| 1. |
- Klionsky, Daniel J., et al.
(author)
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Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy
- 2012
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In: Autophagy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1554-8635 .- 1554-8627. ; 8:4, s. 445-544
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. A key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process vs. those that measure flux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process); thus, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation needs to be differentiated from stimuli that result in increased autophagic activity, defined as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (in most higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the field understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field.
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| 2. |
- Deng, Min, et al.
(author)
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Genome-wide association analyses in Han Chinese identify two new susceptibility loci for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- 2013
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 45:6, s. 697-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To identify susceptibility genes for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 506 individuals with sporadic ALS and 1,859 controls of Han Chinese ancestry. Ninety top SNPs suggested by the current GWAS and 6 SNPs identified by previous GWAS were analyzed in an independent cohort of 706 individuals with ALS and 1,777 controls of Han Chinese ancestry. We discovered two new susceptibility loci for ALS at 1q32 (CAMK1G, rs6703183, P-combined = 2.92 x 10(-8), odds ratio (OR) = 1.31) and 22p11 (CABIN1 and SUSD2, rs8141797, P-combined = 2.35 x 10(-9), OR = 1.52). These two loci explain 12.48% of the overall variance in disease risk in the Han Chinese population. We found no association evidence for the previously reported loci in the Han Chinese population, suggesting genetic heterogeneity of disease susceptibility for ALS between ancestry groups. Our study identifies two new susceptibility loci and suggests new pathogenic mechanisms of ALS.
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| 3. |
- Aamodt, K., et al.
(author)
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Alignment of the ALICE Inner Tracking System with cosmic-ray tracks
- 2010
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In: Journal of Instrumentation. - 1748-0221. ; 5
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiment devoted to investigating the strongly interacting matter created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC energies. The ALICE ITS, Inner Tracking System, consists of six cylindrical layers of silicon detectors with three different technologies; in the outward direction: two layers of pixel detectors, two layers each of drift, and strip detectors. The number of parameters to be determined in the spatial alignment of the 2198 sensor modules of the ITS is about 13,000. The target alignment precision is well below 10 mu m in some cases (pixels). The sources of alignment information include survey measurements, and the reconstructed tracks from cosmic rays and from proton-proton collisions. The main track-based alignment method uses the Millepede global approach. An iterative local method was developed and used as well. We present the results obtained for the ITS alignment using about 10(5) charged tracks from cosmic rays that have been collected during summer 2008, with the ALICE solenoidal magnet switched off.
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| 4. |
- Cao, Zhiguo, et al.
(author)
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Economic status as a determinant of national PCDD/PCDF releases and implications for PCDD/PCDF reduction
- 2013
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In: Chemosphere. - : Elsevier. - 0045-6535 .- 1879-1298. ; 91:3, s. 328-335
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The annual releases of polychlorinated dibenzo-para-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/PCDF) from 68 countries/regions were investigated by correlating quantitative emissions with economic status of the nations. The national dioxin/furan inventories were developed using the PCDD/PCDF Standardized Toolldt, which presents the quantitative releases from ten major source groups to five release vectors. The correlation between intensity of PCDDIPCDF release and economic status was discussed and the influence of economic status on composition of five release vectors and ten source groups was studied. As PCDD/PCDF are mainly released from human activities to environmental matrices, release per person (RpP) and release per unit area (RpA) are defined to reflect release burden (Donor) and contamination burden (Receptor), respectively. Based on these two concepts, International PCDD/PCDF Reduction Burden is characterized by burden quotient (BQ) and a calculation model is established. The numbers of countries/regions with high, moderate and low International PCDD/PCDF Reduction Burden were 19,31 and 18, respectively. The information in this paper can be used for politicians to develop legislations to improve International PCDD/PCDF Reduction.
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| 5. |
- Cao, Zhi-Guo, et al.
(author)
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Particle size : A missing factor in risk assessment of human exposure to toxic chemicals in settled indoor dust
- 2012
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In: Environment International. - : Elsevier. - 0160-4120 .- 1873-6750. ; 49, s. 24-30
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- For researches on toxic chemicals in settled indoor dust, selection of dust fraction is a critical influencing factor to the accuracy of human exposure risk assessment results. However, analysis of the selection of dust fraction in recent studies revealed that there is no consensus. This study classified and presented researches on distribution of toxic chemicals according to dust particle size and on relationship between dust particle size and human exposure possibility. According to the literature, beyond the fact that there were no consistent conclusions on particle size distribution of adherent fraction, dust with particle size less than 100 mu m should be paid more attention and that larger than 250 mu m is neither adherent nor proper for human exposure risk assessment. Calculation results based on literature data show that with different selections of dust fractions, analytical results of toxic chemicals would vary up to 10-fold, which means that selecting dust fractions arbitrarily will lead to large errors in risk assessment of human exposure to toxic chemicals in settled dust. Taking into account the influence of dust particle size on risk assessment of human exposure to toxic chemicals, a new methodology for risk assessment of human exposure to toxic chemicals in settled indoor dust is proposed and human exposure parameter systems to settled indoor dust are advised to be established at national and regional scales all over the world.
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| 6. |
- Chen, Bin, et al.
(author)
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Full-colour luminescent compounds based on anthracene and 2,2 '-dipyridylamine
- 2013
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In: Journal of Materials Chemistry C. - : Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 2050-7526 .- 2050-7534. ; 1:44, s. 7409-7417
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Starting from two simple units of anthracene and 2,2'-dipyridylamine, a series of new luminescent compounds 1-8 were designed and synthesized by a combined strategy of changing the connection mode between the two units, extending the conjugation size, and introducing an additional electron donor. Photophysical properties of 1-8 were investigated and discussed on the basis of solvatochromic behaviour, theoretical calculations, crystal structure, and optimized structures. Interestingly, the emission wavelengths of these compounds could be successfully tuned from violet to red both in solutions and the solid-state, and prominent positive solvatochromism was observed for the compounds with a D-p-A framework. Consider compound 7 as an example, it shows peaks at 526 nm and 627 nm in cyclohexane and DMSO, respectively. Meanwhile, the quantum yield was decreased from 0.80 in cyclohexane to 0.12 in DMSO. The introduction of bulky groups was demonstrated to be effective for suppressing the aggregation effect and thus improving the solid state emission quantum yield. These results indicate that the combined structure modulation strategy offers a powerful tool for tuning the emission behaviour. To demonstrate the possibility of practical applications, 2 was employed as the emitting material for the fabrication of deep-blue organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), which showed a maximum external quantum efficiency of 2.2%. The CIE coordinates of (0.15, 0.08) are indicative of excellent blue color purity.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Feldt, Sandra M., et al.
(author)
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Effects of Driving Forces for Recombination and Regeneration on the Photovoltaic Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells using Cobalt Polypyridine Redox Couples
- 2011
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In: The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1932-7447 .- 1932-7455. ; 115:43, s. 21500-21507
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) with open-circuit potentials above 1 V were obtained by employing the triphenylamine based organic dye D35 in combination with cobalt phenanthroline redox couples. A series of cobalt bipyridine and cobalt phenanthroline complexes with different redox potentials were investigated to examine the dependence of the driving force for recombination and dye regeneration on the photovoltaic performance. The photovoltage of the devices was found to increase and the photocurrent to decrease with increasing redox potential of the complexes. The halftime for regeneration of the oxidized dye by cobalt trisbipyrine was about 20 mu s, similar to that found for the iodide/triiodide redox couple, whereas regeneration kinetics became slower for cobalt complexes with less driving force for regeneration. A driving force for dye regeneration of 390 mV for cobalt(II/III) tris(5-chloro-1,10-phenanthroline) was found sufficient to regenerate more than 80% of the D35 dye molecules, resulting in a conversion of incident photons to electric current of above 80%. The photocurrent of the D35 sensitized DSCs using cobalt phenanthroline complexes decreased, however, with increasing Nernst potential of the redox couples, due to the increased recombination and the decreased regeneration rate constants.
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| 9. |
- Guan, Jian-Yue, et al.
(author)
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Cooperation influenced by the correlation degree of two-layered complex networks in evolutionary prisoner's dilemma games
- 2010
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In: Chinese Physics B. - : Institute of Physics (IOP). - 1674-1056. ; 19:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- An evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game is investigated on two-layered complex networks respectively representing interaction and learning networks in one and two dimensions. A parameter q is introduced to denote the correlation degree between the two-layered networks. Using Monte Carlo simulations we studied the effects of the correlation degree on cooperative behaviour and found that the cooperator density nontrivially changes with q for different payoff parameter values depending on the detailed strategy updating and network dimension. An explanation for the obtained results is provided.
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| 10. |
- Liu, Gang, et al.
(author)
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Evaluating the reintroduction project of Przewalski's horse in China using genetic and pedigree data
- 2014
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In: Biological Conservation. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-3207 .- 1873-2917. ; 171, s. 288-298
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Przewalski's horse went extinct in the wild in the mid 1960s. Starting in 1985, individuals were brought from western zoos to two centers in China and breeding programs were initiated. With the increasing size of captive populations, two reintroduction projects were launched in the northwestern China in 2001 and 2010. Knowledge on genetic diversity in China's horse populations is limited, but would help improve the genetic management and assess the success of the reintroduction. Accordingly, one reintroduced and two captive populations were examined with 10 microsatellite loci together with pedigree data. The results showed higher level of diversity within the captive populations than the reintroduced population, indicating some alleles may have been lost during reintroduction. Genetic differentiation was detected among populations (F-ST = 0.09 +/- 0.05, Rhos(ST) = 0.05 +/- 0.02) and Bayesian clustering supported the presence of three subpopulations. The highest genetic differentiation was observed between the captive and reintroduced populations, and inbreeding coefficients were generally higher in the reintroduced population. Temporal estimates of both pedigree and microsatellite data showed a high, but decreasing level inbreeding. Through simulations, we estimated that the reintroduced population needs more than 100 individuals to retain approximately 90% of its current, already depauperate, genetic diversity. We have provided recommendations for the management program concerning introgressed genes from domestic horse and the number and origin of individuals for future reintroductions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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