Impact of Aging and a High-Fat Diet on Adipose-Tissue-Derived Extracellular Vesicle miRNA Profiles in Mice.

Background: Middle-aged adults have the highest obesity rates, leading to significant health complications in later years. Obesity triggers the release of altered molecules, including extracellular vesicles (EVs) from excess adipose tissue (AT), contributing to various health complications. In this study, we assessed the effects of age and a high-fat diet on AT-derived EV miRNA profiles to understand their potential roles in aging and obesity.

Extracellular vesicle miRNAs in breast milk of obese mothers.

Background: Breast milk has abundant extracellular vesicles (EVs) containing various biological molecules (cargo), including miRNAs. EVs are not degraded in the gastrointestinal system and circulation; thus, breast milk EVs (bEVs) are expected to interact with other organs in breastfed infants and modify the gene expression of recipient cells using miRNAs. Maternal pre-pregnancy BMI is a critical factor influencing the composition of breast milk.

An annotated cDNA library of juvenile Euprymna scolopes with and without colonization by the symbiont Vibrio fischeri.

Background: Biologists are becoming increasingly aware that the interaction of animals, including humans, with their coevolved bacterial partners is essential for health. This growing awareness has been a driving force for the development of models for the study of beneficial animal-bacterial interactions. In the squid-vibrio model, symbiotic Vibrio fischeri induce dramatic developmental changes in the light organ of host Euprymna scolopes over the first hours to days of their partnership.

1274 full-open reading frames of transcripts expressed in the developing mouse nervous system.

As part of the trans-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Mouse Brain Molecular Anatomy Project (BMAP), and in close coordination with the NIH Mammalian Gene Collection Program (MGC), we initiated a large-scale project to clone, identify, and sequence the complete open reading frame (ORF) of transcripts expressed in the developing mouse nervous system. Here we report the analysis of the ORF sequence of 1274 cDNAs, obtained from 47 full-length-enriched cDNA libraries, constructed by using a novel approach, herein described. cDNA libraries were derived from size-fractionated cytoplasmic mRNA isolated from brain and eye tissues obtained at several embryonic stages and postnatal days.

Development of evaluation procedures for local exhaust ventilation for United States postal service mail-processing equipment.

Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have conducted several evaluations of local exhaust ventilation (LEV) systems for the United States Postal Service (USPS) since autumn 2001 when (a) terrorist(s) employed the mail system for acts of bioterrorism. As a part of the USPS 2002 Emergency Preparedness Plan, the development and installation of LEV onto USPS mail-processing equipment can reduce future exposures to operators from potentially hazardous contaminants, such as anthrax, which might be emitted during the processing of mail. This article describes how NIOSH field testing led to the development of recommended testing procedures for evaluations of LEV capture efficiency for mail-processing equipment, including tracer gas measurements, smoke release observations, air velocity measurements, and decay-rate testing under access hoods.

High-throughput gene discovery in the rat.

The rat is an important animal model for human diseases and is widely used in physiology. In this article we present a new strategy for gene discovery based on the production of ESTs from serially subtracted and normalized cDNA libraries, and we describe its application for the development of a comprehensive nonredundant collection of rat ESTs. Our new strategy appears to yield substantially more EST clusters per ESTs sequenced than do previous approaches that did not use serial subtraction.

EST-based gene discovery in pig: virtual expression patterns and comparative mapping to human.

A molecular understanding of porcine reproduction is of biological interest and economic importance. Our Midwest Consortium has produced cDNA libraries containing the majority of genes expressed in major female reproductive tissues, and we have deposited into public databases 21,499 expressed sequence tag (EST) gene sequences from the 3' end of clones from these libraries. These sequences represent 10,574 different genes, based on sequence comparison among these data, and comparison with existing porcine ESTs and genes indicate as many as 4652 of these EST clusters are novel.

Control of wake-induced exposure using an interrupted oscillating jet.

A problem may arise in ventilation design when the contaminant source is located in the worker's wake, where turbulence and vortex formation can carry the contaminant into the breathing zone even though the source is downwind. It was found previously that forced directional variations in the flow can reduce or eliminate the vortex formation that causes these local reversals. Reported here is a simple realization of this concept, in which an oscillating jet of air was directed at a mannequin in an otherwise steady flow of air.