Background: Physical activity has been proven to be beneficial for physical and psychological health as well as for academic achievement. However, especially university students are insufficiently physically active because of difficulties in time management regarding study, work, and social demands. As they are at a crucial life stage, it is of interest how physical activity affects university students' stress load and recovery as well as their academic performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale: Pulmonary innate immune cells play a central role in the initiation and perpetuation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), however the precise mechanisms that orchestrate the development and severity of COPD are poorly understood.
Objectives: We hypothesized that the recently described family of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) play an important role in COPD.
Methods: Subjects with COPD and healthy controls were clinically evaluated, and their sputum samples were assessed by flow cytometry.
University students are of particular public health interest because they are at high risk for physical inactivity and sedentary behaviors. In conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic, sedentariness and physical inactivity were reinforced, as the pandemic led to an increase in home studying. Physical activity (PA) breaks have been identified as promoting factors for university students' physical and mental health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUniversity students are particularly at risk to suffer from physical and psychological complaints and for not fulfilling health-oriented physical activity (PA) recommendations. Since PA is linked with various benefits for health and educational outcomes, the group of students is of particular interest for PA promotion. Although active commuting has been identified as a relevant domain of PA in order to gain the various benefits of PA, little knowledge is available with respect to university students.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to establish a thrombin generation assay (calibrated automated thrombogram, CAT) in cats by determining the precision (repeatability), reference values, and the sensitivity to anticoagulant treatment with the factor Xa inhibitor apixaban. The CAT method was performed on citrated plasma with different commercial tissue factor (TF) reagents (PPP Reagent 1 pM [LOW], PPP Reagent 5 pM, PPP Reagent 20 pM [HIGH]) according to the manufacturers` test instruction. Measurements in triplicate were performed in platelet poor plasma (PPP) of 58 healthy cats and in 6 cats at different times following the oral administration of 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe lifetime and performance of energy storage systems are essential characteristics for a major success of clean energy innovations, especially regarding the automotive sector. In this area, electric double-layer capacitors represent the cutting edge of nonfaradaic, high power, and long lifetime energy storages. Usually, degradation is neglected while operating or it is assessed by referring to simple rules of thumb.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe antiplatelet drug clopidogrel is widely used for prophylaxis of arterial thromboses in cats in a standard dosage of 18.75mg per cat once daily. The aim of the study was to verify if a reduced daily dose of 10mg clopidogrel per cat has a similar antiplatelet effect as the standard dosage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe case study reports on the effect of pharmacological, complementary, and alternative medicine including YNSA, Applied Kinesiology, and respiratory exercises in a 9-year-old boy with facial paralysis. The boy suffered from borreliosis and one-sided facial paralysis that occurred 3.5 weeks after being bitten by a tick and persisted despite 4 weeks of medication with antibiotics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe poplar hybrid Populus x canescens (syn. Populus tremula x Populus alba) was subjected to salt stress by applying 75 mM NaCl for 2 weeks in hydroponic cultures. Decreasing maximum quantum yield (Fv/Fm) indicated damage of photosystem II (PS II), which was more pronounced under nitrate compared with ammonium nutrition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Genotyping of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) is a fundamental technology in modern genetics. The SNPlex mid-throughput genotyping system (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) enables the multiplexed genotyping of up to 48 SNPs simultaneously in a single DNA sample. The high level of automation and the large amount of data produced in a high-throughput laboratory require advanced software tools for quality control and workflow management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study the impact of salt stress on the physiology and wood structure of the salt-sensitive Populus x canescens was investigated. Two weeks of salt stress altered wood anatomy significantly. The xylem differentiation zone was reduced and the resulting vessels exhibited reduced lumina.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlant Biol (Stuttg)
January 2008
Nitrogen nutrition and salt stress experiments were performed in a greenhouse with hydroponic-cultured, salt-sensitive Grey poplar (Populus x canescens) plants to study the combined influence of different N sources (either 1 mm NO(3) (-) or NH(4)(+)) and salt (up to 75 mm NaCl) on leaf gas exchange, isoprene biosynthesis and VOC emissions. Net assimilation and transpiration proved to be highly sensitive to salt stress and were reduced by approximately 90% at leaf sodium concentrations higher than 1,800 microg Na g dry weight (dw)(-1). In contrast, emissions of isoprene and oxygenated VOC (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe physiological role of isoprene emission in plants is a matter of much debate. One of the most widely propagated hypotheses suggests a function of isoprene in the protection of leaf physiological processes against thermal and oxidative stress. To test this hypothesis, we developed transgenic Grey poplar (Populusxcanescens) plants in which gene expression of isoprene synthase (ISPS) was either silenced by RNA interference (RNAi) or upregulated by over-expression of the ISPS gene.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSalinity represents an increasing environmental problem in managed ecosystems. Populus spp. is widely used for wood production by short-rotation forestry in fertilized plantations and can be grown on saline soil.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPutrescine N-methyltransferase (PMT) is a key enzyme of plant secondary metabolism at the start of the specific biosynthesis of nicotine, of tropane alkaloids, and of calystegines that are glycosidase inhibitors with nortropane structure. PMT is assumed to have developed from spermidine synthases (SPDS) participating in ubiquitous polyamine metabolism. In this study decisive differences between both enzyme families are elucidated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExternal salinization can affect different steps of nitrogen (N) metabolism (ion uptake, N assimilation, and amino acid and protein synthesis) depending on the inorganic N source. Here, we assessed the net uptake of N supplied as nitrate or ammonium and N assimilation (combining metabolite analyses with molecular biological approaches) in grey poplar (Populus x canescens) plants grown under saline (75 mM NaCl) and control conditions. The specific (micromol N g(-1) dry weight fine roots h(-1)) and total plant (micromol N per plant h(-1)) N net uptake rates, total plant N content, total plant biomass and total leaf protein concentration were reduced under saline conditions when plants were supplied with ammonium.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe performed a genome-wide association study of 19,779 nonsynonymous SNPs in 735 individuals with Crohn disease and 368 controls. A total of 7,159 of these SNPs were informative. We followed up on all 72 SNPs with P
Functional annotation of SNPs (as generated by HapMap (http://www.hapmap.org) for instance) is a major challenge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenome-wide association analysis appears to be a promising way to identify heritable susceptibility factors for complex human disorders. However, the feasibility of large-scale genotyping experiments is currently limited by an incomplete marker coverage of the genome, a restricted understanding of the functional role of given genomic regions, and the small sample sizes used. Thus, genome-wide association analysis will be a screening tool to facilitate subsequent gene discovery rather than a means to completely resolve individual genetic risk profiles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTranscript levels of mRNA from 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (PcDXR), isoprene synthase (PcISPS), and phytoene synthase (PcPSY) showed strong seasonal variations in leaves of Grey poplar (Populus x canescens [Aiton] Sm.). These changes were dependent on the developmental stage and were strongly correlated to temperature and light.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAvailability of high quality SNP data is a rate-limiting factor in understanding the impact of genetic variability on gene function and phenotype. Although global projects like HAPMAP generate large numbers of SNPs in an even spacing throughout the human genome, many variation studies have a more focused approach: in the follow-up of positional association findings, candidate gene studies, and functional genomics experiments, knowledge of all variations in a limited amount of sequence (e.g.
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