Transgenic anopheline mosquitoes impaired in transmission of a malaria parasite

Malaria is estimated to cause 0.7 to 2.7 million deaths per year, but the actual figures could be substantially higher owing to under-reporting and difficulties in diagnosis. If no new control measures are developed, the malaria death toll is projected to double in the next 20 years. Efforts to control the disease are hampered by drug resistance in the Plasmodium parasites, insecticide resistance in mosquitoes, and the lack of an effective vaccine. Because mosquitoes are obligatory vectors for malaria transmission, the spread of malaria could be curtailed by rendering them incapable of transmitting parasites. Many of the tools required for the genetic manipulation of mosquito competence for malaria transmission have been developed. Foreign genes can now be introduced into the germ line of both culicine and anopheline mosquitoes, and these transgenes can be expressed in a tissue-specific manner. Here we report on the use of such tools to generate transgenic mosquitoes that express antiparasitic genes in their midgut epithelium, thus rendering them inefficient vectors for the disease. These findings have significant implications for the development of new strategies for malaria control.     

Fungitoxicity of m-fluorophenylalanine-containing peptides towards Pythium ultimum

The tripeptide L-m-fluorophenylalanyl-L-alanyl-L-alanine was much more fungitoxic towards Pythium ultimum than the dipeptide L-m-fluorophenylalanyl-L-alanine or m-fluorophenylalanine. The fungitoxicity of the tripeptide was reduced by L-alanyl peptides and phenylalanine, but not by other amino acids. In contrast, the fungitoxicity of m-fluorophenylalanine was unaffected by peptides, and was antagonized by several amino acids. These results suggest the effective delivery of m-fluorophenylalanine into the cell by a tripeptide carrier.     

A modified CANDECOMP method for fitting the extended INDSCAL model

A modified CANDECOMP algorithm is presented for fitting the metric version of the Extended INDSCAL model to three-way proximity data. The Extended INDSCAL model assumes, in addition to the common dimensions, a unique dimension for each object. The modified CANDECOMP algorithm fits the Extended INDSCAL model in a dimension-wise fashion and ensures that the subject weights for the common and the unique dimensions are nonnegative. A Monte Carlo study is reported to illustrate that the method is fairly insensitive to the choice of the initial parameter estimates. A second Monte Carlo study shows that the method is able to recover an underlying Extended INDSCAL structure if present in the data. Finally, the method is applied for illustrative purposes to some empirical data on pain relievers. In the final section, some other possible uses of the new method are discussed. Geert De Soete is supported as “Bevoegdverklaard Navorser” of the Belgian “Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijik Onderzoek”.     

Vitamin E protects against retinopathy of prematurity through action on spindle cells

In the premature infant, exposure of the incompletely vascularized retina to increased oxygen tension can result in the development of a blinding disease, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Despite the judicious curtailment of oxygen, the incidence of ROP is on the increase due to the technological advances that have improved the survival of the very young preterm infant. Six clinical trials have documented the efficacy of vitamin E supplementation in suppressing the development of severe ROP, but the mechanism of this protection has remained unknown. This report proposes that spindle cells, mesenchymal precursors of the inner retinal capillaries, are the primary inducers of the neovascularization associated with ROP. Exposure of spindle cells to elevated oxygen tension increases their gap junction area. This early morphologic event immediately halts the normal vasoformative process and eventually triggers the neovascularization that is observed clinically 8-12 weeks later. Vitamin E supplementation above the deficient plasma levels of these infants suppresses gap junction formation and clinically reduces the severity without altering the total incidence of ROP.     

Regulation of nicotine biogenesis 2: Increased production of nicotine by urea in tobacco tissue cultures

Summary The floral bud callus ofNicotiana tabacum L. was successfully grown on 10 mM urea as sole nitrogen source. Nicotine content in the urea-treated tissues was 3.5 times higher than in the control on the basis of dry weight, and 2.5-fold higher per culture. Contents of ornithine, citrulline and arginine, urea cycle intermediates, and known precursors of nicotine, were higher in urea-treated callus. The implications of the results are discussed.Financial support given to one of us (GAR) by the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Barado is gratefully acknowledged. Reference No. represents part 1 of the series on regulation of nicotine biogenesis.     

Fusion of two novel genes, RBM15 and MKL1, in the t(1;22)(p13;q13) of acute megakaryoblastic leukemia.

t(1;22) is the principal translocation of acute megakaryoblastic leukemias. Here we show this chromosomal rearrangement to result in the fusion of two novel genes, RNA-binding motif protein-15 (RBM15), an RNA recognition motif-encoding gene with homology to Drosophila spen, and Megakaryoblastic Leukemia-1 (MKL1), a gene encoding an SAP (SAF-A/B, Acinus and PIAS) DNA-binding domain.     

MD simulation of asymmetric nucleation and motion of 〈011〉 superdislocations in TiAI

The nucleation and propagation of （011] su- perdislocations in intermetallic TiA1 were investigated using molecular dynamics simulations and static energetics calculation, as part of our systematic effort to understand the twining and dislocation behavior of alloys based on y-TiAl. It was found that compared to ordinary dislocations in disordered crystals, superdislocations in ordered TiA1 lattice behave differently when sheared in the two opposite senses along [01-1] direction. This difference is due to the lower Llo lattice symmetry compared with the face-cen- tered cubic （fcc） lattice that it based on, with different yield stress and strain, and dislocation core dissociation and motion. Superdislocations nucleated in the form of loops dissociated in a planar manner into four Shockley partials separated by three kinds of faults： superlattice intrinsic stacking fault （SISF）, anti-phase domain boundary （APB） and complex stacking fault （CSF）, with partial separations depending on the sense of shearing and dislocation char- acter. During loop expansion, the dislocation core changes both in width and dissociation manner depending on the character of the segment in the loop. The core contains four partials close to edge orientation, gradually changing to three fold near 60°, and finally into twofold dissociation around 30° character. Superdislocations may have multiple critical resolved shear stresses （CRSS） for motion depending on dissociation and shearing sense even for the same slip system, with lower critical stress for the motion when SISF is in leading position.