Biodiversity as a barrier to ecological invasion

Biological invasions are a pervasive and costly environmental problem that has been the focus of intense management and research activities over the past half century. Yet accurate predictions of community susceptibility to invasion remain elusive. The diversity resistance hypothesis, which argues that diverse communities are highly competitive and readily resist invasion, is supported by both theory and experimental studies conducted at small spatial scales. However, there is also convincing evidence that the relationship between the diversity of native and invading species is positive when measured at regional scales. Although this latter relationship may arise from extrinsic factors, such as resource heterogeneity, that covary with diversity of native and invading species at large scales, the mechanisms conferring greater invasion resistance to diverse communities at local scales remain unknown. Using neighbourhood analyses, a technique from plant competition studies, we show here that species diversity in small experimental grassland plots enhances invasion resistance by increasing crowding and species richness in localized plant neighbourhoods. Both the establishment (number of invaders) and success (proportion of invaders that are large) of invading plants are reduced. These results suggest that local biodiversity represents an important line of defence against the spread of invaders.     

Fringe is a glycosyltransferase that modifies Notch

Notch receptors function in highly conserved intercellular signalling pathways that direct cell-fate decisions, proliferation and apoptosis in metazoans. Fringe proteins can positively and negatively modulate the ability of Notch ligands to activate the Notch receptor. Here we establish the biochemical mechanism of Fringe action. Drosophila and mammalian Fringe proteins possess a fucose-specific beta1,3 N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase activity that initiates elongation of O-linked fucose residues attached to epidermal growth factor-like sequence repeats of Notch. We obtained biological evidence that Fringe-dependent elongation of O-linked fucose on Notch modulates Notch signalling by using co-culture assays in mammalian cells and by expression of an enzymatically inactive Fringe mutant in Drosophila. The post-translational modification of Notch by Fringe represents a striking example of modulation of a signalling event by differential receptor glycosylation and identifies a mechanism that is likely to be relevant to other signalling pathways.     

Beeinflussung der Antennendifferenzierung durch Colchicin bei derDrosophilamutanteAristopedia

Summary A decrease in growth rate of the antennal bud by means of colchicine deflects the differentiation of theAristopedia antenna towards an arista.

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DieDrosophilamutanteAristopedia unterscheidet sich von der Wildform durch die Umwandlung der Fühlergeißel (=Arista) in einen Fuß.     

Tissue-specific activation of a cloned alpha-fetoprotein gene during differentiation of a transfected embryonal carcinoma cell line

To identify cis-acting DNA elements involved in the activation of the alpha-fetoprotein gene during differentiation, modified copies of the gene were introduced into murine F9 embryonal carcinoma cells. The differentiation of the transformants to either parietal or visceral endoderm was accompanied by induction of the exogenous template in a manner qualitatively, but not quantitatively, identical to that of the endogenous alpha-fetoprotein gene.     

Retarded enzymatic degradation of heterologous eledoisin sequences

Zusammenfassung Analoge des Eledoisin-Oktapeptides 4–11, die Hydrazid-Komponenten enthalten, sind durch Aminopeptidasen nur bis zur Heterobindung abbaubar. Sie werden wesentlich langsamer als die native Sequenz bzw. nicht durch Organhomogenate inaktiviert, wenn die Substitution im N-terminalen Bereich erfolgt. Mögliche sterische Veränderungen des Peptids durch eingebaute Fremdbausteine sind diskutiert.     

Tropes As Mechanisms

This paper is an attempt to further our understanding of mechanisms conceived of as ontologically separable from laws. What opportunities are there for a mechanistic perspective to be independent of, or even more fundamental than, a law perspective? Advocates of the mechanistic view often play with the possibility of internal and external reliability, or with the paralleling possibilities of enforcing, counteracting, redirecting, etc., the mechanisms’ power to produce To further this discussion I adopt a trope ontology. It is independent of the notion of law, and can easily be adapted to account for such characteristics of mechanisms. The idea of tropes as mechanisms is worked out in some detail. According to the resulting picture, there is still an opportunity to link mechanisms and laws. But while the predominant law view conceives of mechanistic approaches as special kinds of law accounts, this study indicates that the converse may be true. Law accounts are special cases of mechanistic accounts, and they work only in those worlds where the mechanisms are of the right kind     

Agonist/endogenous peptide-MHC heterodimers drive T cell activation and sensitivity

Alphabeta T lymphocytes are able to detect even a single peptide-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) on the surface of an antigen-presenting cell. This is despite clear evidence, at least with CD4+ T cells, that monomeric ligands are not stimulatory. In an effort to understand how this remarkable sensitivity is achieved, we constructed soluble peptide-MHC heterodimers in which one peptide is an agonist and the other is one of the large number of endogenous peptide-MHCs displayed by presenting cells. We found that some specific combinations of these heterodimers can stimulate specific T cells in a CD4-dependent manner. This activation is severely impaired if the CD4-binding site on the agonist ligand is ablated, but the same mutation on an endogenous ligand has no effect. These data correlate well with analyses of lipid bilayers and cells presenting these ligands, and indicate that the basic unit of helper T cell activation is a heterodimer of agonist peptide- and endogenous peptide-MHC complexes, stabilized by CD4.     

C19- and C18-steroids in cerebrospinal fluid,plasma and urine after intravenous administration of 7α-3H-DHEA35S-sulphate

Zusammenfassung Nach i.v. Injektion von 7-H-DHEA-³⁶S-sulfat wurden Liquor, Plasma und 24-Stundenharn eines Mannes auf freie und konjugierte, markierte C₁₉- und C₁₈-Steroide untersucht. Es zeigte sich, dass schon 30 Minuten nach Versuchsbeginn im Liquor fast nur doppelt-markierte Steroid-sulfatide mit praktisch unverändertem Isotopenverhältnis³H/³⁵S enthalten waren. Da weiterhin DHEA und seine Metaboliten im Liquor eine weitaus niedrigere spezifische³H-Aktivität besassen als die entsprechenden Verbindungen im Plasma, ist anzunehmen, dass der Übertritt von lipophilen Steroid-sulfatiden zwar verhältnismässig rasch, aber nur in begrenztem Umfang erfolgte.     

Formation of anaphylatoxin in human serum

Zusammenfassung Es ist möglich, auch in menschlichem Serum eine Anaphylatoxinbildung (AT) durch Kontaktaktivierung oder Kobragift zu induzieren. Wegen der geringen Mengen, die entstehen, muss das wirksame Prinzip vor dem biologischen Nachweis angereichert werden. Menschliches AT verhält sich in allen untersuchten Eigenschaften wie AT aus anderen Plasmaarten. Es unterscheidet sich von dem darmkontrahierenden Spaltprodukt aus der menschlichen Komplementkomponente C3, das mithin nicht als AT angesprochen werden kann.