Microbial communities network analysis of anaerobic reactors fed with bovine and swine slurry.

Anaerobic digestion can produce biogas as an eco-friendly energy source, driven by a microbial community-dependent process and, as such, suffer influences from many biotic and abiotic factors. Understanding the players and how they interact, the mechanisms involved, what the factors are, and how they influence the biogas process and production is an important way to better control it and make it more efficient. Metagenomic approach is a powerful tool to assess microbial diversity and further, allow correlating changes in microbial communities with multiple factors in virtually all environments.

[Screening for sepsis, the central role of the nurse].

In 2016, the International Consensus Conference 'Sepsis-3' highlighted the value of Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) and Quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) scores in addition to medical and paramedical clinical reasoning to assess severity and the risk of mortality. The option of using qSOFA scores in healthcare services underlines the important role of nurses in the early detection of sepsis with a risk of unfavourable outcome, raising hopes of reducing the associated mortality.

Reversible translocation of p115-RhoGEF by G(12/13)-coupled receptors.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are important targets for medicinal agents. Four different G protein families, G(s), G(i), G(q), and G(12), engage in their linkage to activation of receptor-specific signal transduction pathways. G(12) proteins were more recently studied, and upon activation by GPCRs they mediate activation of RhoGTPase guanine nucleotide exchange factors (RhoGEFs), which in turn activate the small GTPase RhoA.

Covalent labeling of cell-surface proteins for in-vivo FRET studies.

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a powerful technique to reveal interactions between membrane proteins in live cells. Fluorescence labeling for FRET is typically performed by fusion with fluorescent proteins (FP) with the drawbacks of a limited choice of fluorophores, an arduous control of donor-acceptor ratio and high background fluorescence arising from intracellular FPs. Here we show that these shortcomings can be overcome by using the acyl carrier protein labeling technique.

FRET imaging reveals that functional neurokinin-1 receptors are monomeric and reside in membrane microdomains of live cells.

The lateral organization of a prototypical G protein-coupled receptor, the neurokinin-1 receptor (NK1R), was investigated in living cells by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) microscopy, taking advantage of the recently developed acyl carrier protein (ACP) labeling technique. The NK1R was expressed as fusion protein with ACP to which small fluorophores were then covalently bound. Our approach allowed the recording of FRET images of receptors on living cells with unprecedented high signal-to-noise ratios and a subsequent unequivocal quantification of the FRET data owing to (i) the free choice of optimal fluorophores, (ii) the labeling of NK1Rs exclusively on the cell surface, and (iii) the precise control of the donor-acceptor molar ratio.

Kinetics of the initial steps of G protein-coupled receptor-mediated cellular signaling revealed by single-molecule imaging.

We report on an in vivo single-molecule study of the signaling kinetics of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) performed using the neurokinin 1 receptor (NK1R) as a representative member. The NK1R signaling cascade is triggered by the specific binding of a fluorescently labeled agonist, substance P (SP). The diffusion of single receptor-ligand complexes in plasma membrane of living HEK 293 cells is imaged using fast single-molecule wide-field fluorescence microscopy at 100 ms time resolution.

CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte activation by soluble major histocompatibility complex-peptide dimers.

CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) can recognize and kill target cells that express only a few cognate major histocompatibility complex class I-peptide (pMHC) complexes. To better understand the molecular basis of this sensitive recognition process, we studied dimeric pMHC complexes containing linkers of different lengths. Although dimers containing short (10-30-A) linkers efficiently bound to and triggered intracellular calcium mobilization and phosphorylation in cloned CTL, dimers containing long linkers (> or = 80 A) did not.

Hydrogen: a relevant shallow donor in zinc oxide.

Electron paramagnetic resonance and Hall measurements show consistently the presence of two donors ( D1 and D2) in state-of-the-art, nominally undoped ZnO single crystals. Using electron nuclear double resonance it is found that D1 shows hyperfine interaction with more than 50 shells of surrounding 67Zn nuclei, proving that it is a shallow, effective-mass-like donor. In addition D1 exhibits a single interaction with a H nucleus ( a(H) = 1.