In the twenty first century, the changing epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) globally with increasing disease incidence across many countries relates to the altered gut microbiota, due ...to a combinatorial effect of environmental factors, human immune responses and genetics. IBD is a gastrointestinal disease associated with a gut microbial dysbiosis, including an expansion of facultative anaerobic bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. Advances in high-throughput sequencing enable us to entangle the gut microbiota in human health and IBD beyond the gut bacterial microbiota, expanding insights into the mycobiota, virobiota and helminthes.
(viruses) and
, and
(fungi) are revealed to be increased in IBD. The deconvolution of the gut microbiota in IBD lays the basis for unveiling the roles of these various gut microbiota components in IBD pathogenesis and being conductive to instructing on future IBD diagnosis and therapeutics. Here we comprehensively elucidate the alterations in the gut microbiota in IBD, discuss the effect of diets in the gut microbiota in relation to IBD, and illustrate the potential of manipulation of gut microbiota for IBD therapeutics. The therapeutic strategy of antibiotics, prebiotics, probiotics and fecal microbiota transplantation will benefit the effective application of precision microbiome manipulation in IBD.
We present high angular resolution (∼80 mas) ALMA continuum images of the SN 1987A system, together with CO J = 2 1, J = 6 5, and SiO J = 5 4 to J = 7 6 images, which clearly resolve the ejecta (dust ...continuum and molecules) and ring (synchrotron continuum) components. Dust in the ejecta is asymmetric and clumpy, and overall the dust fills the spatial void seen in H images, filling that region with material from heavier elements. The dust clumps generally fill the space where CO J = 6 5 is fainter, tentatively indicating that these dust clumps and CO are locationally and chemically linked. In these regions, carbonaceous dust grains might have formed after dissociation of CO. The dust grains would have cooled by radiation, and subsequent collisions of grains with gas would also cool the gas, suppressing the CO J = 6 5 intensity. The data show a dust peak spatially coincident with the molecular hole seen in previous ALMA CO J = 2 1 and SiO J = 5 4 images. That dust peak, combined with CO and SiO line spectra, suggests that the dust and gas could be at higher temperatures than the surrounding material, though higher density cannot be totally excluded. One of the possibilities is that a compact source provides additional heat at that location. Fits to the far-infrared-millimeter spectral energy distribution give ejecta dust temperatures of 18-23 K. We revise the ejecta dust mass to Mdust = 0.2-0.4 for carbon or silicate grains, or a maximum of <0.7 for a mixture of grain species, using the predicted nucleosynthesis yields as an upper limit.
Diabesity is a term used to describe the combined adverse health effects of obesity and diabetes mellitus. The worldwide dual epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes is an important public health ...issue. Projections estimate a sixfold increase in the number of adults with obesity in 40 years and an increase in the number of individuals with diabetes to 642 million by 2040. Increased adiposity is the strongest risk factor for developing diabetes. Early detection of the effects of diabesity on the cardiovascular system would enable the optimal implementation of effective therapies that prevent atherosclerosis progression, cardiac remodelling, and the resulting ischaemic heart disease and heart failure. Beyond conventional imaging techniques, such as echocardiography, CT and cardiac magnetic resonance, novel post-processing tools and techniques provide information on the biological processes that underlie metabolic heart disease. In this Review, we summarize the effects of obesity and diabetes on myocardial structure and function and illustrate the use of state-of-the-art multimodality cardiac imaging to elucidate the pathophysiology of myocardial dysfunction, prognosticate long-term clinical outcomes and potentially guide treatment strategies.
The WWTR1 (protein is known as TAZ)-CAMTA1 (WC) fusion gene defines epithelioid hemangioendothelioma, a malignant vascular cancer. TAZ (transcriptional coactivator with PDZ binding motif) is a ...transcriptional coactivator and end effector of the Hippo tumor suppressor pathway. It is inhibited by phosphorylation by the Hippo kinases LATS1 and LATS2. Such phosphorylation causes cytoplasmic localization, 14-3-3 protein binding and the phorphorylation of a terminal phosphodegron promotes ubiquitin-dependent degradation (the phosphorylation of the different motifs has several effects). CAMTA1 is a putative tumor suppressive transcription factor. Here we demonstrate that TAZ-CAMTA1 (TC) fusion results in its nuclear localization and constitutive activation. Consequently, cells expressing TC display a TAZ-like transcriptional program that causes resistance to anoikis and oncogenic transformation. Our findings elucidate the mechanistic basis of TC oncogenic properties, highlight that TC is an important model to understand how the Hippo pathway can be inhibited in cancer, and provide approaches for targeting this chimeric protein.
Pulsars are remarkable objects that emit across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, providing a powerful probe of the interstellar medium. In this study, we investigate the relation between ...dispersion measure (DM) and X-ray absorption column density N sub(H) using 68 radio pulsars detected at X-ray energies with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory or XMM-Newton. We find a best-fit empirical linear relation of N sub(H) (ProQuest: Formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted) DM (pc cm super(-3)), which corresponds to an average ionization of (ProQuest: Formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted), confirming the ratio of one free electron per 10 neutral hydrogen atoms commonly assumed in the literature. We also compare different N sub(H) estimates and note that some N sub(H) values obtained from X-ray observations are higher than the total Galactic H I column density along the same line of sight, while the optical extinction generally gives the best N sub(H) predictions.
GEMINGA'S PUZZLING PULSAR WIND NEBULA Posselt, B.; Pavlov, G. G.; Slane, P. O. ...
Astrophysical journal/The Astrophysical journal,
01/2017, Volume:
835, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
ABSTRACT We report on six new Chandra observations of the Geminga pulsar wind nebula (PWN). The PWN consists of three distinct elongated structures-two 0.2 d 250 pc long lateral tails and a segmented ...axial tail of 0.05 d 250 pc length, where d 250 = d / ( 250 pc ) . The photon indices of the power-law spectra of the lateral tails, Γ 1 , are significantly harder than those of the pulsar ( Γ 1.5 ) and the axial tail ( Γ 1.6 ). There is no significant diffuse X-ray emission between the lateral tails-the ratio of the X-ray surface brightness between the south tail and this sky area is at least 12. The lateral tails apparently connect directly to the pulsar and show indications of moving footpoints. The axial tail comprises time-variable emission blobs. However, there is no evidence for constant or decelerated outward motion of these blobs. Different physical models are consistent with the observed morphology and spectra of the Geminga PWN. In one scenario, the lateral tails could represent an azimuthally asymmetric shell whose hard emission is caused by the Fermi acceleration mechanism of colliding winds. In another scenario, the lateral tails could be luminous, bent polar outflows, while the blobs in the axial tail could represent a crushed torus. In a resemblance to planetary magnetotails, the blobs of the axial tail might also represent short-lived plasmoids, which are formed by magnetic field reconnection in the relativistic plasma of the pulsar wind tail.
In recent decades, numerous studies have suggested a positive relationship between prosociality and well-being. What remains less clear are (a) what the magnitude of this relationship is, and (b) ...what the moderators that influence it are. To address these questions, we conducted a meta-analysis to examine the strength of the prosociality to well-being link under different operationalizations, and how a set of theoretical, demographic, and methodological variables moderate the link. While the results revealed a modest overall mean effect size (r = .13, K = 201, N = 198,213) between prosociality and well-being, this masked the substantial variability in the effect as a function of numerous moderators. In particular, the effect of prosociality on eudaimonic well-being was stronger than that on hedonic well-being. Prosociality was most strongly related to psychological functioning-showing a more modest relationship with psychological malfunctioning and physical health. Using prosociality scales was more strongly associated with well-being than using measures of volunteering/helping frequency or status. In addition, informal helping (vs. formal helping) was linked to more well-being benefits. Demographically, younger givers exhibited higher levels of well-being other than physical health, while older and retired givers reported better physical health only. Female givers showed stronger relationships between prosociality and eudaimonic well-being, psychological malfunctioning, and physical health. Methodologically, the magnitude of the link was stronger in studies using primary (vs. secondary) data and with higher methodological rigor (i.e., measurement reliability and validity). We discussed all of these results and implications and suggested directions for future research.
Public Significance Statement
The present meta-analysis suggests a small and significant association between prosocial behavior and well-being. It also provides researchers with important insights into what theoretical (i.e., types of prosociality and well-being), demographical (i.e., age, gender, and retirement status), and methodological factors (i.e., primary vs. secondary data collection and methodological rigor) may strengthen or weaken the link between prosociality and well-being.
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