Measuring ecological impact of water consumption by bioethanol using life cycle impact assessment

Purpose  

Though the development of biofuel has attracted numerous studies for quantifying potential water demand applying life cycle thinking, the impacts of biofuel water consumption still remain unknown. In this study, we aimed to quantify ecological impact associated with corn-based bioethanol water consumption in Minnesota in responding to different refinery expansion scenarios by applying a life cycle impact assessment method.     

Screening method for microorganisms producing L-aminoacids from D,L-5-monosubstituted hydantoins

Summary The ability of microorganisms to produce hydantoinase and L-N-carbamoylase could be established by an overlay assay. Enzyme producing strains form clear areas around their colonies caused by the cleavage of D,L-indolylmethylhydantoin. A second overlayer with a tryptophan-auxotroph yeast enables us to detect microorganisms which are able to produce L-tryptophan from D,L-indolylmethylhydantoin.     

Functional analysis of a single chain chimeric alpha/beta-granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor receptor. Importance of a glutamate residue in the transmembrane region.

To analyze the function of each subunit of the receptor for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), GMR, we previously generated a single-chain chimeric receptor by fusion of the extracellular and transmembrane domain from the alpha-subunit (alpha-GMR) to the intracellular part of the beta-subunit (beta-GMR) introducing an additional glutamate residue at the fusion site (alpha/beta-GMR). We demonstrated the capacity of alpha/beta-GMR to bind GM-CSF with low affinity and to induce GM-CSF-dependent activation of tyrosine kinase activity and proliferation in transfected Ba/F3 cells. To further compare the functions of wild type and chimeric receptors, we now report that this alpha/beta-GMR is sufficient to mediate morphological changes, expression of alpha(4)- and beta(1)-integrin receptor subunits, and serine-phosphorylation of Akt kinase. To analyze the function of the glutamate residue at the fusion region of alpha/beta-GMR various point mutants changing this amino acid and its position were expressed in Ba/F3 cells. None of these mutants was capable of supporting GM-CSF-dependent proliferation; however, when beta-GMR was coexpressed, GM-CSF mediated short and long term proliferation. Interestingly, some mutants but not alpha/beta-GMR can induce proliferation in the presence of an anti-alpha-GMR antibody. These data demonstrate the significance of a glutamate residue in the transmembrane region of alpha/beta-GMR for ligand-induced receptor activation.     

Neuronal Basis of Innate Olfactory Attraction to Ethanol in Drosophila

The decision to move towards a mating partner or a food source is essential for life. The mechanisms underlying these behaviors are not well understood. Here, we investigated the role of octopamine – the invertebrate analogue of noradrenaline – in innate olfactory attraction to ethanol. We confirmed that preference is caused via an olfactory stimulus by dissecting the function of the olfactory co-receptor Orco (formally known as OR83b). Orco function is not required for ethanol recognition per se, however it plays a role in context dependent recognition of ethanol. Odor-evoked ethanol preference requires the function of Tbh (Tyramine β hydroxalyse), the rate-limiting enzyme of octopamine synthesis. In addition, neuronal activity in a subset of octopaminergic neurons is necessary for olfactory ethanol preference. Notably, a specific neuronal activation pattern of tyraminergic/octopaminergic neurons elicit preference and is therefore sufficient to induce preference. In contrast, dopamine dependent increase in locomotor activity is not sufficient for olfactory ethanol preference. Consistent with the role of noradrenaline in mammalian drug induced rewards, we provide evidence that in adult Drosophila the octopaminergic neurotransmitter functions as a reinforcer and that the molecular dissection of the innate attraction to ethanol uncovers the basic properties of a response selection system.     

State-of-the art data normalization methods improve NMR-based metabolomic analysis

Extracting biomedical information from large metabolomic datasets by multivariate data analysis is of considerable complexity. Common challenges include among others screening for differentially produced metabolites, estimation of fold changes, and sample classification. Prior to these analysis steps, it is important to minimize contributions from unwanted biases and experimental variance. This is the goal of data preprocessing. In this work, different data normalization methods were compared systematically employing two different datasets generated by means of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. To this end, two different types of normalization methods were used, one aiming to remove unwanted sample-to-sample variation while the other adjusts the variance of the different metabolites by variable scaling and variance stabilization methods. The impact of all methods tested on sample classification was evaluated on urinary NMR fingerprints obtained from healthy volunteers and patients suffering from autosomal polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). Performance in terms of screening for differentially produced metabolites was investigated on a dataset following a Latin-square design, where varied amounts of 8 different metabolites were spiked into a human urine matrix while keeping the total spike-in amount constant. In addition, specific tests were conducted to systematically investigate the influence of the different preprocessing methods on the structure of the analyzed data. In conclusion, preprocessing methods originally developed for DNA microarray analysis, in particular, Quantile and Cubic-Spline Normalization, performed best in reducing bias, accurately detecting fold changes, and classifying samples.

     

Protection of Mice against Lethal Coxsackievirus B3 Infection by Using DNA Immunization

Vaccination with DNA and recombinant vaccinia viruses (rec.VV) has been studied with the coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) model system. Plasmids encoding all structural proteins of CVB3, when injected intramuscularly, induced only low levels of virus-specific antibodies. However, DNA vaccination with the major structural protein VP1 protected 72.2% of mice from lethal challenge, whereas VP1 expressed by rec.VV was much less efficient.     

A phylogenetic analysis of species in the Bufo crucifer group (Anura: Bufonidae), based on indolealkylamines and proteins from skin secretions

This research tested the utility of two classes of skin secretion compounds to the phylogeny of the Bufo crucifer group. Skin secretions from specimens of nine populations of B. crucifer group were obtained and submitted to qualitative analysis. We observed a clear difference in the composition of the skin secretion molecules obtained from the species of Bufo studied. Fifty-nine molecules, 16 indolealkylamines and 43 proteins, were used as characters, and 39 of these were parsimonious informative. The tree topology of the skin secretion combined data showed areas of congruence and conflict when compared to an mtDNA phylogeny of the B. crucifer group. We used the Templeton test to evaluate the heterogeneity between the skin secretion and mtDNA data. Although not recommended, we performed a combined analysis with the two partitions. The skin secretion characters from the species of Bufo studied have phylogenetic signal. These data are indicative, at least as a preliminary study, of the phylogenetic relationships among the B. crucifer group taxa.     

Infection of Coscinodiscus spp. by the parasitoid nanoflagellate Pirsonia diadema: II. Selective infection behaviour for host species and individual host cells

The parasitoid nanoflagellate (PNF) Pirsonia diadema is hostspecific for the marine centric diatom Coscinodiscus spp. Experimentsshowed that flagellates significantly prefer C. wailesii overC.granii as host species (interspecific selectivity). This preferencewas independent of light conditions (dark, irradiance of 10and 70 µmol m^–2 s^–1) and temperature (10 and15C). Among unicellular host diatoms, the infection behaviourwas selective for individual cells: already infected C.graniicells were more attractive for further flagellate attachmentthan non-infected cells (intraspecific selectivity). Individualcells (