The 31P NMR spectra of CpRu(PR3)2Cl and Cp*Ru(PR3)2Cl complexes with PR3 = PMe3, PPhMe2, PPh2Me, PPh3, PEt3, P n Bu3 have been measured; these data correlate with and can be used to predict Ru–P ...bond distances and enthalpies. Their 31P NMR coordination chemical shifts (Δ(ppm) = δcomplex – δfree) show significant linear correlations with literature values of both the enthalpies of the ligand exchange reactions to form the Ru–P bonds and the average Ru–P bond distances from crystal structures. The strong correlation between Δ(ppm) and Ru–P distance can be extended to include the first-generation Grubbs metathesis catalyst (PCy3)2Cl2RuC(H)Ph and four of its derivatives, (PCy3)2Cl2RuC(H)(p-C6H4X) (X = OCH3, CH3, Cl, Br), the four related Fischer carbenes (PCy3)2Cl2RuC(H)ER (ER = OEt, SPh, N(carbazole), N(pyrrolidinone)), the second-generation Grubbs catalyst (PCy3)(IMes)Cl2RuC(H)Ph, and its derivative (PCy3)(IMes)Cl2RuC(H)OEt. Other significant correlations in the Cp′Ru(PR3)2Cl complexes are found between the enthalpies of reaction and Ru–P bond distances and between the cone angle and the Ru–P enthalpy, Ru–P bond distance, and Δ(ppm) values. The 31P NMR shifts for six phosphines correlate nearly linearly with their crystallographic cone angles, allowing prediction of cone angles from 31P NMR data.
RBF and GFR are decreased in kidneys after ipsilateral unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) for 24 h. Despite net vasoconstriction, vasodilatory mechanisms respond to counterbalance the ...vasoconstriction: the inhibition of nitric oxide synthase activity is associated with a greater reduction in RBF with ipsilateral UUO. To determine whether the stimulation of soluble guanylyl cyclase differs between glomeruli from obstructed kidneys and normal kidneys, cGMP was measured after stimulation by 10(-3) M sodium nitroprusside (SNP) in glomeruli isolated from the kidneys of Sprague-Dawley rats after 24 h of UUO or sham operation. The generation of intracellular and extracellular (EC) cGMP (femtomoles of cGMP/100 glomeruli/per hour) was measured by RIA. After incubation with SNP, the EC accumulation of cGMP by UUO glomeruli was significantly greater than that by glomeruli from sham-operated rats (P < 0.05). When glomerular studies were repeated in the presence of the phosphodiesterase inhibitor isobutyl methylxanthine, there was no difference in the EC accumulation of cGMP. The direct measurement of cGMP hydrolysis by phosphodiesterase was significantly less in glomerular homogenate from UUO rats compared with sham-operated rats (P < 0.05). When 10(-5) M losartan, an angiotensin II receptor inhibitor, was included in glomerular incubations, there was a significant decrease in the EC glomerular cGMP response to SNP in UUO glomeruli (P < 0.05). This attenuated response was abolished by the addition of isobutyl methylxanthine. The addition of angiotensin II did not alter the accumulation of cGMP by UUO or sham glomeruli. These studies indicate that decreased phosphodiesterase activity in UUO glomeruli contributes to the enhanced accumulation of EC glomerular cGMP after the stimulation of soluble guanylyl cyclase by SNP. In addition, angiotensin II receptors modulate this response, suggesting a role for soluble guanylyl cyclase in countering angiotensin-mediated vasoconstriction due to UUO.
Abstract The non-motor symptoms (NMS) of Parkinson's disease (PD) occur in roughly 90% of patients, have a profound negative impact on their quality of life, and often go undiagnosed. NMS typically ...involve many functional systems, and include sleep disturbances, neuropsychiatric and cognitive deficits, and autonomic and sensory dysfunction. The development and use of animal models have provided valuable insight into the classical motor symptoms of PD over the past few decades. Toxin-induced models provide a suitable approach to study aspects of the disease that derive from the loss of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons, a cardinal feature of PD. This also includes some NMS, primarily cognitive dysfunction. However, several NMS poorly respond to dopaminergic treatments, suggesting that they may be due to other pathologies. Recently developed genetic models of PD are providing new ways to model these NMS and identify their mechanisms. This review summarizes the current available literature on the ability of both toxin-induced and genetically-based animal models to reproduce the NMS of PD.
Aquaculture is growing rapidly worldwide, and sustainability is dependent on an understanding of current genetic variation and levels of connectivity among populations. Genetic data are essential to ...mitigate the genetic and ecological impacts of aquaculture on wild populations and guard against unintended human‐induced loss of intraspecific diversity in aquacultured lines. Impacts of disregarding genetics can include loss of diversity within and between populations and disruption of local adaptation patterns, which can lead to a decrease in fitness. The northern hard clam, Mercenaria mercenaria (Linnaeus, 1758), is an economically valuable aquaculture species along the North American Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Hard clams have a pelagic larval phase that allows for dispersal, but the level of genetic connectivity among geographic areas is not well understood. To better inform the establishment of site‐appropriate aquaculture brood stocks, this study used DArTseq™ genotyping by sequencing to characterize the genetic stock structure of wild clams sampled along the east coast of North America and document genetic diversity within populations. Samples were collected from 15 locations from Prince Edward Island, Canada, to South Carolina, USA. Stringent data filtering resulted in 4960 single nucleotide polymorphisms from 448 individuals. Five genetic breaks separating six genetically distinct populations were identified: Canada, Maine, Massachusetts, Mid‐Atlantic, Chesapeake Bay, and the Carolinas (FST 0.003–0.046; p < 0.0001). This is the first study to assess population genetic structure of this economically important hard clam along a large portion of its native range with high‐resolution genomic markers, enabling identification of previously unrecognized population structure. Results of this study not only broaden insight into the factors shaping the current distribution of M. mercenaria but also reveal the genetic population dynamics of a species with a long pelagic larval dispersal period along the North American Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
Retinoic Acid (RA) is a small lipophilic signaling molecule essential for embryonic development and adult tissue maintenance. Both an excess of RA and a deficiency of RA can cause pathogenic ...anomalies, hence it is critical to understand the mechanisms controlling the spatial and temporal distribution of RA. However, our current understanding of these processes remains incomplete. Vitamin A is metabolized to RA via two sequential enzymatic reactions. The first requires retinol dehydrogenase (RDH) activity to oxidize Vitamin A (retinol) to retinal, and the second requires retinaldehyde activity (RALDH) to oxidize retinal into RA. The first reaction has previously been attributed to the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) family, whose genes are ubiquitously or redundantly expressed. Consequently, the specificity of RA synthesis was thought to reside exclusively at the level of the second reaction. To better understand the metabolism of Vitamin A into RA during embryogenesis, we generated new mouse models that disrupt this process. Here we describe a new targeted knockout of Rdh10 in which RA synthesis is severely impaired, particularly at critical early embryonic stages. We also introduce a new mutant allele of Aldh1a2. Both mutations produce similar developmental defects resulting in lethality around embryonic day 10.5 (E10.5). The severity of the Rdh10 null phenotype demonstrates that embryonic oxidation of retinol is carried out primarily by RDH10 and that neither ADHs nor other enzymes contribute significantly to this reaction. We also show that reduced RA production results in upregulation of Rdh10. These data demonstrate that RDH10 plays a critical role in mediating the rate limiting RDH step of Vitamin A metabolism and functions as a nodal point in feedback regulation of RA synthesis. Moreover, RDH10-mediated oxidation of retinol plays as important a role in the control and regulation of RA production during embryogenesis as does the subsequent RALDH-mediated reaction.
Reduction of carbon dioxide in aqueous electrolytes at single-crystal MoS2 or thin-film MoS2 electrodes yields 1-propanol as the major CO2 reduction product, along with hydrogen from water reduction ...as the predominant reduction process. Lower levels of formate, ethylene glycol, and t-butanol were also produced. At an applied potential of −0.59 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode, the Faradaic efficiencies for reduction of CO2 to 1-propanol were ∼3.5% for MoS2 single crystals and ∼1% for thin films with low edge-site densities. Reduction of CO2 to 1-propanol is a kinetically challenging reaction that requires the overall transfer of 18 e– and 18 H+ in a process that involves the formation of 2 C–C bonds. NMR analyses using 13CO2 showed the production of 13C-labeled 1-propanol. In all cases, the vast majority of the Faradaic current resulted in hydrogen evolution via water reduction. H2S was detected qualitatively when single-crystal MoS2 electrodes were used, indicating that some desulfidization of single crystals occurred under these conditions.
Christopher J. Lonigan
Howard Goldstein
Florida State University, Tallahassee
Contact author: Kimberly D. McDowell, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS ...67260-0028. E-mail: kim.mcdowell{at}wichita.edu .
Purpose: This study simultaneously examined predictors of phonological awareness within the framework of 2 theories: the phonological distinctness hypothesis and the lexical restructuring model. Additionally, age as a moderator of the relations between predictor variables and phonological awareness was examined.
Method: This cross-sectional quantitative study included a total of 700 participants between 2 and 5 years of age. Participants were identified as being from homes of lower or higher socioeconomic status (SES) based on preschool funding source, and they completed 2 measures of vocabulary, 8 measures of phonological awareness, and 2 measures of speech sound accuracy.
Results: Results indicate that SES, age, speech sound accuracy, and vocabulary each contributed unique variance to the prediction of phonological awareness. Age amplified the relations between speech sound accuracy and phonological awareness and between SES and phonological awareness but not between vocabulary and phonological awareness.
Conclusion: The current study provides further support for both the phonological distinctness hypothesis and the lexical restructuring model. Additionally, this study provides novel information regarding the role that age plays in the prediction models. Specifically, the effects of SES and speech sound accuracy on phonological awareness were amplified by age.
KEY WORDS: articulation, preschool, literacy, phonology, phonological awareness
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African swine fever (ASF) is an infectious viral disease caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV), that causes high mortality in domestic swine and wild boar (
). Currently, outbreaks are mitigated ...through strict quarantine measures and the culling of affected herds, resulting in massive economic losses to the global pork industry. In 2019, an ASFV outbreak was reported in Mongolia, describing a rapidly progressing clinical disease and gross lesions consistent with the acute form of ASF; the virus was identified as a genotype II virus. Due to the limited information on clinical disease and viral dynamics within hosts available from field observations of the Mongolian isolates, we conducted the present study to further evaluate the progression of clinical disease, virulence, and pathology of an ASFV Mongolia/2019 field isolate (ASFV-MNG19), by experimental infection of domestic pigs. Intramuscular inoculation of domestic pigs with ASFV-MNG19 resulted in clinical signs and viremia at 3 days post challenge (DPC). Clinical disease rapidly progressed, resulting in the humane euthanasia of all pigs by 7 DPC. ASFV-MNG19 infected pigs had viremic titers of 10
TCID
/mL by 5 DPC and shed virus in oral secretions late in disease, as determined from oropharyngeal swabs. Whole-genome sequencing confirmed that the ASFV-MNG19 strain used in this study was a genotype II strain highly similar to other regional strains. In conclusion, we demonstrate that ASFV-MNG19 is a virulent genotype II ASFV strain that causes acute ASF in domestic swine.
During the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, farmworkers in the United States are considered essential personnel and continue in-person work. We conducted prospective surveillance for ...severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and antibody prevalence among farmworkers in Salinas Valley, California, during June 15-November 30, 2020. We observed 22.1% (1,514/6,864) positivity for SARS-CoV-2 infection among farmworkers compared with 17.2% (1,255/7,305) among other adults from the same communities (risk ratio 1.29, 95% CI 1.20-1.37). In a nested study enrolling 1,115 farmworkers, prevalence of current infection was 27.7% among farmworkers reporting >1 COVID-19 symptom and 7.2% among farmworkers without symptoms (adjusted odds ratio 4.16, 95% CI 2.85-6.06). Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies increased from 10.5% (95% CI 6.0%-18.4%) during July 16-August 31 to 21.2% (95% CI 16.6%-27.4%) during November 1-30. High SARS-CoV-2 infection prevalence among farmworkers underscores the need for vaccination and other preventive interventions.