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The calcite grains forming the wall plates of the giant barnacle Austramegabalanus psittacus have a distinctive surface roughness made of variously sized crystalline nanoprotrusions covered by extremely thin amorphous pellicles. This biphase (crystalline-amorphous) structure also penetrates through the crystal's interiors, forming a web-like structure. Nanoprotrusions very frequently elongate following directions related to the crystallographic structure of calcite, in particular, the directions, which are the strongest periodic bond chains (PBCs) in calcite. We propose that the formation of elongated nanoprotrusions happens during the crystallization of calcite from a precursor amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC). This is because biomolecules integrated within the ACC are expelled from such PBCs due to the force of crystallization, with the consequent formation of uninterrupted crystalline nanorods. Expelled biomolecules accumulate in adjacent regions, thereby stabilizing small pellicle-like volumes of ACC. With growth, such pellicles become occluded within the crystal. In summary, the surface roughness of the biomineral surface reflects the complex shape of the crystallization front, and the biphase structure provides evidence for crystallization from an amorphous precursor. The surface roughness is generally explained as resulting from the attachment of ACC particles to the crystal surface, which later crystallised in concordance with the crystal lattice. If this was the case, the nanoprotrusions do not reflect the size and shape of any precursor particle. Accordingly, the particle attachment model for biomineral formation should seek new evidence. ; Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government CGL2017-85118-P CGL2015-64683-P ; Unidad Cientifica de Excelencia of the University of Granada UCE-PP2016-05 ; Junta de Andalucía RNM363 ; ANID-Chile FONDECYT 1140938 PCI ANID REDES 170106 PIA ANID ANILLOS ACT172037

Published 2018. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. Nitric oxide NO· plays an important role in the regulation of redox balance in keratinocytes post-UVB exposure. Since endothelial cells releases NO· for a prolonged time post-UVB, we determined whether human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) could have an effect on UVB-induced DNA damage and transformation of their adjacent keratinocytes (HaCaT) using a 3D cell co-culturing system. Our data show that the levels of DNA breaks and/or cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (CPD) along with γH2AX are higher in the co-cultured than in the mono-cultured keratinocytes post-UVB. The NO· level in the co-cultured cells is increased approximately 3-fold more than in mono-cultured HaCaT cells within 1-hour post-UVB but then is reduced quickly in co-cultured HaCaT cells comparing to mono-cultured cells from 6 to 24 h post-UVB. However, the peroxynitrite (ONOO − ) level is higher in the co-cultured than in the mono-cultured HaCaT cells in whole period post-UVB. Furthermore, while expression level of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) is increased, the ratio of coupled/uncoupled eNOS is reduced in co-cultured HaCaT cells compared to mono-cultured HaCaT cells. Finally, the co-cultured cells have a significantly increased transformation efficiency after repeating UVB exposure compared to mono-culture HaCaT cells. Our results suggest that endothelial cells could enhance NO· /ONOO − imbalance and promote transformation of adjacent keratinocytes.

In this paper, 'snore regularity' is studied in terms of the variations of snoring sound episode durations, separations and average powers in simple snorers and in obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) patients. The goal was to explore the possibility of distinguishing among simple snorers and OSA patients using only sleep sound recordings of individuals and to ultimately eliminate the need for spending a whole night in the clinic for polysomnographic recording. Sequences that contain snoring episode durations (SED), snoring episode separations (SES) and average snoring episode powers (SEP) were constructed from snoring sound recordings of 30 individuals (18 simple snorers and 12 OSA patients) who were also under polysomnographic recording in Gulhane Military Medical Academy Sleep Studies Laboratory (GMMA-SSL), Ankara, Turkey. Snore regularity is quantified in terms of mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation values for the SED, SES and SEP sequences. In all three of these sequences, OSA patients' data displayed a higher variation than those of simple snorers. To exclude the effects of slow variations in the base-line of these sequences, new sequences that contain the coefficient of variation of the sample values in a 'short' signal frame, i.e., short time coefficient of variation (STCV) sequences, were defined. The mean, the standard deviation and the coefficient of variation values calculated from the STCV sequences displayed a stronger potential to distinguish among simple snorers and OSA patients than those obtained from the SED, SES and SEP sequences themselves. Spider charts were used to jointly visualize the three parameters, i.e., the mean, the standard deviation and the coefficient of variation values of the SED, SES and SEP sequences, and the corresponding STCV sequences as two-dimensional plots. Our observations showed that the statistical parameters obtained from the SED and SES sequences, and the corresponding STCV sequences, possessed a strong potential to distinguish among simple snorers and OSA patients, both marginally, i.e., when the parameters are examined individually, and jointly. The parameters obtained from the SEP sequences and the corresponding STCV sequences, on the other hand, did not have a strong discrimination capability. However, the joint behaviour of these parameters showed some potential to distinguish among simple snorers and OSA patients.

A new method to detect snoring episodes in sleep sound recordings is proposed. Sleep sound segments ( i.e., 'sound episodes' or simply 'episodes') are classified as snores and nonsnores according to their subband energy distributions. The similarity of inter- and intra-individual spectral energy distributions motivated the representation of the feature vectors in a lower dimensional space. Episodes have been efficiently represented in two dimensions using principal component analysis, and classified as snores or nonsnores. The sound recordings were obtained from individuals who are suspected of OSAS pathology while they were connected to the polysomnography in Gulhane Military Medical Academy Sleep Studies Laboratory ( GMMA-SSL), Ankara, Turkey. The data from 30 subjects (18 simple snorers and 12 OSA patients) with different apnoea/hypopnea indices were classified using the proposed algorithm. The system was tested by using the manual annotations of an ENT specialist as a reference. The accuracy for simple snorers was found to be 97.3% when the system was trained using only simple snorers' data. It drops to 90.2% when the training data contain both simple snorers' and OSA patients' data. ( Both of these results were obtained by using training and testing sets of different individuals.) In the case of snore episode detection with OSA patients the accuracy is 86.8%. All these results can be considered as acceptable values to use the system for clinical purposes including the diagnosis and treatment of OSAS. The method proposed here has been used to develop a tool for the ENT clinic of GMMA- SSL that provides information for objective evaluation of sleep sounds.

Chapter 1. The Exhibition MARE PLASTICUM: Art and Science for the Environment -- Chapter 2. A Brief History of Plastics -- Chapter 3. Plastics and Microplastics: Impacts in the Marine Environment -- Chapter 4. The (Un)Natural History of the "Plastisphere", A New Marine Ecosystem -- Chapter 5. Polarquest 2018 Expedition: Plastic Debris at 82°07' North -- Chapter 6. The Impact of Marine Litter in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Mediterranean Sea: How Can We Protect MPAs? -- Chapter 7. Plastic in China: A Short History of a Crisis -- Chapter 8. "Down by the River": (Micro-) Plastic Pollution of Running Freshwaters with Special Emphasis on the Austrian Danube -- Chapter 9. Small Plastic Wastes in Soils: What Is Our Real Perception of the Problem? -- Chapter 10. Europe's Move Towards Plastic-Free Ocean -- Chapter 11. Plastic Pollution in the Oceans - A Systemic Analysis—Status Quo and Possible Sustainable Solutions -- Chapter 12. Toys for the Winter -- Chapter 13. "The Bottlenose Dolphin" (An Eco-comic).

Human DNA samples can remain unaltered for years and preserve important genetic information for forensic investigations. In fact, besides human genetic information, these extracts potentially contain additional valuable information: microbiome signatures. Forensic microbiology is rapidly becoming a significant tool for estimating post-mortem interval (PMI), and establishing cause of death and personal identity. To date, the possibility to recover unaltered microbiome signatures from human DNA extracts has not been proven. This study examines the microbiome signatures within human DNA extracts obtained from six cadavers with different PMIs, which were stored frozen for 5 – 16 years. Results demonstrated that the microbiome can be co-extracted with human DNA using forensic kits designed to extract the human host's DNA from different tissues and fluids during decomposition. We compared the microbial communities identified in these samples with microbial DNA recovered from two human cadavers donated to the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University (FACTS) during multiple decomposition stages, to examine whether the microbial signatures recovered from "old" (up to 16 years) extracts are consistent with those identified in recently extracted microbial DNA samples. The V4 region of 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced using Illumina MiSeq for all DNA extracts. The results obtained from the human DNA extracts were compared with each other and with the microbial DNA from the FACTS samples. Overall, we found that the presence of specific microbial taxa depends on the decomposition stage, the type of tissue, and the depositional environment. We found no indications of contamination in the microbial signatures, or any alterations attributable to the long-term frozen storage of the extracts, demonstrating that older human DNA extracts are a reliable source of such microbial signatures. No shared Core Microbiome (CM) was identified amongst the total 18 samples, but we identified certain species in association with the different decomposition stages, offering potential for the use of microbial signatures co-extracted with human DNA samples for PMI estimation in future. Unveiling the new significance of older human DNA extracts brings with it important ethical-legal considerations. Currently, there are no shared legal frameworks governing the long-term storage and use of human DNA extracts obtained from crime scene evidence for additional research purposes. It is therefore important to create common protocols on the storage of biological material collected at crime scenes. We review existing legislation and guidelines, and identify some important limitations for the further development and application of forensic microbiomics.

[EN] Fast, high resolution and wide elastic modulus range mapping of heterogeneous interfaces represents a major goal of atomic force microscopy (AFM). This goal becomes more challenging when the nanomechanical mapping involves biomolecules in their native environment. Over the years, several AFM-based methods have been developed to address that goal. However, none of those methods combine sub-nanometer spatial resolution, quantitative accuracy, fast data acquisition speed, wide elastic modulus range and operation in physiological solutions. Here we present detailed protocols to generate high resolution maps of the elastic properties of biomolecules and polymers by using bimodal AFM. The method is fast because the elastic modulus, deformation and topography images are obtained simultaneously. The method is efficient because just a single data point per pixel is needed to generate the above images. In addition, by knowing the deformation, bimodal AFM enables to reconstruct the true topography of the surface. ; European Research Council (ERC–AdG–340177; 3DNanoMech) and grants CSD201000024 and MAT2016-76507-R from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. This work received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement 721874 (SPM2.0). We also acknowledge fellowships FPU15/04622 (C.A.A.) and BES-2017-081907 (V.G.G.) from the Ministerio de Educación. ; Peer reviewed

CSIR/CSIR ; DBT ; UGC, Government of India ; Streblin, a serine proteinase from plant Streblus asper, has been used to investigate the conformational changes induced by pH, temperature, and chaotropes. The near/far UV circular dichroism activities under fluorescence emission spectroscopy and 8-aniline-1-naphthalene sulfonate (ANS) binding have been carried out to understand the unfolding of the protein in the presence of denaturants. Spectroscopic studies reveal that streblin belongs to the alpha+beta class of proteins and exhibits stability towards chemical denaturants, guanidine hydrochloride (GuHCl). The pH-induced transition of this protein is noncooperative for transition phases between pH 0.5 and 2.5 (midpoint, 1.5) and pH 2.5 and 10.0 (midpoint, 6.5). At pH 1.0 or lower, the protein unfolds to form acid-unfolded state, and for pH 7.5 and above, protein turns into an alkaline denatured state characterized by the absence of ANS binding. At pH 2.0 (1M GuHCl), streblin exists in a partially unfolded state with characteristics of amolten globule state. The protein is found to exhibit strong and predominant ANS binding. In total, six different intermediate states has been identified to show protein folding pathways.

Introduction to Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Volume 3: Animal tissue culture and biopharmaceuticals offers background information and knowledge on all aspects of this fascinating subject, including stem cell treatment, in vitro organ systems and cell culture technology. This book and the previous two volumes are a must read for undergraduate and postgraduate pharmacy and biotechnology based students, research scholars and academicians.

Dr Ngbolua Koto-Te-Nyiwa is former Rector of the University of Gbado-Lite and Full Professor of Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of the Congo

High pressure and High pressure environments -- High pressure: molecules, chemical processes and cellular structures -- The high pressure micro-environment of vertebrate load bearing joints- Effects of high pressure on the activity of ordinary animals, including humans, and on the function of their excitable cells and ion channels -- The effects of decompression and subsequent re-compression on the activity of deep sea animals and eukaryote cells. The isobaric collection of deep sea animals.-Molecular adaptation to high pressure: proteins in deep sea animals -- Molecular adaptation to high pressure: membranes -- Prokaryotes at high pressure in the Oceans and the Deep Biosphere -- Hydrothermal vents: the inhabitants, their way of life and their adaptation to high pressure -- Buoyancy at depth -- Divers: Air breathing animals, including humans, at high pressure -- Adaptation to high pressure in the laboratory -- High pressure equipment used in the laboratory, at sea and at depth.