Primary cilium—is it an osteocyte's strain‐sensing flowmeter?

With few exceptions, the non-cycling cells in a vast range of animals including humans have a non-motile primary cilium that extends from the mother centriole of the pair of centrioles in their centrosomes located between their Golgi apparatuses and nuclei. It has very recently been shown that the primary cilium of a dog or a mouse embryonic kidney cell is a fluid flowmeter studded with heterodimeric complexes of mechanoreceptors linked to Ca(2+)-permeable cation channels that when the cilium is bent can send Ca(2+) signals into the cell and beyond to neighboring cells through gap junctions. More than 30 years ago, osteocytes were reported also to have primary cilia, but this was promptly ignored or forgotten. Osteocytes are the bones' strain sensors, which measure skeletal activity from the effects of currents of extracellular fluid caused by their bones being bent and squeezed during various activities such as walking and running. Since bending a kidney cell's primary cilium can send a Ca(2+) wave surging through itself and its neighbors, the bending of an osteocyte's primary cilium by sloshing extracellular fluid is likely to do the same thing and thus be involved in measuring and responding to bone strain.     

民勤绿洲二白杨树干液流的径向变化及时滞特征

树木的树干液流是反映树木生理活动动态、估算单株耗水量的重要基础.本文利用热扩散技术,对民勤绿洲二白杨3株(30年生)大树树干边材各4个深度(2、3、5、8 cm)的液流速率(J)进行连续两个生长季(2011、2012)的监测.结果表明: 二白杨边材液流速率最高的位点约在形成层下3 cm深处(J₃),其次依次为2、5和8 cm处(J₂、J₅和J₈),在大气蒸发潜力(ET₀)最强的6月,典型晴天日的J₃可达28.53 g·cm^-2·h-1,分别是J₂、J₅和J₈的1.42、2.74和4.4倍,径向差异明显.在日变化过程中,边材不同深处间液流速率峰值出现的时刻相差在20 min以内,但与太阳总辐射(R_s)、大气水汽压亏缺(VPD)峰值出现的时刻相差较大,在生长旺季(6—8月)的典型晴天,J的峰值滞后R_s峰值的时长(时滞)可达55～88 min,越靠近边材内侧,时滞越长.J峰值提前于VPD峰值的时长达60～96 min,越靠近边材内侧,时滞越短.液流速率的季节变化与ET₀的变化基本一致,随着树木生理活动的逐渐加强,液流传输的主要层次会向边材内部延伸.驱动不同深处液流变化的首要气象因子均为R_s,第二大因子因不同深度有所变化,越靠近内侧,代表水汽状况的因子(VPD)的重要性上升,甚至接近于R_s.
     

Aerenchyma and lenticel formation in pine seedlings: A possible avoidance mechanism to anaerobic growth conditions

Seedlings of pond pine ( Pinus serotina Michx.), sand pine [ P. clausa (Engelm.) Sarg.], and loblolly pine ( P. taeda L., wet-site and drought-hardy seed sources) were grown in hydroponic solution culture using a non-circulating, continuously flowing design under anaerobic or aerobic conditions to determine whether flooding tolerance was correlated with enhanced internal root aeration. Transport of atmospheric O₂ from the shoot to the root of anaerobically grown loblolly and pond pine seedlings was demonstrated via rhizosphere oxidation, using both reduced indigo-carmine solution and a polarographic, ensheathing Pt-electrode. Stem and root collar lenticels were the major sites of atmospheric O₂ entry for submerged roots in these seedlings. No O₂ leakage was detected from roots of aerobically grown pine seedlings. Longitudinal and radial pathways for gaseous diffusion via intercellular air spaces in the pericycle and between ray parenchyma cells, respectively, were demonstrated histo-logically in anaerobically grown loblolly and pond pines. Rhizosphere oxidation, and lenticel and aerenchyma development in roots of flood-intolerant sand pine seedlings grown in anaerobic solutions were minimal. Only 15 days of anaerobic growth conditions were necessary to increase internal root porosities of loblolly and pond pine seedlings – although not to the extent found in seedlings treated for 30 or 75 days. Histological results indicated that root tissue in the secondary stage of growth was capable of forming intercellular air spaces, demonstrating a degree of internal plasticity – at least in the more flood-tolerant loblolly and pond pine seedlings.     

Extracellular Alix regulates integrin-mediated cell adhesions and extracellular matrix assembly

Alix (ALG-2-interacting protein X), a cytoplasmic adaptor protein involved in endosomal sorting and actin cytoskeleton assembly, is required for the maintenance of fibroblast morphology. As Alix has sequence similarity to adhesin in Entamoeba histolytica, and we observed that Alix is secreted, we determined whether extracellular Alix affects fibroblast morphology. Here, we demonstrate that secreted Alix is deposited on the substratum of non-immortalized WI38 fibroblasts. Antibody binding to extracellular Alix retards WI38 cell adhesion and spreading on fibronectin and vitronectin. Alix knockdown in WI38 cells reduces spreading and fibronectin assembly, and the effect is partially complemented by coating recombinant Alix on the cell substratum. Immortalized NIH/3T3 fibroblasts deposit less Alix on the substratum and have defects in α₅β₁-integrin functions. Coating recombinant Alix on the culture substratum for NIH/3T3 cells promotes α₅β₁-integrin-mediated cell adhesions and fibronectin assembly, and these effects require the aa 605–709 region of Alix. These findings demonstrate that a sub-population of Alix localizes extracellularly and regulates integrin-mediated cell adhesions and fibronectin matrix assembly.     

农业生态系统杂草多样性保持的生态学功能

杂草是农业生态系统中的重要生物组成部分 ,也是影响农林作物生长和导致产量下降的重要因素之一。过去人们一直努力将杂草从农业生态系统地中清除出去 ,对杂草的研究往往也更多地注重其危害性和防治途径。近年来保护农业生产区域中杂草等野生植物的多样性以及发挥其在维持生态平衡中的作用逐渐为人们所重视[1～4] 1) ,2 ) 。本文对国内外有关农业生态系统中杂草多样性保护及其生态学功能的研究报道作一简要概述 ,以供参考。1　农业生态系统杂草多样性保护早在 1 982年Ｈｉｂｉｇ提出不使用除草剂、不铲除杂草等办法保持农田周围、草地、园林…     

The non-canonical functions of p27Kip1 in normal and tumor biology

p27^Kip1 was first discovered as a key regulator of cell proliferation. The canonical function of p27^Kip1 is inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) activity. In addition to its initial identification as a CDK inhibitor, p27^Kip1 has also emerged as an intrinsically unstructured, multifunctional protein with numerous non-canonical, CDK-independent functions that exert influence on key processes such as cell cycle regulation, cytoskeletal dynamics and cellular plasticity, cell migration, and stem-cell proliferation and differentiation. Many of these non-canonical functions, depending on the cell-specific contexts such as oncogenic activation of signaling pathways, have the ability to turn pro-oncogenic in nature and even contribute to tumor-aggressiveness and metastasis. This review discusses the various non-canonical, CDK-independent mechanisms by which p27^Kip1 functions either as a tumor-suppressor or tumor-promoter.     

Prediction of temperature profiles in the human skin and subcutaneous tissues

Exact mathematical solutions in terms of confluent hypergeometric and Airy's functions are obtained to study the steady state temperature distributions in human skin and subcutaneous tissues (SST). It is assumed that the skin is exposed to an air environment and heat transfer from the skin occurs by convection, radiation and evaporation. A mathematical model of the SST, accounting for heat conduction, perfusion of the capillary beds and metabolic heat productions of the dermis and subcutaneous tissues, has been solved to obtain interface temperatures for a wide range of environmental temperatures, rates of evaporation of sweat, wind speeds and relative humidities. The solutions provide inter-relationships between interface temperatures, thermal conductivities, metabolic heat production, blood perfusion, thicknesses of various layers of SST and ambient temperature.     

Purification and Properties of the Trypsin Inhibitors from Buckwheat Seed

The trypsin inhibitors in buckwheat seeds were isolated by affinity chromatography on trypsin-Sepharose 4B, and the components were fractionated by chromatography on DEAE-Sepharose CL-6B. The major components, inhibitors I, II and III, were found to be homogeneous proteins with molecular weight of about 8,000. Trypsin inhibitory activity was more pronounced than the chymotrypsin inhibitory activity in all the inhibitor preparation obtained. The three major inhibitors had similar amino acid compositions and had no detectable amounts of tryptophan and carbohydrate. A high level of acidic and basic amino acid residues and a low level of methionine, tyrosine and phenylalanine residues characterized the inhibitors. Although the inhibitors I and II were particularly thermostable, inhibitor III, the most abundant component, was shown to be relatively heat-labile.     

Gas phase infrared spectra via the phase integration quasi-classical method

We apply the recently developed phase integration method (PIM) (Monteferrante et al. Mol Phys. 2011;109:3015–3027) to the calculation of infrared spectra of gas phase molecules. The PIM combines a generalised Monte Carlo sampling of the exact thermal density of the system with classical molecular dynamics to obtain approximate time quantum correlation functions. To describe the molecules, we adopt very simple analytical potentials that have, however, proved interesting, and surprisingly challenging, benchmarks for approximate quantum dynamical schemes. We show that, in contrast with two other commonly applied methods, our spectra do not exhibit spurious features or unphysical shifts depending on the temperature. Identifying the positions of the peaks requires only a few tens of trajectories, while an accurate evaluation of the relative intensities of the peaks is computationally more demanding.