Tus is a protein involved in DNA replication termination that binds specific DNA sequences (Ter) located around the terminus region of the chromosome in Enterobacterales. Tus and Ter form a unique ...monomeric protein-DNA complex which is one of strongest of its kind. A fascinating aspect of Tus-Ter is its ability to dramatically change conformation into a locked structure upon progression of a replication fork towards the non-permissive face of the complex. Over the last two decades, several new technologies have emerged harnessing the unique and interesting properties of this fascinating DNA-binding protein. This review highlights the important properties of the Tus-Ter complex and their exploitation for the development of diverse and novel ultrasensitive detection devices as well as innovative genomic and proteomic platform technologies. A variety of ex vivo and in vivo bioanalytical applications are discussed, including immuno-PCR diagnostic, bioassay and protein array technologies that are broadly relevant to the fields of cancer biology, microbiology and immunology. A perspective on future research and applications is provided.
Display omitted
•This review showcases applications of the bacterial Tus-Ter interaction.•Ex vivo and in vivo bioanalytical applications are discussed in detail.•A perspective on future research and developments is provided.
The structure of metal electrode/HfZrO x (HZO)/AlON/n + -Si was employed as the platform to study how the effective work function (EWF) of the electrode affects the characteristics of the FTJ ...devices. By introducing TiAl into the conventional TiN electrode, the EWF is reduced which leads to a higher tunnel electroresistance (TER) ratio of 30 due to the improved LRS current arising from the lower barrier height for thermionic emission. In addition, the TiAl-based device also displays high switching speed of 500 ns and robust endurance up to 10 6 , showing competitive advantages compared to others. Furthermore, the implementation of long-term plasticity is also demonstrated, implying potential applications for neuromorphic computing. The prominent properties make TiAl-based electrode as a compelling enabler for FTJ devices with even higher performance.
Human intestinal cell models are widely used to study host-enteric pathogen interactions, with different cell lines exhibiting specific characteristics and functions in the gut epithelium. In ...particular, the presence of mucus may play an important role in adhesion and invasion of pathogens. The aim of this study was to evaluate the suitability of the mucus-secreting HT29-MTX intestinal epithelial cell model to test adhesion and invasion of Salmonella strains and compare with data obtained with the more commonly used Caco-2 and HT-29 models. Adhesion of Salmonella to HT29-MTX cell model was significantly higher, likely due to high adhesiveness to mucins present in the native human mucus layer covering the whole cell surface, compared to the non- and low-mucus producing Caco-2 and HT-29 cell models, respectively. In addition, invasion percentages of some clinical Salmonella strains to HT29-MTX cultures were remarkably higher than to Caco-2 and HT-29 cells suggesting that these Salmonellae have subverted the mucus to enhance pathogenicity. The transepithelial electrical resistances of the infected HT29-MTX cell model decreased broadly and were highly correlated with invasion ability of the strain. Staining of S. Typhimurium-infected cell epithelium confirmed the higher invasion by Salmonella and subsequent disruption of tight junctions of HT29-MTX cell model compared with the Caco-2 and HT-29 cell models. Data from this study suggest that the HT29-MTX cell model, with more physiologically relevant characteristics with the mucus layer formation, could be better suited for studying cells–pathogens interactions.
•First study comparing intestinal cell models within a pathogen investigation.•Salmonella adhesion and invasion strongly dependent on the serovar and cell model.•Salmonella penetrate the mucus layer and subvert the mucus to enhance invasion.•The HT29-MTX cell model is more relevant to study Salmonella adhesion and invasion.
The present study is an analysis of the domestic furniture of the workers of the Industrial Colonies in Catalonia, taking like an example the specific case of the Colony of Borgonyà.
The choice of ...Borgonyà is not a coincidence, the Colony is especially interesting because his peculiar cultural contrast, combining the Scottish heritage in the construction of the houses with the local tradition in furniture. Also, most of the current population of the Colony were workers of the factory, so thanks to their personal testimonies and family pictures, we can make an accuracy reconstruction of the history of the worker’s domestic interiors.
Throughout the study, we will identify different qualities and furniture’s typologies related with the different status of the workers. We will recognize rural traditional furniture pieces at the ordinary worker’s houses in contrast of contemporary furniture at the keeper’s houses, with the quality of a middle-class bourgeois family.
Existen pocos estudios sobre el mobiliario popular de los trabajadores de las colonias textiles catalanas y sin embargo se trata de un tema de gran interés tanto desde un punto de vista histórico como sociológico. Las colonias textiles a menudo se describen como “mundos en miniatura” por el hecho de constituir núcleos de población autosuficientes y cerrados al exterior. Y esta situación origina realidades únicas que permanecen inalteradas a causa de este propio encierro, donde nunca queda claro si el aislamiento persigue la protección de sus habitantes o más bien se trata de un control exhaustivo de los mismos.
Pero el presente estudio no pretende analizar la estructura y funcionamiento de las colonias textiles, sino que se centra en el mobiliario de los diferentes tipos de trabajadores para relacionar las tipologías y las calidades de fabricación de las piezas con el estatus social de los trabajadores y la influencia de la tradición popular catalana.
Splenectomy is routinely performed during distal or total pancreatectomy (DP or TP) for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), but information about its oncological value is limited. TER cells, ...nonimmune cells discovered in the spleens of tumour‐bearing mice, are elicited by tumours and promote tumour progression, while their role in the clinical outcomes of patients with PDAC remains unclear. In our study, postoperative specimens from 622 patients who underwent DP or TP with splenectomy were analysed by flow cytometry or immunofluorescence, and the relationship between splenic TER cell count and clinical parameters was calculated. We also purified human TER cells for functional experiments and mechanistic studies. We found that TER cell numbers were increased only in the spleens of patients with PDAC but not in PDAC tissue and adjacent pancreatic tissue. High splenic TER cell counts independently predicted poor prognosis (P < .001) and indicated large tumour size, lymph node metastasis, advanced 8th AJCC/mAJCC stage and high CA19‐9 classification (all P < .050) in patients with PDAC. Mechanistic analysis showed that TER cells express artemin, which facilitates the proliferation and invasion of PDAC cells by activating GFRα3‐ERK signalling. Our study reveals that TER cell count is an indicator of poor prognosis of PDAC, while splenectomy during pancreatic surgery might provide oncological benefits in addition to ensuring the radical resection of PDAC.
What's new?
Splenic TER cells, nonimmune cells enriched during tumor progression, are suspected of promoting cancer cell survival and metastasis through remote signaling pathways. Little is known, however, about how TER cells impact tumor progression or whether they are clinically relevant. In this investigation of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients, TER cell number was found to be significantly increased in the spleen, with higher TER cell number predicting poor surgical outcome. Human TER cells secreted the neurotropic factor artemin and promoted PDAC cell malignancy via GFRα3‐ERK signaling activation. The findings suggest that splenectomy may be beneficial in the surgical treatment of PDAC.
A comprehensive physical model is established to understand the device operation and optimization strategy of the ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ). This model is capable of simulating write ...(switching polarity), read tunnel electroresistance (TER), and ac transient operations with a good agreement with experiments. The strategy of optimizing the thickness of the ferroelectric layer and nonpolar interfacial layer is discussed for enlarging TER ratio. We also discussed the possible misinterpretation of the measured TER ratio according to our model.
A low-cost fabrication process of Hf 1-x Zr x O 2 (HZO) nonvolatile memory (NVM) was proposed and its characteristics were investigated. We successfully fabricated a ferroelectric tunnel junction ...(FTJ) device with tunable conductance for neural network applications. The proposed FTJ device exhibits excellent performances, such as large conductance ratio of ~40 for a 500-ns pulse and thus satisfied low-power consumption of write pulse (1 fJ per bit) and fast write speed (<; 500 ns) requirements. Furthermore, we revealed that the metal-ferroelectric-insulator-semiconductor structure had a higher tunneling electroresistance ratio than the metal-ferroelectric-insulator-metalstructure. Moreover, the polarization operation of our FTJ devices achieved low-power analog-like conductance transition, multilevel operation, and even endurance characteristics is promising. These results demonstrate that the FTJ has high potential to be an ideal emerging memory for neuromorphic computing. Therefore, HZO-based devices are promising materials in neural network applications for next-generation devices.
In search of evidence of the emergence of the compound form of the antepretérito (past before), this article presents morphosyntactic-semantic motivations that led to the grammaticization process of ...the verbs haver/ter as auxiliaries plus verbal participles. Through the analysis of data from 1,680 medieval Galician-Portuguese songs, the emergence of the grammaticization process of compound tenses (haver/ter more participle) is portrayed through four analysis parameters, two of them referring to the argument selection of subject and object, one about the type of verbal combination and yet another to verify morphological marks of the participial form, so that it would be possible to detect grammaticization stages linked to principles such as layering, divergence, persistence, specialization and decategorization. This way, we noticed that the occurrences showed, predominantly, a lack of coincidence between subjects of haver/ter and participle; notion of metaphorical possession of the object; combination of haver/ter much more with verbs that do not contradict the notion of possession and neutralization (masculine/singular) of the participial structure. In addition to these contextual constructs that enabled the grammaticalization of structures composed of haver/ter in the imperfect tense plus participle, other verb tenses combined with the participle, depending on the context, have also manifested the temporal notion of past before another past in the songs, namely: presente do indicativo (present tense), pretérito perfeito do indicativo (simple past tense) and pretérito imperfeito do subjuntivo (subjunctive imperfect tense) followed by participle.
A variety of replication fork traps have recently been characterised in Enterobacterales, unveiling two different types of architecture. Of these, the degenerate type II fork traps are commonly found ...in Enterobacteriaceae such as Escherichia coli. The newly characterised type I fork traps are found almost exclusively outside Enterobacteriaceae within Enterobacterales and include several archetypes of possible ancestral architectures. Dickeya paradisiaca harbours a somewhat degenerate type I fork trap with a unique Ter1 adjacent to tus gene on one side of the circular chromosome and three putative Ter2–4 sites on the other side of the fork trap. The two innermost Ter1 and Ter2 sites are only separated by 18 kb, which is the shortest distance between two innermost Ter sites of any chromosomal fork trap identified so far. Of note, the dif site is located between these two sites, coinciding with a sharp GC-skew flip. Here we examined and compared the binding modalities of E. coli and D. paradisiaca Tus proteins for these Ter sites. Surprisingly, while Ter1–3 were functional, no significant Tus binding was observed for Ter4 even in low salt conditions, which is in stark contrast with the significant non-specific protein-DNA interactions that occur with E. coli Tus. Even more surprising was the finding that D. paradisiaca Tus has a relatively moderate binding affinity to double-stranded Ter while retaining an extremely high affinity to Ter-lock sequences. Our data revealed major differences in the salt resistance and stability between the D. paradisiaca and E. coli Tus protein complexes, suggesting that while Tus protein evolution can be quite flexible regarding the initial Ter binding step, it requires a highly stringent purifying selection for its final locked complex formation.
•D. paradisiaca Tus is almost devoid of non-specific DNA binding.•D. paradisiaca Tus binds moderately to Ter yet retains extreme affinity for Ter-lock.•D. paradisiaca Tus-Ter-lock stability increases 100,000-fold over Tus-Ter in low salt.•Tus evolution requires a highly stringent selection step based upon lock formation.
The Portuguese and Galician pluperfect is unique in Romance. Rather than developing a generalized compound pluperfect structure early, as did French and Spanish (e.g., Fr. J'avais chanté 'I had ...sung') the Latin pluperfect indicative survived with its original semantics into the 20th century (Lat. cantāveram > Port. cantara 'I had sung'). This paper presents a thorough description of the development of the Portuguese pluperfect and then proposes an explanation as to why it diverges from the standard Romance pattern.Amaral and Howe (2009) attribute the unique iterative semantics of the Portuguese compound past to auxiliary ter 'to have' generalization. Similarly, this paper proposes that ter selection is also behind the unique pluperfect situation. Specifically, when ter was generalized over haver in the 16th century, the resultative/stative interpretation of the compound pluperfect verb form was preferred. This delayed a grammaticalization process that allowed the compound pluperfect to gain an eventive interpretation and to more freely alternate with-and eventually supplant-the synthetic pluperfect from Latin.Using empirical data from the Corpus do Português (Davies & Ferreira, 2006), this work describes the development of the Portuguese pluperfect and concludes that the generalization of auxiliary ter is the primary reason for the prolonged survival of the Latin synthetic pluperfect form.
PDF
