This article presents a community learning model formulated by Engineers Without Borders Colombia with the aim of providing communities with tools to create sustainable productive solutions which have relevancy for members and for potential customers. The goal of this formulation is to promote learning processes that are guided by decisions made by community members to propose sustainable and replicable initiatives. The model applicability is evidenced through a case study devoted to strengthening community-led green businesses in the Guavio Province, Colombia by collecting lessons and conclusions. Ultimately, this collection will prove useful in replicating the learning model in other similar rural communities.
The autosomal recessive disorder Shwachman-Diamond syndrome, characterized by bone marrow failure and leukemia predisposition, is caused by deficiency of the highly conserved Shwachman-Bodian-Diamond syndrome (SBDS) protein. Here, we identify the function of the yeast SBDS ortholog Sdo1, showing that it is critical for the release and recycling of the nucleolar shuttling factor Tif6 from pre-60S ribosomes, a key step in 60S maturation and translational activation of ribosomes. Using genome-wide synthetic genetic array mapping, we identified multiple TIF6 gain-of-function alleles that suppressed the pre-60S nuclear export defects and cytoplasmic mislocalization of Tif6 observed in sdo1Delta cells. Sdo1 appears to function within a pathway containing elongation factor-like 1, and together they control translational activation of ribosomes. Thus, our data link defective late 60S ribosomal subunit maturation to an inherited bone marrow failure syndrome associated with leukemia predisposition. 相似文献
Host genetics has an important role in leprosy, and variants in the shared promoter region of PARK2 and PACRG were the first major susceptibility factors identified by positional cloning. Here we report the linkage disequilibrium mapping of the second linkage peak of our previous genome-wide scan, located close to the HLA complex. In both a Vietnamese familial sample and an Indian case-control sample, the low-producing lymphotoxin-alpha (LTA)+80 A allele was significantly associated with an increase in leprosy risk (P = 0.007 and P = 0.01, respectively). Analysis of an additional case-control sample from Brazil and an additional familial sample from Vietnam showed that the LTA+80 effect was much stronger in young individuals. In the combined sample of 298 Vietnamese familial trios, the odds ratio of leprosy for LTA+80 AA/AC versus CC subjects was 2.11 (P = 0.000024), which increased to 5.63 (P = 0.0000004) in the subsample of 121 trios of affected individuals diagnosed before 16 years of age. In addition to identifying LTA as a major gene associated with early-onset leprosy, our study highlights the critical role of case- and population-specific factors in the dissection of susceptibility variants in complex diseases. 相似文献
The metabolism of all-trans- and 9-cis-retinol/ retinaldehyde has been investigated with focus on the activities of human, mouse and rat alcohol dehydrogenase 2
(ADH2), an intriguing enzyme with apparently different functions in human and rodents. Kinetic constants were determined with
an HPLC method and a structural approach was implemented by in silico substrate dockings. For human ADH2, the determined Km values ranged from 0.05 to 0.3 μM and kcat values from 2.3 to 17.6 min−1, while the catalytic efficiency for 9-cis-retinol showed the highest value for any substrate. In contrast, poor activities
were detected for the rodent enzymes. A mouse ADH2 mutant (ADH2Pro47His) was studied that resembles the human ADH2 setup.
This mutation increased the retinoid activity up to 100-fold. The Km values of human ADH2 are the lowest among all known human retinol dehydrogenases, which clearly support a role in hepatic
retinol oxidation at physiological concentrations.
Received 12 October 2006; received after revision 6 December 2006; accepted 8 January 2007 相似文献
Glycosylation constitutes one of the most important posttranslational modifications employed by biological systems to modulate
protein biophysical properties. Due to the direct biochemical and biomedical implications of achieving control over protein
stability and function by chemical means, there has been great interest in recent years towards the development of chemical
strategies for protein glycosylation. Since current knowledge about glycoprotein biophysics has been mainly derived from the
study of naturally glycosylated proteins, chemical glycosylation provides novel insights into its mechanistic understanding
by affording control over glycosylation parameters. This review presents a survey of the effects that natural and chemical
glycosylation have on the fundamental biophysical properties of proteins (structure, dynamics, stability, and function). This
is complemented by a mechanistic discussion of how glycans achieve such effects and discussion of the implications of employing
chemical glycosylation as a tool to exert control over protein biophysical properties within biochemical and biomedical applications.
Received 15 December 2006; received after revision 28 March 2007; accepted 25 April 2007 相似文献
In agglomerative hierarchical clustering, pair-group methods suffer from a problem of non-uniqueness when two or more distances
between different clusters coincide during the amalgamation process. The traditional approach for solving this drawback has
been to take any arbitrary criterion in order to break ties between distances, which results in different hierarchical classifications
depending on the criterion followed. In this article we propose a variable-group algorithm that consists in grouping more
than two clusters at the same time when ties occur. We give a tree representation for the results of the algorithm, which
we call a multidendrogram, as well as a generalization of the Lance andWilliams’ formula which enables the implementation of the algorithm in a recursive
way.
The authors thank A. Arenas for discussion and helpful comments. This work was partially supported by DGES of the Spanish
Government Project No. FIS2006–13321–C02–02 and by a grant of Universitat Rovira i Virgili. 相似文献
Summary The disappearance of thrombin—formed in the blood, or added to serum-follows a manomolecular reaction-type. Heparin increases the reaction-velocity of this thrombin-inactivating process.Our investigation established that toluidine blue or kinase, which, according to the literature, bind heparin, strongly reduce the speed of thrombin-inactivation too. Therefore the heparin-binding capacity of these substances is also manifested in the decrease of thrombin-inactivation. 相似文献
Hypertriglyceridemia is a hallmark of many disorders, including metabolic syndrome, diabetes, atherosclerosis and obesity. A well-known cause is the deficiency of lipoprotein lipase (LPL), a key enzyme in plasma triglyceride hydrolysis. Mice carrying the combined lipase deficiency (cld) mutation show severe hypertriglyceridemia owing to a decrease in the activity of LPL and a related enzyme, hepatic lipase (HL), caused by impaired maturation of nascent LPL and hepatic lipase polypeptides in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Here we identify the gene containing the cld mutation as Tmem112 and rename it Lmf1 (Lipase maturation factor 1). Lmf1 encodes a transmembrane protein with an evolutionarily conserved domain of unknown function that localizes to the ER. A human subject homozygous for a deleterious mutation in LMF1 also shows combined lipase deficiency with concomitant hypertriglyceridemia and associated disorders. Thus, through its profound effect on lipase activity, LMF1 emerges as an important candidate gene in hypertriglyceridemia. 相似文献