Effector AnkX Disrupts Host Cell Endocytic Recycling in a Phosphocholination-Dependent Manner.

The facultative intracellular bacterium proliferates within amoebae and human alveolar macrophages, and it is the causative agent of Legionnaires' disease, a life-threatening pneumonia. Within host cells, establishes a replicative haven by delivering numerous effector proteins into the host cytosol, many of which target membrane trafficking by manipulating the function of Rab GTPases. The effector AnkX is a phosphocholine transferase that covalently modifies host Rab1 and Rab35.

Cortical Activation during Action Observation, Action Execution, and Interpersonal Synchrony in Adults: A functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Study.

Humans engage in Interpersonal Synchrony (IPS) as they synchronize their own actions with that of a social partner over time. When humans engage in imitation/IPS behaviors, multiple regions in the frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices are activated including the putative Mirror Neuron Systems (Iacoboni, 2005; Buxbaum et al., 2014).

Differences in Cortisol Response to Trauma Activation in Individuals with and without Comorbid PTSD and Depression.

Although depression symptoms are often experienced by individuals who develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following trauma exposure, little is know about the biological correlates associated with PTSD and depression co-morbidity vs. those associated with PTSD symptoms alone. Here we examined salivary cortisol responses to trauma activation in a sample of 60 survivors of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.

Epigenetic DNA Methylation Profiling with MSRE: A Quantitative NGS Approach Using a Parkinson's Disease Test Case.

Epigenetics is a rapidly developing field focused on deciphering chemical fingerprints that accumulate on human genomes over time. As the nascent idea of precision medicine expands to encompass epigenetic signatures of diagnostic and prognostic relevance, there is a need for methodologies that provide high-throughput DNA methylation profiling measurements. Here we report a novel quantification methodology for computationally reconstructing site-specific CpG methylation status from next generation sequencing (NGS) data using methyl-sensitive restriction endonucleases (MSRE).

Single-Cell Transcriptional Analysis Reveals Novel Neuronal Phenotypes and Interaction Networks Involved in the Central Circadian Clock.

Single-cell heterogeneity confounds efforts to understand how a population of cells organizes into cellular networks that underlie tissue-level function. This complexity is prominent in the mammalian suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Here, individual neurons exhibit a remarkable amount of asynchronous behavior and transcriptional heterogeneity.

Killing Two Birds with One Stone: Natural Rice Rhizospheric Microbes Reduce Arsenic Uptake and Blast Infections in Rice.

Our recent work has shown that a rice thizospheric natural isolate, a (hereafter EA106) attenuates Arsenic (As) uptake in rice. In parallel, yet another natural rice rhizospheric isolate, a (hereafter EA105), was shown to inhibit rice blast pathogen . Considering the above, we envisaged to evaluate the importance of mixed stress regime in rice plants subjected to both As toxicity and blast infections.

The Architecture of Iron Microbial Mats Reflects the Adaptation of Chemolithotrophic Iron Oxidation in Freshwater and Marine Environments.

Microbes form mats with architectures that promote efficient metabolism within a particular physicochemical environment, thus studying mat structure helps us understand ecophysiology. Despite much research on chemolithotrophic Fe-oxidizing bacteria, Fe mat architecture has not been visualized because these delicate structures are easily disrupted. There are striking similarities between the biominerals that comprise freshwater and marine Fe mats, made by Beta- and Zetaproteobacteria, respectively.

D1FHS, the Type Strain of the Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacterium Nitrosococcus wardiae spec. nov.: Enrichment, Isolation, Phylogenetic, and Growth Physiological Characterization.

An ammonia-oxidizing bacterium, strain D1FHS, was enriched into pure culture from a sediment sample retrieved in Jiaozhou Bay, a hyper-eutrophic semi-closed water body hosting the metropolitan area of Qingdao, China. Based on initial 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain D1FHS was classified in the genus Nitrosococcus, family Chromatiaceae, order Chromatiales, class Gammaproteobacteria; the 16S rRNA gene sequence with highest level of identity to that of D1FHS was obtained from Nitrosococcus halophilus Nc4(T). The average nucleotide identity between the genomes of strain D1FHS and N.

Copy Number Variations in the Survival Motor Neuron Genes: Implications for Spinal Muscular Atrophy and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a leading genetic cause of infant death worldwide, is an early-onset, autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of spinal α-motor neurons. This loss of α-motor neurons is associated with muscle weakness and atrophy. SMA can be classified into five clinical grades based on age of onset and severity of the disease.

Adaptation of teleosts to very high salinity.

A number of species of euryhaline teleosts have the remarkable ability to adapt and survive in environments of extreme salinity, up to two or even three times the osmolality of seawater. This review looks at some of the literature describing the adaptive changes that occur, primarily with intestinal water absorption and with the properties of the gill epithelium. While there is much that is still not completely understood, recent work has begun to look at these adaptations at the cellular and molecular level.