Experiments and Agent Based Models of Zooplankton Movement within Complex Flow Environments.

The movement of plankton is often dictated by local flow patterns, particularly during storms and in environments with strong flows. Reefs, macrophyte beds, and other immersed structures can provide shelter against washout and drastically alter the distributions of plankton as these structures redirect and slow the flows through them. Advection-diffusion and agent-based models are often used to describe the movement of plankton within marine and fresh water environments and across multiple scales.

Potent Sensitisation of Cancer Cells to Anticancer Drugs by a Quadruple Mutant of the Human Deoxycytidine Kinase.

Identifying enzymes that, once introduced in cancer cells, lead to an increased efficiency of treatment constitutes an important goal for biomedical applications. Using an original procedure whereby mutant genes are generated based on the use of conditional lentivector genome mobilisation, we recently described, for the first time, the identification of a human deoxycytidine kinase (dCK) mutant (G12) that sensitises a panel of cancer cell lines to treatment with the dCK analogue gemcitabine. Here, starting from the G12 variant itself, we generated a new library and identified a mutant (M36) that triggers even greater sensitisation to gemcitabine than G12.

Two-codon T-box riboswitch binding two tRNAs.

T-box riboswitches control transcription of downstream genes through the tRNA-binding formation of terminator or antiterminator structures. Previously reported T-boxes were described as single-specificity riboswitches that can bind specific tRNA anticodons through codon-anticodon interactions with the nucleotide triplet of their specifier loop (SL). However, the possibility that T-boxes might exhibit specificity beyond a single tRNA had been overlooked.

Riboswitch (T-box)-mediated control of tRNA-dependent amidation in Clostridium acetobutylicum rationalizes gene and pathway redundancy for asparagine and asparaginyl-trnaasn synthesis.

Analysis of the Gram-positive Clostridium acetobutylicum genome reveals an inexplicable level of redundancy for the genes putatively involved in asparagine (Asn) and Asn-tRNA(Asn) synthesis. Besides a duplicated set of gatCAB tRNA-dependent amidotransferase genes, there is a triplication of aspartyl-tRNA synthetase genes and a duplication of asparagine synthetase B genes. This genomic landscape leads to the suspicion of the incoherent simultaneous use of the direct and indirect pathways of Asn and Asn-tRNA(Asn) formation.

Antitumor activity of liposomal ErbB2/HER2 epitope peptide-based vaccine constructs incorporating TLR agonists and mannose receptor targeting.

Synthetic and molecularly defined constructs containing the minimal components to mimic and amplify the physiological immune response are able to induce an efficient cytotoxic response. In the current study this approach was applied to the development of highly versatile liposomal constructs to co-deliver peptide epitopes in combination with TLR agonists in order to induce a specific anti-tumor cellular immune response against ErbB2 protein-expressing tumor cells. Liposomes containing ErbB2 p63-71 cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) and HA307-319 T- helper (Th) peptide epitopes associated to innovative synthetic TLR2/1 (Pam(3)CAG) or TLR2/6 agonists (Pam(2)CAG and Pam(2)CGD), were injected in mice bearing ErbB2 protein-expressing tumor cells.