Showing 1631 - 1640 of 2360 Items

Local adaptation of a parasite to solar radiation impacts disease transmission potential, spore yield, and host fecundity*

Date: 2020-08-24

Creator: Mary Alta Rogalski

Meghan A. Duffy

Access: Open access



SR-Like RNA-binding protein Slr1 affects Candida albicans filamentation and virulence

Date: 2013-04-01

Creator: Chaiyaboot Ariyachet

Norma V. Solis

Yaoping Liu

Nemani V. Prasadarao

Scott G., Filler

Anne E. McBride

Access: Open access

Candida albicans causes both mucosal and disseminated infections, and its capacity to grow as both yeast and hyphae is a key virulence factor. Hyphal formation is a type of polarized growth, and members of the SR (serine-arginine) family of RNA-binding proteins influence polarized growth of both Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Aspergillus nidulans. Therefore, we investigated whether SR-like proteins affect filamentous growth and virulence of C. albicans. BLAST searches with S. cerevisiae SR-like protein Npl3 (ScNpl3) identified two C. albicans proteins: CaNpl3, an apparent ScNpl3 ortholog, and Slr1, another SR-like RNAbinding protein with no close S. cerevisiae ortholog. Whereas ScNpl3 was critical for growth, deletion of NPL3 in C. albicans resulted in few phenotypic changes. In contrast, the slr1δ/δ mutant had a reduced growth rate in vitro, decreased filamentation, and impaired capacity to damage epithelial and endothelial cells in vitro. Mice infected intravenously with the slr1δ/δ mutant strain had significantly prolonged survival compared to that of mice infected with the wild-type or slr1δ/δ mutant complemented with SLR1 (slr1δ/δ+SLR1) strain, without a concomitant decrease in kidney fungal burden. Histopathology, however, revealed differential localization of slr1δ/δ hyphal and yeast morphologies within the kidney. Mice infected with slr1δ/δ cells also had an increased brain fungal burden, which correlated with increased invasion of brain, but not umbilical vein, endothelial cells in vitro. The enhanced brain endothelial cell invasion was likely due to the increased surface exposure of the Als3 adhesin on slr1δ/δ cells. Our results indicate that Slr1 is an SR-like protein that influences C. albicans growth, filamentation, host cell interactions, and virulence. © 2013, American Society for Microbiology.


Homolog Pairing at the Push of a Button

Date: 2019-11-04

Creator: Jack R. Bateman

Judith A. Kassis

Access: Open access

Homologous chromosomes pair in somatic cells in Drosophila, but how this occurs is poorly understood. In this issue of Developmental Cell, Viets et al. (2019) show that proteins and chromatin structure mediate pairing and argue against a DNA sequence-based mechanism.


Statement gathered at the Maine Correctional Center, Windham, Maine, April 17, 2015

Date: 2015-04-17

Creator: Travis McDonald

Clarence Meeks

Travis Murphy

Access: Open access



Inelastic channels in the electroweak symmetry-breaking sector

Date: 1992-10-29

Creator: S. G. Naculich

C. P. Yuan

Access: Open access

It has been argued that if light Higgs bosons do not exist then the self-interactions of W's become strong in the TeV region and can be observed in longitudinal WW scattering. We present a model with many inelastic channels in the WW scattering process, corresponding to the creation of heavy fermion pairs. The presence of these heavy fermions affects the elastic scattering of W's by propagating in loops, greatly reducing the amplitudes in some charge channels. Consequently, the symmetry-breaking sector cannot be fully explored by using, for example, the W+W+ mode alone; all WW→WW scattering modes must be measured. © 1992.


Risks of multimodal signaling: Bat predators attend to dynamic motion in frog sexual displays

Date: 2014-09-01

Creator: Wouter Halfwerk

Marjorie M. Dixon

Kristina J. Ottens

Ryan C. Taylor

Michael J., Ryan

Rachel A. Page

Patricia L. Jones

Access: Open access

Many sexual displays contain multiple components that are received through a variety of sensory modalities. Primary and secondary signal components can interact to induce novel receiver responses and become targets of sexual selection as complex signals. However, predators can also use these complex signals for prey assessment, which may limit the evolution of elaborate sexual signals. We tested whether a multimodal sexual display of the male túngara frog (Physalaemus pustulosus) increases predation risk from the fringe-lipped bat (Trachops cirrhosus) when compared with a unimodal display. We gave bats a choice to attack one of two frog models: a model with a vocal sac moving in synchrony with a mating call (multisensory cue), or a control model with the call but no vocal sac movement (unimodal cue). Bats preferred to attack the model associated with the multimodal display. Furthermore, we determined that bats perceive the vocal sac using echolocation rather than visual cues. Our data illustrate the costs associated with multimodal signaling and that sexual and natural selection pressures on the same trait are not always mediated through the same sensory modalities. These data are important when considering the role of environmental fluctuations on signal evolution as different sensory modalities will be differentially affected.


Bounding the number of cycles of O.D.E.S in Rn

Date: 2001-01-01

Creator: M. Farkas

P. Van Den Driessche

M. L. Zeeman

Access: Open access

Criteria are given under which the boundary of an oriented surface does not consist entirely of trajectories of the C1 differential equation ẋ = f(x) in Rn. The special case of an annulus is further considered, and the criteria are used to deduce sufficient conditions for the differential equation to have at most one cycle. A bound on the number of cycles on surfaces of higher connectivity is given by similar conditions. ©2000 American Mathematical Society.


Origami-based impact mitigation via rarefaction solitary wave creation

Date: 2019-01-01

Creator: Hiromi Yasuda

Yasuhiro Miyazawa

Efstathios G. Charalampidis

Christopher Chong

Panayotis G., Kevrekidis

Jinkyu Yang

Access: Open access

The principles underlying the art of origami paper folding can be applied to design sophisticated metamaterials with unique mechanical properties. By exploiting the flat crease patterns that determine the dynamic folding and unfolding motion of origami, we are able to design an origami-based metamaterial that can form rarefaction solitary waves. Our analytical, numerical, and experimental results demonstrate that this rarefaction solitary wave overtakes initial compressive strain waves, thereby causing the latter part of the origami structure to feel tension first instead of compression under impact. This counterintuitive dynamic mechanism can be used to create a highly efficient-yet reusable-impact mitigating system without relying on material damping, plasticity, or fracture.


A simple polymerase chain reaction-based method for the construction of recombinase-mediated cassette exchange donor vectors

Date: 2008-11-01

Creator: Jack R. Bateman

C. Ting Wu

Access: Open access

Here we describe a simple method for generating donor vectors suitable for targeted transgenesis via recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE) using the ΦC31 integrase. This PCR-based strategy employs small attB "tails" on the primers used to amplify a sequence of interest, permitting the rapid creation of transgenes for in vivo analysis. Copyright © 2008 by the Genetics Society of America.


Inbreeding shapes the evolution of marine invertebrates

Date: 2020-05-01

Creator: Kevin C. Olsen

Will H. Ryan

Alice A. Winn

Ellen T. Kosman

Jose A., Moscoso

Stacy A. Krueger-Hadfield

Scott C. Burgess

David B. Carlon

Richard K. Grosberg

Susan Kalisz

Don R. Levitan

Access: Open access

Inbreeding is a potent evolutionary force shaping the distribution of genetic variation within and among populations of plants and animals. Yet, our understanding of the forces shaping the expression and evolution of nonrandom mating in general, and inbreeding in particular, remains remarkably incomplete. Most research on plant mating systems focuses on self-fertilization and its consequences for automatic selection, inbreeding depression, purging, and reproductive assurance, whereas studies of animal mating systems have often assumed that inbreeding is rare, and that natural selection favors traits that promote outbreeding. Given that many sessile and sedentary marine invertebrates and marine macroalgae share key life history features with seed plants (e.g., low mobility, modular construction, and the release of gametes into the environment), their mating systems may be similar. Here, we show that published estimates of inbreeding coefficients (FIS) for sessile and sedentary marine organisms are similar and at least as high as noted in terrestrial seed plants. We also found that variation in FIS within invertebrates is related to the potential to self-fertilize, disperse, and choose mates. The similarity of FIS for these organismal groups suggests that inbreeding could play a larger role in the evolution of sessile and sedentary marine organisms than is currently recognized. Specifically, associations between traits of marine invertebrates and FIS suggest that inbreeding could drive evolutionary transitions between hermaphroditism and separate sexes, direct development and multiphasic life cycles, and external and internal fertilization.