Publications by authors named "L L Duff"

Calcium sensor proteins play important roles by detecting changes in intracellular calcium and relaying that information onto downstream targets through protein-protein interaction. Very little is known about calcium sensors from plant species that predate land colonization and the evolution of embryophytes. Here, we examined the genome of the multicellular algae, Chara braunii, for orthologs to the evolutionarily conserved calcium sensor calmodulin (CaM) and for CaM-like (CML) proteins.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the effectiveness of [F]FDG PET and LGE-CMR imaging methods for distinguishing cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) from myocardial inflammation resulting from COVID-19.
  • It involved analyzing image data from 35 post-COVID-19 patients and 40 CS patients, focusing on extracting and testing radiomic features to improve diagnostic accuracy for these conditions.
  • The results indicated that the combined signature of features from [F]FDG PET performed exceptionally well with an AUC of 0.98 and accuracy of 0.91, while LGE-CMR achieved an accuracy of 0.75 and AUC of 0.87, highlighting the potential of machine learning classifiers in enhancing diagnostic outcomes.
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Macrocycles and medium-sized rings are important in many scientific fields and technologies but are hard to make using current methods, especially on a large scale. Outlined herein is a strategy by which functionalized macrocycles and medium-sized rings can be prepared using cyclization/ring expansion (CRE) cascade reactions, without resorting to high dilution conditions. CRE cascade reactions are designed to operate exclusively via kinetically favorable 5-7-membered ring cyclization steps; this means that the problems typically associated with classical end-to-end macrocyclization reactions are avoided.

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Background: Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death worldwide, including infection and inflammation related conditions. Multiple studies have demonstrated potential advantages of hybrid positron emission tomography combined with computed tomography (PET/CT) as an adjunct to current clinical inflammatory and infectious biochemical markers. To quantitatively analyze vascular diseases at PET/CT, robust segmentation of the aorta is necessary.

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Eukaryotic cells use calcium ions (Ca2+) as second messengers, particularly in response to abiotic and biotic stresses. These signals are detected by Ca2+ sensor proteins, such as calmodulin (CaM), which regulate the downstream target proteins. Plants also possess many CaM-like proteins (CMLs), most of which remain unstudied.

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