Citrus Juices on Kidney Bean Plants
Modeling the effects of cryopreservation on kidney bean plants to learn which environment will best suit the plant for efficient growth and sustainability.
Chemistry
A Tethered Bilayer Assembled on Top of Immobilized Calmodulin to Mimic Cellular Compartmentalization
Biomimetic membrane systems have been developed to study, in controlled conditions, the biological events occurring at the cell membrane interface.[1], [2] Over the past 25 years, biomimetic models have been continuously improved with the aim of better mimicking the natural environment of biological membranes while allowing deeper investigations of membrane processes with various surface sensitive techniques such as Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), Atomic Force Microscopy, Quartz Crystal Microbalance, neutron-reflectometry, etc.
New Insights into Unusual Genetic Disorder Pave the Way for Promising Treatments
Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) may not receive as much attention as Down syndrome or other genetic diseases that affect brain development. But as its lengthy name suggests, it is a multifaceted disorder that can have wide-ranging effects on an individual’s life. TSC affects about 1 in 6,000 people, causing seizures, mental retardation, and benign tumors in the brain and other organs.
Coastal Resilience in Cordova, Alaska
Alaska is an earthquake prone state, due to its location on the subducting Pacific Plate. Some of the largest earthquakes in the United States have occurred in Alaska. This means that we must be ready and prepared for an earthquake to happen here. To do this we must be resilient- able to bounce back after disaster, in this case an earthquake.
Wastewater Management: A Plan for the Future
This document proposes a 50 year wastewater management plan for the Gastineau Channel, located near Juneau, Alaska. Recently, local wastewater treatment problems have become a recognized health hazard, causing the City and Borough of Juneau to face pending criminal charges. Juneau’s wastewater treatment facilities are discharging viruses, bacteria and parasites which are known to cause kidney failure and other maladies.
Reduction in Clostridium difficile Infection Rates after Mandatory Hospital Public Reporting: Findings from a Longitudinal Cohort Study in Canada
The Role of Public Reporting in Improving Hospital Quality of Care is Controversial. Reporting of hospital-acquired infection rates has been introduced in multiple health care systems, but its relationship to infection rates has been understudied. Our objective was to determine whether mandatory public reporting by hospitals is associated with a reduction in hospital rates of Clostridium difficile infection.
Protein Flexibility Facilitates Quaternary Structure Assembly and Evolution
The intrinsic flexibility of proteins allows them to undergo large conformational fluctuations in solution or upon interaction with other molecules. Proteins also commonly assemble into complexes with diverse quaternary structure arrangements. Here we investigate how the flexibility of individual protein chains influences the assembly and evolution of protein complexes.
Production of α-Galactosylceramide by a Prominent Member of the Human Gut Microbiota
While the human gut microbiota are suspected to produce diffusible small molecules that modulate host signaling pathways, few of these molecules have been identified. Species of Bacteroides and their relatives, which often comprise >50% of the gut community, are unusual among bacteria in that their membrane is rich in sphingolipids, a class of signaling molecules that play a key role in inducing apoptosis and modulating the host immune response.
Precision Genome Engineering and Agriculture: Opportunities and Regulatory Challenges
Plant agriculture is poised at a technological inflection point. Recent advances in genome engineering make it possible to precisely alter DNA sequences in living cells, providing unprecedented control over a plant’s genetic material.
Positively Charged Residues Are the Major Determinants of Ribosomal Velocity
Both for understanding mechanisms of disease and for the design of transgenes, it is important to understand the determinants of ribosome velocity, as changes in the rate of translation are important for protein folding, error attenuation, and localization. While there is great variation in ribosomal occupancy along even a single transcript, what determines a ribosome’s occupancy is unclear. We examine this issue using data from a ribosomal footprinting assay in yeast.
