Auxin and Root Gravitropism: Addressing Basic Cellular Processes by Exploiting a Defined Growth Response

Root architecture and growth are decisive for crop performance and yield, and thus a highly topical research field in plant sciences. The root system of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana is the ideal system to obtain insights into fundamental key parameters and molecular players involved in underlying regulatory circuits of root growth, particularly in responses to environmental stimuli. Root gravitropism, directional growth along the gravity, in particular represents a highly sensitive readout, suitable to study adjustments in polar auxin transport and to identify molecular determinants involved. This review strives to summarize and give an overview into the function of PIN-FORMED auxin transport proteins, emphasizing on their sorting and polarity control. As there already is an abundance of information, the focus lies in integrating this wealth of information on mechanisms and pathways. This overview of a highly dynamic and complex field highlights recent developments in understanding the role of auxin in higher plants. Specifically, it exemplifies, how analysis of a single, defined growth response contributes to our understanding of basic cellular processes in general.     

Out-of-Field Hippocampus from Partial-Body Irradiated Mice Displays Changes in Multi-Omics Profile and Defects in Neurogenesis

The brain undergoes ionizing radiation exposure in many clinical situations, particularly during radiotherapy for brain tumors. The critical role of the hippocampus in the pathogenesis of radiation-induced neurocognitive dysfunction is well recognized. The goal of this study is to test the potential contribution of non-targeted effects in the detrimental response of the hippocampus to irradiation and to elucidate the mechanisms involved. C57Bl/6 mice were whole body (WBI) or partial body (PBI) irradiated with 0.1 or 2.0 Gy of X-rays or sham irradiated. PBI consisted of the exposure of the lower third of the mouse body, whilst the upper two thirds were shielded. Hippocampi were collected 15 days or 6 months post-irradiation and a multi-omics approach was adopted to assess the molecular changes in non-coding RNAs, proteins and metabolic levels, as well as histological changes in the rate of hippocampal neurogenesis. Notably, at 2.0 Gy the pattern of early molecular and histopathological changes induced in the hippocampus at 15 days following PBI were similar in quality and quantity to the effects induced by WBI, thus providing a proof of principle of the existence of out-of-target radiation response in the hippocampus of conventional mice. We detected major alterations in DAG/IP3 and TGF-β signaling pathways as well as in the expression of proteins involved in the regulation of long-term neuronal synaptic plasticity and synapse organization, coupled with defects in neural stem cells self-renewal in the hippocampal dentate gyrus. However, compared to the persistence of the WBI effects, most of the PBI effects were only transient and tended to decrease at 6 months post-irradiation, indicating important mechanistic difference. On the contrary, at low dose we identified a progressive accumulation of molecular defects that tended to manifest at later post-irradiation times. These data, indicating that both targeted and non-targeted radiation effects might contribute to the pathogenesis of hippocampal radiation-damage, have general implications for human health.     

(S)-Reutericyclin: Susceptibility Testing and In Vivo Effect on Murine Fecal Microbiome and Volatile Organic Compounds

We aimed to assess the in vitro antimicrobial activity and the in vivo effect on the murine fecal microbiome and volatile organic compound (VOC) profile of (S)-reutericyclin. The antimicrobial activity of (S)-reutericyclin was tested against Clostridium difficile, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus (S.) epidermidis, Streptococcus agalactiae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Propionibacterium acnes. Reutericyclin or water were gavage fed to male BALBc mice for 7 weeks. Thereafter stool samples underwent 16S based microbiome analysis and VOC analysis by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). (S)-reutericyclin inhibited growth of S. epidermidis only. Oral (S)-reutericyclin treatment caused a trend towards reduced alpha diversity. Beta diversity was significantly influenced by reutericyclin. Linear discriminant analysis Effect Size (LEfSe) analysis showed an increase of Streptococcus and Muribaculum as well as a decrease of butyrate producing Ruminoclostridium, Roseburia and Eubacterium in the reutericyclin group. VOC analysis revealed significant increases of pentane and heptane and decreases of 2,3-butanedione and 2-heptanone in reutericyclin animals. The antimicrobial activity of (S)-reutericyclin differs from reports of (R)-reutericyclin with inhibitory effects on a multitude of Gram-positive bacteria reported in the literature. In vivo (S)-reutericyclin treatment led to a microbiome shift towards dysbiosis and distinct alterations of the fecal VOC profile.     

Lanthanide-binding tags as versatile protein coexpression probes

Comprehensive proteomic analyses require new methodologies to accelerate the correlation of gene sequence with protein function. Key tools for such efforts include biophysical probes that integrate into the covalent architecture of proteins. Lanthanide-binding tags (LBTs) are expressible, multitasking fusion partners that are optimized to bind lanthanide ions and have several desirable attributes, which include long-lived luminescence, excellent X-ray scattering power for phase determination, and magnetic properties to facilitate NMR spectroscopic structure elucidation. Herein, we present peptide sequences with a 40-fold higher affinity for Tb(3+) ions and significantly brighter luminescence intensity compared with existing peptides. Incorporation of an LBT onto ubiquitin as a prototype fusion protein allows the use of powerful protein-visualization techniques, which include rapid luminescence detection of LBT-tagged proteins in SDS-PAGE gels, as well as determination of protein concentrations in complex mixtures. The LBT strategy is a new alternative for expressing fluorescent fusion proteins by routine molecular biological techniques.     

Synthesizing robust systems

Systems should not only be correct but also robust in the sense that they behave reasonably in unexpected situations. This article addresses synthesis of robust reactive systems from temporal specifications. Existing methods allow arbitrary behavior if assumptions in the specification are violated. To overcome this, we define two robustness notions, combine them, and show how to enforce them in synthesis. The first notion applies to safety properties: If safety assumptions are violated temporarily, we require that the system recovers to normal operation with as few errors as possible. The second notion requires that, if liveness assumptions are violated, as many guarantees as possible should be fulfilled nevertheless. We present a synthesis procedure achieving this for the important class of GR(1) specifications, and establish complexity bounds. We also present an implementation of a special case of robustness, and show experimental results.     

IMAGING OF PARTICLE MOTION IN FLUID-SOLID SYSTEMS USING A GAMMA CAMERA

A new approach is presented for the characterization of particle motion in fluid-solid systems based on dynamic imaging with a gamma scintillation camera. A two-dimensional spouted bed of 200-500 micron diameter anion exchange resin beads was used as a test system. One or several beads were radiolabeled with the 140 keV gamma emitting radionuclide 99m-Tc pertechnetate, and particle velocity, panicle path, the spatial distribution of particle residence times, and local bed density were determined from the measured temporal and spatial distributions of particle activity. While care must be exercised in the interpretation of data when the scale for changes in the spatial distribution of activity approaches the limits of camera resolution, the method is quantitative, non-invasive, and well suited to the study of systems having symmetry in one spatial dimension.     

The Shot Heard Around the World Wide Web: Who Heard What Where About Osama bin Laden's Death

This study investigated what sources were relied on to find out about Osama bin Laden's death and whether perceptions of credibility and political party affiliation influenced these media choices. The most striking difference in media reliance for bin Laden news was that whatever sources Tea Partiers relied on and thought credible were those that Democrats did not rely on or see as credible. Despite the clamor about how quickly news flows through social network sites and Twitter, only about 5% of respondents first heard about bin Laden through these sources and a slightly larger percentage spread the news via these tools. Moreover, social network sites and Twitter were the least relied on about the aftermath of bin Laden's death.     

Emulex10/40GbE提升NFV性能 加速回报

<正>长期以来,Emulex I/O解决方案的价值一直为全球电信公司所公认。如今,Emulex宣布推出计划中的高级功能,使用这些功能,电信公司能够更快速地开发优质网络服务提供给客户。新增功能包括增强了Emulex OneConnect OCe14000系列10Gb和40Gb以太网(10/40GbE)网络以及融合网络适配器(CNA)的数据包处理并提高了可编程性。使用这些新增功能,电信设备制造商(TEM)和电信运营商可以加快网络功能虚拟化(NFV)解决方案的部署。Emulex已经与6WIND建立合作伙伴关系,共同开发了Emulex轮询模式驱动程序(PMD),以增强数据平面开发工具包