Metabolism of 125I-atrial natriuretic factor by vascular smooth muscle cells. Evidence for a peptidase that specifically removes the COOH-terminal tripeptide

The addition of 200 pM monoiodinated human atrial natriuretic factor-(99-126) (125I-hANF) to cultured bovine aortic smooth muscle cells at 37 degrees C resulted in a rapid clearance from the medium (t1/2 approximately 7.5 min). Within 5 min, [125I]iodotyrosine126 (125I-Y), Arg125-[125I]iodotyrosine126 (125I-RY) and Phe124-Arg-[125]iodotyrosine126 (125I-FRY) appeared in the medium. The identities of these degradation products were confirmed by 1) retention time on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) relative to standards, 2) products generated by digestion with aminopeptidase M, and 3) the absence of the Met110. Preincubation of the cells with ammonium chloride or chloroquine resulted in a significant increase in the intracellular accumulation of radiolabel, indicative of endocytosis and rapid delivery of 125I-hANF to an acidic intracellular compartment (endosome and/or lysosome). Neither ammonium chloride, chloroquine, nor excess unlabeled hANF blocked the rapid appearance in the medium of 125I-RY or 125I-FRY. Bestatin inhibited the generation of 125I-RY, with a concomitant increase in 125I-FRY, suggesting that the 125I-RY is produced by aminopeptidase action on 125I-FRY. The endopeptidase 24.11 (enkephalinase) inhibitor, SCH 39370, did not inhibit the formation of 125I-FRY. These results provide evidence of a peptidase capable of specifically removing the COOH-terminal tripeptide from 125I-hANF. The COOH-terminal tripeptide, Phe124-Arg-Tyr126, was also isolated from cell digests of hANF by HPLC and its identity confirmed by amino acid analysis. Since it is generally believed that the COOH-terminal tripeptide is critical to many of atrial natriuretic factor-(99-126)'s bioactivities, this enzyme may be involved in the inactivation of atrial natriuretic factor-(99-126) in target tissues.     

Beam Manipulation by Hybrid Plasmonic-Dielectric Metasurfaces

A hybrid plasmonic-dielectric metasurface is proposed in order to manipulate beam propagation in desired manners. The metasurface is composed of patterned hybrid graphene-silicon nano-disks deposited on a low-index substrate, namely silica. It is shown that the proposed hybrid metasurface simultaneously benefits from the advantages of graphene-based metasurfaces and dielectric ones. Specially, we show that the proposed hybrid metasurface not only provides reconfigurability, just like previously proposed graphene-based metasurfaces, but also similar to dielectric metasurfaces, is of low loss and CMOS-compatible. Such exceptional features give the metasurface exceptional potentials to realize high efficient optical components. To demonstrate the latter point, focusing and anomalous reflection are performed making use of the proposed hybrid structure as examples of two well-known optical functionalities. This work opens up a new route in realization of reconfigurable meta-devices with widely real-world applications which cannot be achieved with their passive counterparts.

     

Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Services and Implications for the Provision of Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision: Results of a Systematic Literature Review

Background

Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) is a critical HIV prevention tool. Since 2007, sub-Saharan African countries with the highest prevalence of HIV have been mobilizing resources to make VMMC available. While implementers initially targeted adult men, demand has been highest for boys under age 18. It is important to understand how male adolescents can best be served by quality VMMC services.

Methods and Findings

A systematic literature review was performed to synthesize the evidence on best practices in adolescent health service delivery specific to males in sub-Saharan Africa. PubMed, Scopus, and JSTOR databases were searched for literature published between January 1990 and March 2014. The review revealed a general absence of health services addressing the specific needs of male adolescents, resulting in knowledge gaps that could diminish the benefits of VMMC programming for this population. Articles focused specifically on VMMC contained little information on the adolescent subgroup. The review revealed barriers to and gaps in sexual and reproductive health and VMMC service provision to adolescents, including structural factors, imposed feelings of shame, endorsement of traditional gender roles, negative interactions with providers, violations of privacy, fear of pain associated with the VMMC procedure, and a desire for elements of traditional non-medical circumcision methods to be integrated into medical procedures. Factors linked to effective adolescent-focused services included the engagement of parents and the community, an adolescent-friendly service environment, and VMMC counseling messages sufficiently understood by young males.

Conclusions

VMMC presents an opportune time for early involvement of male adolescents in HIV prevention and sexual and reproductive health programming. However, more research is needed to determine how to align VMMC services with the unique needs of this population.     

Acoustic sequences in non‐human animals: a tutorial review and prospectus

Animal acoustic communication often takes the form of complex sequences, made up of multiple distinct acoustic units. Apart from the well‐known example of birdsong, other animals such as insects, amphibians, and mammals (including bats, rodents, primates, and cetaceans) also generate complex acoustic sequences. Occasionally, such as with birdsong, the adaptive role of these sequences seems clear (e.g. mate attraction and territorial defence). More often however, researchers have only begun to characterise – let alone understand – the significance and meaning of acoustic sequences. Hypotheses abound, but there is little agreement as to how sequences should be defined and analysed. Our review aims to outline suitable methods for testing these hypotheses, and to describe the major limitations to our current and near‐future knowledge on questions of acoustic sequences. This review and prospectus is the result of a collaborative effort between 43 scientists from the fields of animal behaviour, ecology and evolution, signal processing, machine learning, quantitative linguistics, and information theory, who gathered for a 2013 workshop entitled, ‘Analysing vocal sequences in animals’. Our goal is to present not just a review of the state of the art, but to propose a methodological framework that summarises what we suggest are the best practices for research in this field, across taxa and across disciplines. We also provide a tutorial‐style introduction to some of the most promising algorithmic approaches for analysing sequences. We divide our review into three sections: identifying the distinct units of an acoustic sequence, describing the different ways that information can be contained within a sequence, and analysing the structure of that sequence. Each of these sections is further subdivided to address the key questions and approaches in that area. We propose a uniform, systematic, and comprehensive approach to studying sequences, with the goal of clarifying research terms used in different fields, and facilitating collaboration and comparative studies. Allowing greater interdisciplinary collaboration will facilitate the investigation of many important questions in the evolution of communication and sociality.     

Sustained Ranavirus Outbreak Causes Mass Mortality and Morbidity of Imperiled Amphibians in Florida

EcoHealth - A persistent 2-month long outbreak of Ranavirus in a natural community of amphibians contributed to a mass die-off of gopher frog tadpoles (Lithobates capito) and severe disease in...     

6-(2-Furanyl)-9H-purin-2-amine derivatives as A2A adenosine antagonists

Structure-activity relationships have been investigated through substitutions at the 9-position of the 2-amino-6-(2-furanyl) purine (5) to identify novel and selective A(2A) adenosine receptor antagonists. Several potent and selective antagonists were identified. In particular, compounds 20, 25, and 26 show very high affinity with excellent selectivity.