The effect of successive summer drought periods on bacterial diversity along a plant species richness gradient.

Drought is a major stressor to soil microbial communities, and the intensification of climate change is predicted to increase hydric stress worldwide in the coming decades. As a possible mitigating factor for the consequences of prolonged drought periods, above and belowground biodiversity can increase ecosystem resistance and resilience by improving metabolic redundancy and complementarity as biodiversity increases. Here, we investigated the interaction effect between plant richness and successive, simulated summer drought on soil microbial communities during a period of 9 years.

Plant diversity and community age stabilize ecosystem multifunctionality.

It is well known that biodiversity positively affects ecosystem functioning, leading to enhanced ecosystem stability. However, this knowledge is mainly based on analyses using single ecosystem functions, while studies focusing on the stability of ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) are rare. Taking advantage of a long-term grassland biodiversity experiment, we studied the effect of plant diversity (1-60 species) on EMF over 5 years, its temporal stability, as well as multifunctional resistance and resilience to a 2-year drought event.

Drought-exposure history increases complementarity between plant species in response to a subsequent drought.

Growing threats from extreme climatic events and biodiversity loss have raised concerns about their interactive consequences for ecosystem functioning. Evidence suggests biodiversity can buffer ecosystem functioning during such climatic events. However, whether exposure to extreme climatic events will strengthen the biodiversity-dependent buffering effects for future generations remains elusive.

Transcatheter Closure of Large Atrial Septal Defects in Adults.

Objective: To examine the outcomes of percutaneous closure of large atrial septal defects (ASDs) (≥25 mm).

Background: Data on long-term results after closure of large ASDs are limited.

Methods: We reviewed the records of 275 consecutive patients who underwent transcatheter closure of large (≥25 mm) ASDs from January 1999 until December 2016 in our center.

The results of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments are realistic.

A large body of research shows that biodiversity loss can reduce ecosystem functioning. However, much of the evidence for this relationship is drawn from biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments in which biodiversity loss is simulated by randomly assembling communities of varying species diversity, and ecosystem functions are measured. This random assembly has led some ecologists to question the relevance of biodiversity experiments to real-world ecosystems, where community assembly or disassembly may be non-random and influenced by external drivers, such as climate, soil conditions or land use.

Biodiversity increases multitrophic energy use efficiency, flow and storage in grasslands.

The continuing loss of global biodiversity has raised questions about the risk that species extinctions pose for the functioning of natural ecosystems and the services that they provide for human wellbeing. There is consensus that, on single trophic levels, biodiversity sustains functions; however, to understand the full range of biodiversity effects, a holistic and multitrophic perspective is needed. Here, we apply methods from ecosystem ecology that quantify the structure and dynamics of the trophic network using ecosystem energetics to data from a large grassland biodiversity experiment.

A multitrophic perspective on biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research.

Concern about the functional consequences of unprecedented loss in biodiversity has prompted biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research to become one of the most active fields of ecological research in the past 25 years. Hundreds of experiments have manipulated biodiversity as an independent variable and found compelling support that the functioning of ecosystems increases with the diversity of their ecological communities. This research has also identified some of the mechanisms underlying BEF relationships, some context-dependencies of the strength of relationships, as well as implications for various ecosystem services that mankind depends upon.

HDAC3 Activity is Essential for Human Leukemic Cell Growth and the Expression of β-catenin, MYC, and WT1.

Therapy of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is unsatisfactory. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) are active against leukemic cells in vitro and in vivo. Clinical data suggest further testing of such epigenetic drugs and to identify mechanisms and markers for their efficacy.

as Cause of Fatal Sepsis.

A rare consequence of dog bites is the infection with , and only a few cases have been documented. We describe a 41-year-old, formerly healthy woman who died from septic shock and multiorgan failure. It is the first case of a young individual without obvious immunosuppression.

Decomposer diversity increases biomass production and shifts aboveground-belowground biomass allocation of common wheat.

Biodiversity is well known to enhance many ecosystem functions, but empirical evidence for the role of soil biodiversity for plant biomass production and allocation is scarce. Here we studied the effects of animal decomposer diversity (1, 2, and 4 species as well as a control without any decomposers) on the biomass production and aboveground-belowground biomass allocation of common wheat using two earthworm and two Collembola species using an additive design in two soil management types (organic and mineral fertilizer treatments) in a microcosm experiment. Shoot (+11%), spike (+7%), and root biomass (+56%), increased significantly with increasing decomposer diversity, and these effects were consistent across the two soil management types.

Plant diversity maintains multiple soil functions in future environments.

Biodiversity increases ecosystem functions underpinning a suite of services valued by society, including services provided by soils. To test whether, and how, future environments alter the relationship between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions, we measured grassland plant diversity effects on single soil functions and ecosystem multifunctionality, and compared relationships in four environments: ambient conditions, elevated atmospheric CO, enriched N supply, and elevated CO and N in combination. Our results showed that plant diversity increased three out of four soil functions and, consequently, ecosystem multifunctionality.

Plant diversity maintains long-term ecosystem productivity under frequent drought by increasing short-term variation.

Increasing frequency of extreme climatic events can disrupt ecosystem processes and destabilize ecosystem functioning. Biodiversity may dampen these negative effects of environmental perturbations to provide greater ecosystem stability. We assessed the effects of plant diversity on the resistance, recovery and stability of experimental grassland ecosystems in response to recurring summer drought over 7 yr.

Drug-Mediated Intracellular Donation of Nitric Oxide Potently Inhibits 5-Lipoxygenase: A Possible Key to Future Antileukotriene Therapy.

Aims: 5-Lipoxygenase (5-LO) is the key enzyme of leukotriene (LT) biosynthesis and is critically involved in a number of inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, gout, bronchial asthma, atherosclerosis, and cancer. Because 5-LO contains critical nucleophilic amino acids, which are sensitive to electrophilic modifications, we determined the consequences of a drug-mediated intracellular release of nitric oxide (NO) on 5-LO product formation by human granulocytes and on 5-LO-dependent pulmonary inflammation in vivo.

Results: Clinically relevant concentrations of NO-releasing nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and other agents releasing NO intracellularly suppress 5-LO product synthesis in isolated human granulocytes via direct S-nitrosylation of 5-LO at the catalytically important cysteines 416 and 418.

Plant species richness sustains higher trophic levels of soil nematode communities after consecutive environmental perturbations.

The magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events are predicted to increase in the future due to ongoing climate change. In particular, floods and droughts resulting from climate change are thought to alter the ecosystem functions and stability. However, knowledge of the effects of these weather events on soil fauna is scarce, although they are key towards functioning of terrestrial ecosystems.

Human mesenchymal stromal cells undergo apoptosis and fragmentation after intravenous application in immune-competent mice.

Background Aims: The biodistribution of human MSCs after systemic delivery is incompletely understood. We investigated the changes in cell size and cell surface markers of human MSCs after intravenous (IV) injection in immune competent mice.

Methods: Male human MSCs were labeled with fluorescent vital dye PKH67 and tracked after IV administration in C57/BL6 mice.

Michael acceptor containing drugs are a novel class of 5-lipoxygenase inhibitor targeting the surface cysteines C416 and C418.

Recently, we published that nitro-fatty acids (NFA) are potent electrophilic molecules which inhibit 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) by interacting catalytically with cysteine residues next to a substrate entry channel. The electrophilicity is derived from an intramolecular Michael acceptor moiety consisting of an electron-withdrawing group in close proximity to a double bond. The potential of the Michael acceptor moiety to interact with functionally relevant cysteines of proteins potentially renders them effective and sustained enzyme activity modulators.

Plant diversity effects on grassland productivity are robust to both nutrient enrichment and drought.

Global change drivers are rapidly altering resource availability and biodiversity. While there is consensus that greater biodiversity increases the functioning of ecosystems, the extent to which biodiversity buffers ecosystem productivity in response to changes in resource availability remains unclear. We use data from 16 grassland experiments across North America and Europe that manipulated plant species richness and one of two essential resources-soil nutrients or water-to assess the direction and strength of the interaction between plant diversity and resource alteration on above-ground productivity and net biodiversity, complementarity, and selection effects.

Plant diversity drives soil microbial biomass carbon in grasslands irrespective of global environmental change factors.

Soil microbial biomass is a key determinant of carbon dynamics in the soil. Several studies have shown that soil microbial biomass significantly increases with plant species diversity, but it remains unclear whether plant species diversity can also stabilize soil microbial biomass in a changing environment. This question is particularly relevant as many global environmental change (GEC) factors, such as drought and nutrient enrichment, have been shown to reduce soil microbial biomass.

Plant diversity impacts decomposition and herbivory via changes in aboveground arthropods.

Loss of plant diversity influences essential ecosystem processes as aboveground productivity, and can have cascading effects on the arthropod communities in adjacent trophic levels. However, few studies have examined how those changes in arthropod communities can have additional impacts on ecosystem processes caused by them (e.g.

Separating drought effects from roof artifacts on ecosystem processes in a grassland drought experiment.

1: Given the predictions of increased drought probabilities under various climate change scenarios, there have been numerous experimental field studies simulating drought using transparent roofs in different ecosystems and regions. Such roofs may, however, have unknown side effects, called artifacts, on the measured variables potentially confounding the experimental results. A roofed control allows the quantification of potential artifacts, which is lacking in most experiments.

Plant diversity does not buffer drought effects on early-stage litter mass loss rates and microbial properties.

Human activities are decreasing biodiversity and changing the climate worldwide. Both global change drivers have been shown to affect ecosystem functioning, but they may also act in concert in a non-additive way. We studied early-stage litter mass loss rates and soil microbial properties (basal respiration and microbial biomass) during the summer season in response to plant species richness and summer drought in a large grassland biodiversity experiment, the Jena Experiment, Germany.

Deacetylase inhibitors modulate proliferation and self-renewal properties of leukemic stem and progenitor cells.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a highly malignant disease that is not curable in the majority of patients. Numerous non-random genetic abnormalities are known, among which several translocations such as PLZF/RARα or AML1/ETO are known to aberrantly recruit histone deacetylases. Deacetylase inhibitors (DACi) are promising drugs leading to growth inhibition, cell cycle arrest, premature senescence and apoptosis in malignant cells.

Grassland resistance and resilience after drought depends on management intensity and species richness.

The degree to which biodiversity may promote the stability of grasslands in the light of climatic variability, such as prolonged summer drought, has attracted considerable interest. Studies so far yielded inconsistent results and in addition, the effect of different grassland management practices on their response to drought remains an open question. We experimentally combined the manipulation of prolonged summer drought (sheltered vs.

The deacetylase inhibitor LAQ824 induces notch signalling in haematopoietic progenitor cells.

AML progenitor cells (AML-PC) undergo significant apoptosis in response to the deacetylase inhibitor (DACi) LAQ824 and lose the replating capacity which was not observed with the DACi valproic acid. Treatment of normal hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPC) with LAQ824 resulted in (i) inhibition of differentiation, (ii) an G2/M cell cycle arrest exclusively in multipotent CD34(+) HPC and (iii) induction of apoptosis predominantly in committed CD34(-) HPC. Gene expression analysis showed induction of coactivator and target genes of the notch pathway as well as cell cycle arrest-inducing genes in the most primitive CD34(+) CD38(-) HPC population which may in part be responsible for the considerable, but reversible haematotoxicity of this drug.