoxal Kinase from Sheep Brain and Role of the Tryptophanyl Residues

The primary structure of sheep brain pyridoxal kinase has been determined by direct chemical and physical methods. The enzyme contains 312 amino acid residues with an acetylated methionine at the N-terminus, yielding a molecular mass of 34,861 Da. The functional role played by the two tryptophanyl residues in positions 52 and 244 of the polypeptide chain has been investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy. The tryptophanyl residues are not completely exposed to the rapidly relaxing solvent and they are poorly accessible to collisional quenchers. Chemical modification with NBS abolishes the catalytic activity of the kinase. The amino acid sequence of the sheep brain enzyme shows high similarity (86.2% identity) with the human pyridoxal kinase recently reported [Hanna, Turner, and Kirkness, (1997), J. Biol. Chem. 272, 10756–10760]. Comparison of the mammalian proteins with bacterial and yeast putative pyridoxal kinases retrieved from the Swiss-Prot data bank shows a low degree of overall similarity. In particular, the putative ATP-binding domain is conserved, whereas the region that appears to be crucial in the binding of the pyridoxal substrate is not. Thus, the assignment of the bacterial and yeast cDNA-deduced proteins as pyridoxal kinases should be taken with caution.