In this paper, we identify the socio-economic attributes and attitudes that have influenced house owners in renovating their homes in the past. Our study is based on responses to an online ...questionnaire survey of 971 house owners living in Kronoberg County in Sweden. Results showed that the interest and willingness of the house owners to perform a renovation varied depending on their demographic background and the age of the house. The latter positively affected past renovations, only when combined with the residence time. Furthermore, the age of house owners strongly and positively affected the probability of performing aesthetic type of renovations, because of a long time of residence in the house. Younger, town living, and highly educated house owners seem to be more concerned regarding saving energy, which motivated them to perform physical renovations on their house. Our results also suggest that income, level of education, and place of residence have an effect on renovation decisions only through their effect on the energy concern of house owners, and a varied effect on renovation decisions, when combined with the time of residence in the house.
Significance This study addresses a fundamentally important and widely debated issue in the field of inflammation, which is why inflammation can be simultaneously deleterious after injury and yet is ...essential for tissue repair. Recently, an important new paradigm has emerged in the macrophage field: Organs are replete with resident macrophages of embryonic origin, distinct from monocyte-derived macrophages. In this article, we use a new model of cardiac injury and show that distinct macrophage populations derived from embryonic and adult lineages are important determinants of tissue repair and inflammation, respectively. Our data suggest that therapeutics, which inhibit monocyte-derived macrophages and/or selectively harness the function of embryonic-derived macrophages, may serve as novel treatments for heart failure.
The mechanistic basis for why inflammation is simultaneously both deleterious and essential for tissue repair is not fully understood. Recently, a new paradigm has emerged: Organs are replete with resident macrophages of embryonic origin distinct from monocyte-derived macrophages. This added complexity raises the question of whether distinct immune cells drive inflammatory and reparative activities after injury. Previous work has demonstrated that the neonatal heart has a remarkable capacity for tissue repair compared with the adult heart, offering an ideal context to examine these concepts. We hypothesized that unrecognized differences in macrophage composition is a key determinant of cardiac tissue repair. Using a genetic model of cardiomyocyte ablation, we demonstrated that neonatal mice expand a population of embryonic-derived resident cardiac macrophages, which generate minimal inflammation and promote cardiac recovery through cardiomyocyte proliferation and angiogenesis. During homeostasis, the adult heart contains embryonic-derived macrophages with similar properties. However, after injury, these cells were replaced by monocyte-derived macrophages that are proinflammatory and lacked reparative activities. Inhibition of monocyte recruitment to the adult heart preserved embryonic-derived macrophage subsets, reduced inflammation, and enhanced tissue repair. These findings indicate that embryonic-derived macrophages are key mediators of cardiac recovery and suggest that therapeutics targeting distinct macrophage lineages may serve as novel treatments for heart failure.
Mechanosensation is perhaps the last sensory modality not understood at the molecular level. Ion channels that sense mechanical force are postulated to play critical roles in a variety of biological ...processes including sensing touch/pain (somatosensation), sound (hearing), and shear stress (cardiovascular physiology); however, the identity of these ion channels has remained elusive. We previously identified Piezo1 and Piezo2 as mechanically activated cation channels that are expressed in many mechanosensitive cell types. Here, we show that Piezo1 is expressed in endothelial cells of developing blood vessels in mice. Piezo1-deficient embryos die at midgestation with defects in vascular remodeling, a process critically influenced by blood flow. We demonstrate that Piezo1 is activated by shear stress, the major type of mechanical force experienced by endothelial cells in response to blood flow. Furthermore, loss of Piezo1 in endothelial cells leads to deficits in stress fiber and cellular orientation in response to shear stress, linking Piezo1 mechanotransduction to regulation of cell morphology. These findings highlight an essential role of mammalian Piezo1 in vascular development during embryonic development.
Many times, change in architecture is bolstered by circumstances beyond an individual’s control. Discussing the reforms to the Santiago Municipal Theater building, from its inauguration in 1857 until ...almost a century later, Germán Hidalgo recounts many forces that drive change: natural disasters, stylistic debates, urban modernization, among others. The foyer occupies a central role in this narrative, as a space for presentation and representation: where the technical demands of the theater meet the aspirations of an institution, a city, and the building’s successive architects.
Modern protein crystal structures are based nearly exclusively on X-ray data collected at cryogenic temperatures (generally 100 K). The cooling process is thought to introduce little bias in the ...functional interpretation of structural results, because cryogenic temperatures minimally perturb the overall protein backbone fold. In contrast, here we show that flash cooling biases previously hidden structural ensembles in protein crystals. By analyzing available data for 30 different proteins using new computational tools for electron-density sampling, model refinement, and molecular packing analysis, we found that crystal cryocooling remodels the conformational distributions of more than 35% of side chains and eliminates packing defects necessary for functional motions. In the signaling switch protein, H-Ras, an allosteric network consistent with fluctuations detected in solution by NMR was uncovered in the room-temperature, but not the cryogenic, electron-density maps. These results expose a bias in structural databases toward smaller, overpacked, and unrealistically unique models. Monitoring room-temperature conformational ensembles by X-ray crystallography can reveal motions crucial for catalysis, ligand binding, and allosteric regulation.
Mechanosensing by flagella is thought to trigger bacterial swarmer-cell differentiation, an important step in pathogenesis. How flagellar motors sense mechanical stimuli is not known. To study this ...problem, we suddenly increased the viscous drag on motors by a large factor, from very low loads experienced by motors driving hooks or hooks with short filament stubs, to high loads, experienced by motors driving tethered cells or 1-μm latex beads. From the initial speed (after the load change), we inferred that motors running at very low loads are driven by one or at most two force-generating units. Following the load change, motors gradually adapted by increasing their speeds in a stepwise manner (over a period of a few minutes). Motors initially spun exclusively counterclockwise, but then increased the fraction of time that they spun clockwise over a time span similar to that observed for adaptation in speed. Single-motor total internal reflection fluorescence imaging of YFP–MotB (part of a stator force-generating unit) confirmed that the response to sudden increments in load occurred by the addition of new force-generating units. We estimate that 6–11 force-generating units drive motors at high loads. Wild-type motors and motors locked in the clockwise or counterclockwise state behaved in a similar manner, as did motors in cells deleted for the motor protein gene fliL or for genes in the chemotaxis signaling pathway. Thus, it appears that stators themselves act as dynamic mechanosensors. They change their structure in response to changes in external load. How such changes might impact cellular functions other than motility remains an interesting question.
Cancer involves defects in the mechanisms underlying cell proliferation, death and migration. Calcium ions are central to these phenomena, serving as major signalling agents with spatial ...localization, magnitude and temporal characteristics of calcium signals ultimately determining cell's fate. Cellular Ca2+ signalling is determined by the concerted action of a molecular Ca2+-handling toolkit which includes: active energy-dependent Ca2+ transporters, Ca2+-permeable ion channels, Ca2+-binding and storage proteins, Ca2+-dependent effectors. In cancer, because of mutations, aberrant expression, regulation and/or subcellular targeting of Ca2+-handling/transport protein(s) normal relationships among extracellular, cytosolic, endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondrial Ca2+ concentrations or spatio-temporal patterns of Ca2+ signalling become distorted. This causes deregulation of Ca2+-dependent effectors that control signalling pathways determining cell's behaviour in a way to promote pathophysiological cancer hallmarks such as enhanced proliferation, survival and invasion. Despite the progress in our understanding of Ca2+ homeostasis remodelling in cancer cells as well as in identification of the key Ca2+-transport molecules promoting certain malignant phenotypes, there is still a lot of work to be done to transform fundamental findings and concepts into new Ca2+ transport-targeting tools for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The skeleton shows greatest plasticity to physical activity-related mechanical loads during youth but is more at risk for failure during aging. Do the skeletal benefits of physical activity during ...youth persist with aging? To address this question, we used a uniquely controlled cross-sectional study design in which we compared the throwing-to-nonthrowing arm differences in humeral diaphysis bone properties in professional baseball players at different stages of their careers (n = 103) with dominant-to-nondominant arm differences in controls (n = 94). Throwing-related physical activity introduced extreme loading to the humeral diaphysis and nearly doubled its strength. Once throwing activities ceased, the cortical bone mass, area, and thickness benefits of physical activity during youth were gradually lost because of greater medullary expansion and cortical trabecularization. However, half of the bone size (total cross-sectional area) and one-third of the bone strength (polar moment of inertia) benefits of throwing-related physical activity during youth were maintained lifelong. In players who continued throwing during aging, some cortical bone mass and more strength benefits of the physical activity during youth were maintained as a result of less medullary expansion and cortical trabecularization. These data indicate that the old adage of “use it or lose it” is not entirely applicable to the skeleton and that physical activity during youth should be encouraged for lifelong bone health, with the focus being optimization of bone size and strength rather than the current paradigm of increasing mass. The data also indicate that physical activity should be encouraged during aging to reduce skeletal structural decay.
Shear stress, especially low shear stress (LowSS), plays an important role in vascular remodeling during atherosclerosis. Endothelial cells (ECs), which are directly exposed to shear stress, convert ...mechanical stimuli into intracellular signals and interact with the underlying vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). The interactions between ECs and VSMCs modulate the LowSS-induced vascular remodeling. With the use of proteomic analysis, the protein profiles of rat aorta cultured under LowSS (5 dyn/cm²) and normal shear stress (15 dyn/cm²) were compared. By using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis to identify protein-protein association, a network was disclosed that involves two secretary molecules, PDGF-BB and TGF-β1, and three other linked proteins, lamin A, lysyl oxidase, and ERK 1/2. The roles of this network in cellular communication, migration, and proliferation were further studied in vitro by a cocultured parallel-plate flow chamber system. LowSS up-regulated migration and proliferation of ECs and VSMCs, increased productions of PDGF-BB and TGF-β1, enhanced expressions of lysyl oxidase and phospho-ERK1/2, and decreased Lamin A in ECs and VSMCs. These changes induced by LowSS were confirmed by using PDGF-BB recombinant protein, siRNA, and neutralizing antibody. TGF-β1 had similar influences on ECs as PDGF-BB, but not on VSMCs. Our results suggest that ECs convert the LowSS stimuli into up-regulations of PDGF-BB and TGF-β1, but these two factors play different roles in LowSS-induced vascular remodeling. PDGF-BB is involved in the paracrine control of VSMCs by ECs, whereas TGF-β1 participates in the feedback control from VSMCs to ECs.
Abstract
The gap between energy policy and potential energy savings through renovation, and what is carried out in practice has been in focus of previous research. Various influencing factors such as ...economy, organisation, and social relations versus tenants has been studied to design guidelines to bridge this gap. There is a lack of empirical studies of how renovation is planned, and what factors will influence the renovation measures that are implemented. This paper takes the starting point in 42 on-going and planned housing renovation projects 2018 – 2021 carried out by three municipal housing companies in one major Swedish metropolitan area. Based on the character of these, three main types of housing renovation are defined. The most current type of renovation is bathroom and piping while climate envelope renovation and deep renovation are less common. Energy saving is decoupled from renovation activities which will have implications for implementation of policy for energy efficient renovation.
PDF
