DIRS-1 is a 4.7-kilobase-pair repetitive and apparently transposable Dictyostelium genetic element that is transcribed during differentiation or after heat shock. The terminal regions of DIRS-1 are ...inverted repeats of 330 base pairs. The repeats are highly conserved both within a given element as well as between different members of the family (<10% divergence). At the distal end of all left repeats is a 32-nucleotide sequence composed almost entirely of A and T residues. In addition to this 32-base A + T sequence, the distal region of all right repeats is extended by a 28-base-pair A + T-rich sequence that is identical in all copies. The sequences flanking each DIRS-1 sequence are completely dissimilar, and there appears to be no duplication of the genomic DNA sequence at the presumed point of DIRS-1 insertion. The terminal repeats can also be found interspersed in the genome independently of the complete element. In addition, the terminal repeats carry a 15-nucleotide sequence that greatly resembles the Drosophila consensus heat shock promoter and may be involved in the transcriptional induction of the DIRS-1 sequences.
A Ku-band front end has been developed which integrates a low-loss wide-band monolithic mixer, a two-stage hybrid IF amplifier, and a lumped-element Gunn local oscillator (LO). Small size (0.5 cubic ...in), high performance, and potentially low production cost have been demonstrated through the application of highly compatible IC construction techniques.
Two monkeys were trained in a novel version of a delayed match-to-sample (DMS) task. They were required to fixate on a small spot at the center of the monitor and distinguish whether two gratings ...presented one after the other with delays up to 1.5 s in a specific visual field location were similar or not. It was found that such learning fails to transfer readily to other retinal locations. In fact, the learning was sensitive even to very small retinal displacements of the visual stimuli. Such acute retinal position specificity implies that at least a component of the learning in this particular memory task occurs at an early visual area such as the striate cortex, which has a fine-grain topographical representation. Furthermore, at early stages of learning the DMS task, when the monkeys had not generalized the learning to stimuli of different sizes, they failed to show size constancy. That is, when the display was placed at a different distance but with the same absolute size, the performance dropped. The performance was almost fully restored when, at the new display location, stimuli were changed to fit the original retinal size. This indicates that a crucial component of the learning does occur at a site even prior to size constancy. These results show that, under certain situations, an early visual area such as the primary visual cortex may be involved even in complex behaviours such as a memory task as more than just a feature-detecting area or a relay station.
Hyperinflammatory syndromes are life-threatening disorders caused by overzealous immune cell activation and cytokine release, often resulting from defects in negative feedback mechanisms. In the ...quintessential hyperinflammatory syndrome familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), inborn errors of cytotoxicity result in effector cell accumulation, immune dysregulation and, if untreated, tissue damage and death. Here, we describe a human case with a homozygous nonsense R688* RC3H1 mutation suffering from hyperinflammation, presenting as relapsing HLH. RC3H1 encodes Roquin-1, a posttranscriptional repressor of immuneregulatory proteins such as ICOS, OX40 and TNF. Comparing the R688* variant with the murine M199R variant reveals a phenotypic resemblance, both in immune cell activation, hypercytokinemia and disease development. Mechanistically, R688* Roquin-1 fails to localize to P-bodies and interact with the CCR4-NOT deadenylation complex, impeding mRNA decay and dysregulating cytokine production. The results from this unique case suggest that impaired Roquin-1 function provokes hyperinflammation by a failure to quench immune activation.
A recombinant cDNA plasmid containing Xenopus immunoglobulin heavy chain sequence has been constructed from Xenopus spleen poly(A)-containing RNA. The plasmid was identified by colony hybridization ...and a hybridization-translation assay and its identity was confirmed by DNA sequence analysis. The portion of the heavy chain sequence contained in the plasmid is 35% homologous to mammalian μ and γ sequences. The mRNA corresponding to this plasmid is 2.5 kilobases, in close agreement with the size of mouse μ mRNA. RNA sequences complementary to the cloned sequence appear in embryos about 24 hr after fertilization, which corresponds to 24 hr before the first detectable immunoglobulin.
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