bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Bridging the Gaps between Fundamental, Preclinical and Clinical Research: Report from a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise Working Group
Authors: Corey Lawrence , Autran Brigitte , Picker Louis , Working Group convened by the Globa the 
Published: July 2019

AbstractThe Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise (the Enterprise) convened a two-day workshop on 17-18 September 2009, at the Enterprise offices in New York; to discuss approaches to bridging the gaps between fundamental,preclinical and clinical HIV vaccine research. The topic of this Working Group originated from discussions of the Enterprise Science Committee,which proposed that more effective collaboration between these three areas of HIV vaccine research is needed in order to accelerate the pace of scientific progress in the field. Because the meeting took place before the release of the RV144 trial results held in Thailand, the conclusions reached during the meeting were further discussed during consultations at scientific conferences and at a joint meeting of the Science Committee and Chairs of all five Working Groups. Thus, this Report reflects both the original discussions of the Working Group and subsequent discussions that took place after the release of the RV144 trial results.
Studies on Endogenous Hormonal Changes during Grain Development in Wheat Genotypes (PhD Thesis)
Authors: Gutam Sridhar 
Published: July 2019

AbstractPot culture experiment was conducted in the Rabi seasons of 2001 and 2002 in order to study the genotypic differences in grain growth rates and endogenous hormonal contents in the developing grains. The hexaploid new plant types and extant variety and other tetraploids are taken up for the study. The data on yield and yield components show that the tetraploids had higher ear number per plant but lesser number of seeds per ear and lower seed weight per ear. The most important yield component 1000-grain yield was also possessed by hexaploids. The mean plant height was found to be higher in hexaploids over tetraploids in general, and among them DL- 1266-1 and DL-1266-2 (new plant types) recorded higher plant height. Similarly, the ear length was also higher in these new plant types. But, the tiller number/plant and ear number/plant were significantly higher in tetraploids. The new plant types (hexaploids) possessed maximum grain growth rate at 5–15 DAA. DL-1266-2 recorded highest grain growth rate 0.093 g/g/day. The photosynthetic rate values show that the hexaploids possessed higher rate than tetraploids. At 7 and 15 DAA, in general, photosynthetic rate was more when compared to 25 DAA and 35 DAA. The results showed that the endogenous hormonal contents in grains during grain development had changed in sequence. At 7 DAA, gibberellic acid (GA3) content was at maximum and at 15 DAA (rapid growth phase), indole-acetic acid (IAA) reached maximum and at 25 DAA (dough stage), ABA was at the maximum. At the 35 DAA, ABA reached all time high and GA3 the least, IAA being intermediate. Among the genotypes, hexaploids recorded higher concentrations of endogenous hormones. The total chlorophyll content in flag leaves of hexaploids was higher than tetraploids. The mean total chlorophyll had increased slightly at 20 DAA when compared to 10 DAA and it decreased at 30 DAA. It appears that the high yielding hexaploids (DL-1266-1 & Dl- 1266-2) by the virtue of possessing more 1000-grain weight and leaf area along with endogenous hormones might be responsible for higher yield as compared to tetraploids. It appears that better photosynthetic rate and better mobilization of photosynthates during grain filling stage contributes for higher yield in hexaploids.
African wild ungulates compete with or facilitate cattle depending on season
Authors: Odadi Wilfred , Karachi Moses , Abdulrazak Shaukat , Young Truman 
Published: July 2019

AbstractSavanna ecosystems are vital for both economic and biodiversity values. In savannas worldwide, management decisions are based on the concept that wildlife and livestock compete for grassland resources[1-4], yet there are virtually no experimental data to support this assumption[1]. Specifically, the critical assessment of whether or not wild ungulates alter livestock performance (e.g., weight gain, reproduction or survival) has rarely been carried out, although diminished performance is an essential prerequisite for inferring competition[1]. Here we use a large-scale experiment in a semi-arid savanna in Kenya to show that wild ungulates do depress cattle performance (weight gain) during the dry season, indicating a competitive effect, but enhance cattle performance during the wet season, signifying facilitation. This is the first experimental demonstration of either competitive or facilitative effects of an assemblage of native ungulates on domestic livestock in a savanna ecosystem, and a unique demonstration of a rainfall-dependent shift in competition-facilitation balance within any herbivore guild. These results are critical for better understanding and management of wildlife-livestock coexistence in savanna ecosystems globally, and especially in the African savanna biome which crucially hosts the last remnants of an intact large herbivore fauna.
Early onset preeclampsia is characterized by altered placental lipid metabolism and a premature increase in circulating FABP4
Authors: Han Victor , Lajoie Gilles , Ballard Jennifer , Booy Aaron , Carruthers Nicholas , Siroen Delfina 
Published: July 2019

AbstractPreeclampsia is a pregnancy-associated disorder that manifests as a sudden increase in maternal blood pressure accompanied by proteinuria. Because the placenta is a key organ in preeclampsia, we used proteomic and lipidomic analyses to compare placentae from preeclamptic and gestational age matched control pregnancies. Fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4), enoyl-CoA dehydrogenase and delta-3,5-delta-2,4-dienoyl-CoA isomerase had altered abundance in preeclamptic placentae compared to controls. FABP4 placental protein and RNA and plasma levels were all increased in early-onset preeclampsia (prior to 28 weeks gestation) compared to controls (6-fold, 3.3-fold and 3.5-fold respectively). After 28 weeks, FABP4 protein in control placenta and plasma increased to the same concentrations as in preeclampsia. Total tetracosapentaenoic acid in preeclamptic placentae was decreased to 0.6 of control levels before 28 weeks. The data indicate a disruption of fatty acid transport and metabolism in the placenta in early onset preeclampsia that is reflected in the maternal plasma.
Life fingerprints of nuclear reactions in the body of animals
Authors: Xie Wen-hui , Liu Ci-yi , Cai Xiao-jia , Zeng Jun , Han Ji-hui , Sun Tao , Su Ji-hui , Sun Qi-yin , Zhang Quan-shi 
Published: July 2019

AbstractNuclear reactions are a very important natural phenomenon in the universe. On the earth, cosmic rays constantly cause nuclear reactions. High energy beams created by medical devices also induce nuclear reactions in the human body. The biological role of these nuclear reactions is unknown. Here we show that the in vivo biological systems are exquisite and sophisticated by nature in influence on nuclear reactions and in resistance to radical damage in the body of live animals. In this study, photonuclear reactions in the body of live or dead animals were induced with 50-MeV irradiation. Tissue nuclear reactions were detected by positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of the induced beta+ activity. We found the unique tissue &quot;fingerprints&quot; of beta+ (the tremendous difference in beta+ activities and tissue distribution patterns among the individuals) are imprinted in all live animals. Within any individual, the tissue &quot;fingerprints&quot; of 15O and 11C are also very different. When the animal dies, the tissue &quot;fingerprints&quot; are lost. The biochemical, rather than physical, mechanisms could play a critical role in the phenomenon of tissue &quot;fingerprints&quot;. Radiolytic radical attack caused millions-fold increases in 15O and 11C activities via different biochemical mechanisms, i.e. radical-mediated hydroxylation and peroxidation respectively, and more importantly the bio-molecular functions (such as the chemical reactivity and the solvent accessibility to radicals). In practice biologically for example, radical attack can therefore be imaged in vivo in live animals and humans using PET for life science research, disease prevention, and personalized radiation therapy based on an individual&apos;s bio-molecular response to ionizing radiation.
DNA^+Pro^: an Improved Progressive Multiple Sequence Alignment Algorithm for Evolutionary Analysis Using Combined DNA-Protein Sequences
Authors: Wang Xiaolong , Xu Shuang-yong , Gou Deming 
Published: July 2019

AbstractAlignment of DNA and protein sequences is a basic tool in the study of evolutionary, structural and functional relationship among macromolecules. Present sequence alignment methods are somewhat error-prone, often producing systematic bias. Errors in sequence alignments sometimes lead to subsequent misinterpretation of evolutionary, structural and functional information in genes, proteins and genomes. In traditional sequence alignment algorithms, alignments of DNA and protein sequences are conducted separately. It has been long believed that the phylogenetic signal disappears more rapidly from DNA sequences than from encoded proteins. It is therefore generally preferable to align sequences at the amino acid level. Here we present a new method—DNA^+Pro^, which aggregates DNA and protein sequences into combined DNA-protein sequences and align them in a combined fashion. We demonstrate that combining sequences improve the quality of multiple sequence alignment and solve practical evolutionary problems in primate immunodeficiency virus proteins and bacterial restriction enzymes. In addition to increased theoretical information contents, the distance estimations are more biological significant in combined alignment than in protein only or DNA only alignments. By integrating information buried separately in DNA and protein sequences, DNA^+Pro^ improves the accuracy of multiple sequence alignment of closely-related proteins and prevents certain errors that may occur in phylogeny analysis using protein only approaches. The DNA^+Pro^ software and the supplementary data are downloadable free of charge from "our website, http://www.dnapluspro.com":http://www.dnapluspro.com.
Tracing blastomere fate choices of early embryos in single cell culture
Authors: Li Mingyou , Song Jianxin , Yan Yan , Yuan Yongming , Li Chang Ming , Hong Yunhan , Zhao Haobin , Hong Ni , Li Zhendong , Yi Meisheng , Ge Ruowen , Liu Rong 
Published: July 2019

AbstractBlastomeres of early vertebrate embryos undergo numerous fate choices for division, motility, pluripotency maintenance and restriction culminating in various cell lineages. Tracing blastomere fate choices at the single cell level in vitro has not been possible because of the inability to isolate and cultivate early blastomeres as single cells. Here we report the establishment of single cell culture system in the fish medaka, enabling the isolation and cultivation of individual blastomeres from 16- to 64-cell embryos for fate tracing at the single cell level in vitro. Interestingly, these blastomeres immediately upon isolation exhibit motility, lose synchronous divisions and even stop dividing in &8805;50% cases, suggesting that the widely accepted nucleocytoplasmic ratio controlling synchronous divisions in entire embryos does not operate on individual blastomeres. We even observed abortive division, endomitosis and cell fusion. Strikingly, ~5% of blastomeres in single cell culture generated extraembryonic yolk syncytial cells, embryonic stem cells and neural crest-derived pigment cells with timings mimicking their appearance in embryos. We revealed the maternal inheritance of key lineage regulators and their differential expression in cleavage embryos. Therefore, medaka blastomeres possess the accessibility for single cell culture, previously unidentified heterogeneity in motility, division, gene expression and intrinsic ability to generate major extraembryonic and embryonic lineages without positioning cues. Our data demonstrate the fidelity and potential of the single cell culture system for tracking blastomere fate decisions under defined conditions in vitro.
Chronic Morbilliviral Encephalitis in a Young Striped Dolphin from Italy
Authors: Eleni Claudia , Di Guardo Giovanni , Cocumelli Cristiano , Scholl Francesco , Di Francesco Cristina Esmeralda , Speranza Roberto , Pennelli Massimiliano 
Published: July 2019

AbstractA young male striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) found stranded in November 2009 was affected by a chronic non-suppurative encephalitis, with prominent mononuclear cell perivascular cuffs, neuronal degeneration, microgliosis, neuronophagia and occasional presence of multinucleate syncytia. Immunohistochemical and biomolecular investigations for Morbillivirus were positive exclusively from the brain, but not from the cerebellum nor from any other tissue, with morbilliviral antigen being detected in neurons and astrocytes. A low neutralizing antibody titer (1:10) against Morbillivirus (CDV) was also found, with no simultaneous presence of anti-Brucella antibodies.The main reason why the present case appears to be of interest is provided by its peculiar neuro-histopathologic, immunohistochemical and biomolecular features, with Morbillivirus antigenic and genomic positivity being exclusively confined to the brain of this dolphin, which may have developed a transplacentally-acquired infection.
Genome-wide comparison of cyanobacterial transposable elements, potential genetic diversity indicators
Authors: Lin Shen , Haas Stefan , Zemojtel Tomasz , Xiao Peng , Vingron Martin , Li Renhui 
Published: July 2019

Abstract
Background:
Transposable elements are widely distributed in archaea, bacteria and eukarya domains. Considerable discrepancies of transposable elements in eukaryotes have been reported; however, the studies focusing on the diversity of transposable systems in prokaryotes were scarce. Understanding the transposable element system in cyanobacteria by the genome-wide analysis will greatly improve the knowledge of cyanobacterial diversity.

Results:
In this study, the transposable elements of seventeen cyanobacterial genomes were analyzed. The abundance of insertion sequence (IS) elements differs significantly among the cyanobacterial genomes examined. In particular, water bloom forming Microcystis aeruginosa NIES843 was shown to have the highest abundance of IS elements reaching 10.95% of the genome. IS family is a widely acceptable IS classification unit, and IS subfamily, based on probe sequences, was firstly proposed as the basic classification unit for IS element system. Both of IS family and IS subfamily were set as the two hierarchical units for evaluating the IS element system diversity. Totally, 1982 predicted IS elements, within 21 IS families and 133 subfamilies were identified in the examined cyanobacterial genomes. Families IS4, IS5, IS630 and IS200-605 are widely distributed, and therefore supposed to be the ancestral IS families. Analysis on the intactness of IS elements showed that the percentage of the intact IS differs largely among these cyanobacterial strains. Higher percentage of the intact IS detected in the two hot spring cyanobacterial strains implied that the intactness of IS elements may be related to the genomic stabilization of cyanobacteria inhabiting in the extreme environments. The frequencies between IS elements and miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) were shown to have a linear positive correlation.

Conclusions:
The transposable element system in cyanobacterial genomes is of hypervariabilty. With characterization of easy definition and stability, IS subfamily is considered as a reliable classification unit in IS element system. The abundance of intact IS, the composition of IS families and subfamilies, the sequence diversity of IS element nucleotide and transposase amino acid are informative and suitable as the indicators for studies on cyanobacterial diversity. Practically, the transposable system may provide us a new perspective to realize the diversity and evolution of populations of water bloom forming cyanobacterial species.
Finding scientific articles in a large digital archive: BioStor and the Biodiversity Heritage Library
Authors: Page Roderic 
Published: July 2019

AbstractThe Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a large digital archive of legacy biological literature, comprising over 31 million pages scanned from books, monographs, and journals. During the digitisation process basic metadata about the scanned items is recorded, but not article-level metadata. Given that the article is the standard unit of citation, this makes it difficult to locate cited literature in BHL. Adding the ability to easily find articles in BHL would greatly enhance the value of the archive. A service was developed to locate articles in BHL based on matching article metadata to BHL metadata using approximate string matching, regular expressions, and string alignment. This article finding service is exposed as a standard OpenURL resolver on the BioStor web site "http://biostor.org/openurl/":http://biostor.org/openurl/. This resolver can be used on the web, or called by bibliographic tools that support OpenURL. BioStor provides tools for extracting, annotating, and visualising articles from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. BioStor is available from "http://biostor.org/":http://biostor.org/.
Ambiguous Dependence Of Minimal Plant Generation Time On Nuclear DNA Content
Authors: Ivanov Victor 
Published: July 2019

AbstractAMBIGUOUS DEPENDENCE OF MINIMAL PLANT GENERATION TIME ON NUCLEAR DNA CONTENT Victor B. Ivanov The minimum generation time (MGT) of plant development was suggested to depend on nuclear DNA content, which varies in plants over wide limits1. In ephemeral species with the shortest MGT, the average C values were significantly lower than in annual species, whereas the average C values in annual species were lower than those in perennial plants. However, nobody has paid attention to the ratio of annual to perennial species number as a function of C values. Here I show that with increasing C the ratio of annual to perennial species increases to C values equal to 7-8 pg (monocots) and 6-7 pg (eudicots) and then decreases and that the fraction of annuals is abundant not at the lowest, but at some higher C levels. Hence, C value increase exerts an ambiguous effect on MGT. The C value is not the only factor, which determines the duration of the plant development. Nevertheless, the nuclear DNA content exerts a pronounced effect on MGT together with other diverse factors affecting the rate of plant development, especially at higher C values.
The Nuclear Imaging Uncertainty Principle. Do Nuclear Cameras Really Work?
Authors: Fleming Richard , Harrington Gordon 
Published: July 2019

AbstractThe introduction of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle and Nuclear Cardiology occurred simultaneously in 1925-1927. Thirty years later the Anger gamma camera would allow for a more sophisticated radioactive isotope counting to determine the presence or absence of disease. When employed with technetium-99m isotopes, ischemic heart disease can be inferred by differences in visual appearance of cardiac images. These gestalts of imaging results have been separated from the quantitative information recorded by the cameras computer. We investigated whether current camera and computer systems are sophisticated enough to quantify differences between images to be clinically relevant. Our study demonstrated that efforts to &quot;sharpen&quot; image appearance does so at a reduction in &quot;accuracy&quot;. Like Heisenberg, this work shows that one cannot know the exact location AND the amount of activity simultaneously and that a decision must be made for accuracy over image sharpness if one is to truly quantify differences in isotope concentration between images.
Impact of polyplex micelles installed with cyclic RGD peptide as ligand on gene delivery to vascular lesions
Authors: Koyama Hiroyuki , Kagaya Hideo , Oba Makoto , Miura Yutaka , Ishii Takehiko , Takato Tsuyoshi , Kataoka Kazunori , Miyata Tetsuro 
Published: July 2019

AbstractGene therapy is expected to open a new strategy for the treatment of refractory vascular diseases, so the development of appropriate gene vectors for vascular lesions is needed. To realize this requirement with a non-viral approach, cyclo(RGDfK) peptide (cRGD) was introduced to block copolymer, poly(ethylene glycol)-block-polycation carrying ethylenediamine units (PEG-PAsp(DET)). cRGD recognizes &x03B1;v&x03B2;3 and &x03B1;v&x03B2;5 integrins, which are abundantly expressed in vascular lesions. cRGD-conjugated PEG-PAsp(DET) (cRGD-PEG-PAsp(DET)) formed polyplex micelles through complexation with plasmid DNA (pDNA), and the cRGD-PEG-PAsp(DET) micelles achieved significantly more efficient gene expression and cellular uptake as compared with PEG-PAsp(DET) micelles in endothelial cells and vascular smooth muscle cells. Intracellular tracking of pDNA showed that cRGD-PEG-PAsp(DET) micelles were internalized via caveolae-mediated endocytosis, which is associated with a pathway avoiding lysosomal degradation, and that PEG-PAsp(DET) micelles were transported to acidic endosomes and lysosomes via clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Further, in vivo evaluation in rat carotid artery with a neointimal lesion revealed that cRGD-PEG-PAsp(DET) micelles realized sustained gene expression, while PEG-PAsp(DET) micelles facilitated rapid but transient gene expression. These findings suggest that introduction of cRGD to polyplex micelles might create novel and useful functions for gene transfer and contribute to the establishment of efficient gene therapy for vascular diseases.
Antiviral activity of (E)-cinnamaldehyde revisited with nanoscience tools
Authors: Goswami Arunava , Rahman Ayesha 
Published: July 2019

AbstractContradictory results have been reported regarding the anti-viral activity of (E)-cinnamaldehyde, a major constituent (~69%) of cinnamon. Here we show that (E)-cinnamaldehyde alone has very low antiviral property contrary to the belief of commoners. There are early sporadic reports in ancient medicinal practices that fine sand was used for increasing the efficacy of antiviral drugs. Can we increase the efficacy of (E)-cinnamaldehyde marginally by using one of the major constituents of sand like silica? Yes, when nanosilica is used as a carrier during (E)-cinnamaldehyde administration, the antiviral efficacy of the resultant cocktail increases marginally. Therefore, (E)-cinnamaldehyde consumed for centuries in tribal therapy as well as in alternative medicine are largely belief based and does not yield good result till date, when subjected to rigorous scientific investigation.
Adsorption of uranium and thorium on new adsorbent prepared from Moroccan oil shale impregnated with phosphoric acid
Authors: Khouya El Hassane , Legrouri Khadija , Fakhi Said , Hannache Hassan 
Published: July 2019

AbstractAttention has been focused recently on the production of new adsorbents from Moroccan oil shale of Tarfaya (layer R3) by chemical activation with phosphoric acid and its application in wastewaters treatment. The optimal conditions for the preparation were searched and the tests of adsorption of uranium and thorium ions were affected. The best product was obtained by used of the ratio of activated agent/precursor equal 3 and activation of the mixture in air at 250°C during two hours after prepocessing at 120°C in air. Under these conditions the maximal adsorption capacity of methylene blue and specific area (SBET) of the new adsorbent were 526 mg/g and 630 m2/g, respectively. A batch mode experiment was used to explore the performances of this adsorbent for the removal of the U and Th from aqueous solutions prepared from UO2(NO3)2.6H2O and Th(NO3)4.5H2O. The adsorption parameters for the two radioelements were determined by application of the Langmuir, Freundlich and Elovich models.