Time series of chicken stool metagenomics and egg metabolomics in changing production systems: preliminary insights from a proof-of-concept.

Background: Different production systems of livestock animals influence various factors, including the gut microbiota.

Methods: We investigated whether changing the conditions from barns to free-range chicken farming impacts the microbiome over the course of three weeks. We compared the stool microbiota of chicken from industrial barns after introducing them either in community or separately to a free-range environment.

Presynaptic [Ca(2+)] and GCAPs: aspects on the structure and function of photoreceptor ribbon synapses.

Changes in intracellular calcium ions [Ca(2+)] play important roles in photoreceptor signaling. Consequently, intracellular [Ca(2+)] levels need to be tightly controlled. In the light-sensitive outer segments (OS) of photoreceptors, Ca(2+) regulates the activity of retinal guanylate cyclases thus playing a central role in phototransduction and light-adaptation by restoring light-induced decreases in cGMP.

EF hand-mediated Ca- and cGMP-signaling in photoreceptor synaptic terminals.

Photoreceptors, the light-sensitive receptor neurons of the retina, receive and transmit a plethora of visual informations from the surrounding world. Photoreceptors capture light and convert this energy into electrical signals that are conveyed to the inner retina. For synaptic communication with the inner retina, photoreceptors make large active zones that are marked by synaptic ribbons.