The gut microbiome plays an important role in human health and influences the development of chronic diseases ranging from metabolic disease to gastrointestinal disorders and colorectal cancer. Of ...increasing prevalence in Western societies, these conditions carry a high burden of care. Dietary patterns and environmental factors have a profound effect on shaping gut microbiota in real time. Diverse populations of intestinal bacteria mediate their beneficial effects through the fermentation of dietary fiber to produce short-chain fatty acids, endogenous signals with important roles in lipid homeostasis and reducing inflammation. Recent progress shows that an individual's starting microbial profile is a key determinant in predicting their response to intervention with live probiotics. The gut microbiota is complex and challenging to characterize. Enterotypes have been proposed using metrics such as alpha species diversity, the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes phyla, and the relative abundance of beneficial genera (e.g.,
,
) versus facultative anaerobes (
), pro-inflammatory
, or nonbacterial microbes. Microbiota composition and relative populations of bacterial species are linked to physiologic health along different axes. We review the role of diet quality, carbohydrate intake, fermentable FODMAPs, and prebiotic fiber in maintaining healthy gut flora. The implications are discussed for various conditions including obesity, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, depression, and cardiovascular disease.
The Hodgkin-Huxley formulation, at its 60th anniversary, remains a bastion of neuroscience. Sodium channels Nav1.1–Nav1.3 and Nav1.6–Nav1.9 support electrogenesis in neurons and are often considered ...“neuronal,” whereas Nav1.4 and Nav1.5 drive electrogenesis in skeletal and cardiac muscle. These channels are, however, expressed in cell types that are not considered electrically excitable. Here, we discuss sodium channel expression in diverse nonexcitable cell types, including astrocytes, NG2 cells, microglia, macrophages, and cancer cells, and review evidence of noncanonical roles, including regulation of effector functions such as phagocytosis, motility, Na+/K+-ATPase activity, and metastatic activity. Armed with powerful techniques for monitoring channel activity and for real-time assessment of Na+i and Ca2+i, neuroscientists are poised to expand the understanding of noncanonical roles of sodium channels in healthy and diseased tissues.
Sodium channels support electrogenesis in neurons and skeletal and cardiac muscle. Here, Black and Waxman discuss their expression in nonexcitable cells, including astrocytes, NG2 cells, microglia and macrophages, and cancer cells, where they regulate phagocytosis, motility, Na+/K+-ATPase activity, and metastatic activity.
The Molpro quantum chemistry package
Journal of chemical physics online/The Journal of chemical physics/Journal of chemical physics,
04/2020
Journal Article
OBJECTIVES: To re-state the principles underlying the Goldberg cut-off for identifying under-reporters of energy intake, re-examine the physiological principles and update the values to be ...substituted into the equation for calculating the cut-off, and to examine its use and limitations. RESULTS: New values are suggested for each element of the Goldberg equation. The physical activity level (PAL) for comparison with energy intake:basal metabolic rate (EI:BMR) should be selected to reflect the population under study; the PAL value of 1.55 x BMR is not necessarily the value of choice. The suggested value for average within-subject variation in energy intake is 23% (unchanged), but other sources of variation are increased in the light of new data. For within-subject variation in measured and estimated BMR, 4% and 8.5% respectively are suggested (previously 2.5% and 8%), and for total between-subject variation in PAL, the suggested value is 15% (previously 12.5%). The effect of these changes is to widen the confidence limits and reduce the sensitivity of the cut-off. CONCLUSIONS: The Goldberg cut-off can be used to evaluate the mean population bias in reported energy intake, but information on the activity or lifestyle of the population is needed to choose a suitable PAL energy requirement for comparison. Sensitivity for identifying under-reporters at the individual level is limited. In epidemiological studies information on home, leisure and occupational activity is essential in order to assign subjects to low, medium or high PAL levels before calculating the cut-offs. In small studies, it is desirable to measure energy expenditure, or to calculate individual energy requirements, and to compare energy intake directly with energy expenditure.
In 1990, Andrew Bakun proposed that increasing greenhouse gas
concentrations would force intensification of upwelling-favorable winds
in eastern boundary current systems that contribute substantial ...services
to society. Because there is considerable disagreement about whether
contemporary wind trends support Bakun's hypothesis, we performed a
meta-analysis of the literature on upwelling-favorable wind
intensification. The preponderance of published analyses suggests that
winds have intensified in the California, Benguela, and Humboldt
upwelling systems and weakened in the Iberian system over time scales
ranging up to 60 years; wind change is equivocal in the Canary system.
Stronger intensification signals are observed at higher latitudes,
consistent with the warming pattern associated with climate change.
Overall, reported changes in coastal winds, although subtle and
spatially variable, support Bakun's hypothesis of upwelling
intensification in eastern boundary current systems.
Reference is regularly made to the power of new genomic sequencing approaches. Using powerful technology, however, is not the same as having the necessary power to address a research question with ...statistical robustness. In the rush to adopt new and improved genomic research methods, limitations of technology and experimental design may be initially neglected. Here, we review these issues with regard to RNA sequencing (RNA‐seq). RNA‐seq adds large‐scale transcriptomics to the toolkit of ecological and evolutionary biologists, enabling differential gene expression (DE) studies in nonmodel species without the need for prior genomic resources. High biological variance is typical of field‐based gene expression studies and means that larger sample sizes are often needed to achieve the same degree of statistical power as clinical studies based on data from cell lines or inbred animal models. Sequencing costs have plummeted, yet RNA‐seq studies still underutilize biological replication. Finite research budgets force a trade‐off between sequencing effort and replication in RNA‐seq experimental design. However, clear guidelines for negotiating this trade‐off, while taking into account study‐specific factors affecting power, are currently lacking. Study designs that prioritize sequencing depth over replication fail to capitalize on the power of RNA‐seq technology for DE inference. Significant recent research effort has gone into developing statistical frameworks and software tools for power analysis and sample size calculation in the context of RNA‐seq DE analysis. We synthesize progress in this area and derive an accessible rule‐of‐thumb guide for designing powerful RNA‐seq experiments relevant in eco‐evolutionary and clinical settings alike.
Orthogonal optical coding is widely used in classical multi-user communication networks. Using the phase conjugation property of stimulated parametric down-conversion, we extend the current ...time-domain orthogonal optical coding scheme to the spatial domain to encode and decode image information. In this process, the idler beam inherits the complex conjugate of the field information encoded in the seed beam. An encoding phase mask introduced onto the input seed beam blurs the image transferred to the idler. The original image is restored by passing the coded transferred image through a corrective phase mask placed in the momentum space of the idler beam. We expect that this scheme can also inspire new techniques in secure image transmission, aberration cancellation, and frequency conversion imaging.
Generation of volumetrically full Poincaré beams
Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision./Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Online
Journal Article
Nociception is essential for survival whereas pathological pain is maladaptive and often unresponsive to pharmacotherapy. Voltage-gated sodium channels, Na(v)1.1-Na(v)1.9, are essential for ...generation and conduction of electrical impulses in excitable cells. Human and animal studies have identified several channels as pivotal for signal transmission along the pain axis, including Na(v)1.3, Na(v)1.7, Na(v)1.8, and Na(v)1.9, with the latter three preferentially expressed in peripheral sensory neurons and Na(v)1.3 being upregulated along pain-signaling pathways after nervous system injuries. Na(v)1.7 is of special interest because it has been linked to a spectrum of inherited human pain disorders. Here we review the contribution of these sodium channel isoforms to pain.
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