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- Sabatini, F. M., et al.
(author)
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sPlotOpen - An environmentally balanced, open-access, global dataset of vegetation plots
- 2021
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In: Global Ecology and Biogeography. - : Wiley. - 1466-822X .- 1466-8238.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Motivation Assessing biodiversity status and trends in plant communities is critical for understanding, quantifying and predicting the effects of global change on ecosystems. Vegetation plots record the occurrence or abundance of all plant species co-occurring within delimited local areas. This allows species absences to be inferred, information seldom provided by existing global plant datasets. Although many vegetation plots have been recorded, most are not available to the global research community. A recent initiative, called 'sPlot', compiled the first global vegetation plot database, and continues to grow and curate it. The sPlot database, however, is extremely unbalanced spatially and environmentally, and is not open-access. Here, we address both these issues by (a) resampling the vegetation plots using several environmental variables as sampling strata and (b) securing permission from data holders of 105 local-to-regional datasets to openly release data. We thus present sPlotOpen, the largest open-access dataset of vegetation plots ever released. sPlotOpen can be used to explore global diversity at the plant community level, as ground truth data in remote sensing applications, or as a baseline for biodiversity monitoring. Main types of variable contained Vegetation plots (n = 95,104) recording cover or abundance of naturally co-occurring vascular plant species within delimited areas. sPlotOpen contains three partially overlapping resampled datasets (c. 50,000 plots each), to be used as replicates in global analyses. Besides geographical location, date, plot size, biome, elevation, slope, aspect, vegetation type, naturalness, coverage of various vegetation layers, and source dataset, plot-level data also include community-weighted means and variances of 18 plant functional traits from the TRY Plant Trait Database. Spatial location and grain Global, 0.01-40,000 m(2). Time period and grain 1888-2015, recording dates. Major taxa and level of measurement 42,677 vascular plant taxa, plot-level records. Software format Three main matrices (.csv), relationally linked.
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- Brozio, J. P., et al.
(author)
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The origin of Neolithic copper on the central Northern European plain and in Southern Scandinavia: Connectivities on a European scale
- 2023
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In: Plos One. - 1932-6203. ; 18:5
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The production, distribution and use of copper objects and the development of metallurgical skills in Neolithic Northern Central Europe and Southern Scandinavia are linked to early centres of copper metallurgy of South East Central Europe and Southeast Europe. A total of 45 Neolithic copper objects, until now the largest sample of Early Neolithic objects from the Northern Central European Plain and Southern Scandinavia, were selected for new lead isotope analyses. They aided in the identification of the origin of the copper: These new analyses indicate that the copper ore deposits in Southeastern Europe, especially from the Serbian mining areas, were used for the Early Neolithic northern artefacts (ca. 4100-3300 BC). The most likely sources of copper for the few Middle Neolithic artefacts (ca. 33002800 BC) seem to be from the Slovak Ore Mountains, the Serbian mining areas and the Eastern Alps, whereas deposits of the Slovak Ore Mountains and the Alpine region were used for the Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2300-1700 BC) artefacts. For the artefacts dated after 2000 BC, the Great Orme mine in Wales also appears to have been the source of copper for the analysed metals. The use of copper from different regions of Europe probably reflects changing social and cultural connectivities on a European scale and the changing chronology of copper exploitation.
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- Gianni, Stefano, et al.
(author)
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Sequence-specific Long Range networks in PSD-95/Discs Large/ZO-1 (PDZ) Domains Tune Their Binding Selectivity
- 2011
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In: Journal of Biological Chemistry. - 0021-9258 .- 1083-351X. ; 286:31, s. 27167-27175
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Protein-protein interactions mediated by modular protein domains are critical for cell scaffolding, differentiation, signaling, and ultimately, evolution. Given the vast number of ligands competing for binding to a limited number of domain families, it is often puzzling how specificity can be achieved. Selectivity may be modulated by intradomain allostery, whereby a remote residue is energetically connected to the functional binding site via side chain or backbone interactions. Whereas several energetic pathways, which could mediate intradomain allostery, have been predicted in modular protein domains, there is a paucity of experimental data to validate their existence and roles. Here, we have identified such functional energetic networks in one of the most common protein-protein interaction modules, the PDZ domain. We used double mutant cycles involving site-directed mutagenesis of both the PDZ domain and the peptide ligand, in conjunction with kinetics to capture the fine energetic details of the networks involved in peptide recognition. We performed the analysis on two homologous PDZ-ligand complexes and found that the energetically coupled residues differ for these two complexes. This result demonstrates that amino acid sequence rather than topology dictates the allosteric pathways. Furthermore, our data support a mechanism whereby the whole domain and not only the binding pocket is optimized for a specific ligand. Such cross-talk between binding sites and remote residues may be used to fine tune target selectivity.
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- Haq, Syed Raza, et al.
(author)
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The plastic energy landscape of protein folding : a triangular folding mechanism with an equilibrium intermediate for a small protein domain
- 2010
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In: Journal of Biological Chemistry. - 0021-9258 .- 1083-351X. ; 285:23, s. 18051-18059
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Protein domains usually fold without or with only transiently populated intermediates, possibly to avoid misfolding, which could result in amyloidogenic disease. Whether observed intermediates are productive and obligatory species on the folding reaction pathway or dispensable by-products is a matter of debate. Here, we solved the crystal structure of a small protein domain, SAP97 PDZ2 I342W C378A, and determined its folding pathway. The presence of a folding intermediate was demonstrated both by single and double-mixing kinetic experiments using urea-induced (un) folding as well as ligand-induced folding. This protein domain was found to fold via a triangular scheme, where the folding intermediate could be either on-or off-pathway, depending on the experimental conditions. Furthermore, we found that the intermediate was present at equilibrium, which is rarely seen in folding reactions of small protein domains. The folding mechanism observed here illustrates the roughness and plasticity of the protein folding energy landscape, where several routes may be employed to reach the native state. The results also reconcile the folding mechanisms of topological variants within the PDZ domain family.
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- Jurgens, Catherine A., et al.
(author)
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beta-Cell Loss and beta-Cell Apoptosis in Human Type 2 Diabetes Are Related to Islet Amyloid Deposition
- 2011
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In: American Journal of Pathology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0002-9440 .- 1525-2191. ; 178:6, s. 2632-2640
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Amyloid deposition and reduced beta-cell mass are pathological hallmarks of the pancreatic islet in type 2 diabetes; however, whether the extent of amyloid deposition is associated with decreased beta-cell mass is debated. We investigated the possible relationship and, for the first time, determined whether increased islet amyloid and/or decreased beta-cell area quantified on histological sections is correlated with increased beta-cell apoptosis. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded human pancreas sections from subjects with (n = 29) and without (n = 39) diabetes were obtained at autopsy (64 +/- 2 and 70 +/- 4 islets/subject, respectively). Amyloid and beta cells were visualized by thioflavin S and insulin inununolabeling. Apoptotic beta cells were detected by colabeling for insulin and by TUNEL. Diabetes was associated with increased amyloid deposition, decreased beta-cell area, and increased beta-cell apoptosis, as expected. There was a strong inverse correlation between beta-cell area and amyloid deposition (r = -0.42, P < 0.001). beta-Cell area was selectively reduced in individual amyloid-containing islets from diabetic subjects, compared with control subjects, but amyloid-free islets had beta-cell area equivalent to islets from control subjects. Increased amyloid 'deposition was associated with beta-cell apoptosis (r = 0.56, P < 0.01). Thus, islet amyloid is associated with decreased beta-cell area and increased beta-cell apoptosis, suggesting that islet amyloid deposition contributes to the decreased beta-cell mass that characterizes type 2 diabetes.
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