La question des hétérochromosomes chez les Sauropsidés. Oiseaux

Summary The chromosomes of the fowl were studied with the aid ofMakino's andNishimura's water pretreatment squash technique, modified byMatthey, in embryonic spleen and gonads of both sexes. The number of chromosomes was found to be about 78; the numerical variations are to be ascribed to technical difficulties, caused by the extremely small size of the microchromosomes, rather than to an unchromosomelike behaviour of the latter, as was supposed byNewcomer andBrant. As to the exact number of chromosomes, we consider its determination beyond the possibilities of cytology. The 5^th largest pair of the male, represented by a single element in the female, could be identified as the sex chromosome pair, in accordance with the findings ofYamashina. The digamety might be of theZ-O orZ-W type.     

Altered composition of bilirubin conjugates in rat bile after obstruction of the common bile duct

Résumé Changement de la composition des pigments biliaires de la bile de rat après obstruction. L'obstruction des voies biliaires chez le rat Wistar mène à la formation de pigments biliaires donnant par diazo-réaction des azopigments (jusqu'à 35% de la couleur totale) qui diffèrent de l'azobilirubine et de l'azobilirubin--d-monoglucuronide.

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Research fellow of the Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Belgium.     

A simple technique for obtaining carbon replicas from small organisms

Résumé Exposé d'une méthode permettant de faire des répliques au carbone de petits organismes tel que les aphides. L'utilisation d'un substrat de technovit^® pour fixer les organismes est la partie importante de cette méthode. Le technovit a la propriété de coller la pellicule de carbonne; ainsi lorsque l'on détache celle-ci à l'aide de collodion, on obtient seulement la réplique se trouvant sur l'organisme.     

Triiodothyronine and thyroxine: Induction of mitosis in adult forgs

Zusammenfassung Nachweis, dass bei adulten, reifen Fröschen Thyroxin und Triiodothyronin die mitotische Aktivität und die DNS-Synthese in verschiedenen Organen (Augenlinse, mit Epithel, Niere Darm, Leber, Milz, Haut, Horn-und Nickhaut) zu stimulieren vermag.

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This work was supported by USPHS Grant No. EY 00281-09 from the National Eye Institute, and Fight for Sight Grant-in-Aid No. G-496.     

Isotope assessment of Holocene human diets in the southwestern Cape, South Africa

Models of seasonal mobility to exploit seasonally abundant food sources have been proposed for prehistoric hunter-gatherers in many parts of the world. Some such hypotheses involve fundamental and insufficiently tested assumptions about the nature of both hunter-gatherer societies and the archaeological evidence that they leave. The present study is an independent test of such a hypothesis proposed for the southwestern Cape of South Africa. In this strongly ecologically differentiated area there are four distinct ecological zones that would have offered four different sets of resources to prehistoric people. Obvious modern seasonal fluctuations in these resources, plus a considerable amount of archaeological evidence, led to the suggestion that prehistoric hunter-gatherers moved in a regular seasonal cycle across the zones; this would have allowed them to make maximum use of temporarily plentiful plant and animal foods in some areas, while avoiding lean periods in others. However, as reported here, direct measurements of food intake, as reflected in the stable carbon isotope ratios of archaeological human skeletons, reveal that this was not the case. The implications of this study extend beyond the relevance to local archaeology to more general questioning of the ways in which archaeological data should be used to generate hypotheses.     

A triple beta-spiral in the adenovirus fibre shaft reveals a new structural motif for a fibrous protein.

Human adenoviruses are responsible for respiratory, gastroenteric and ocular infections and can serve as gene therapy vectors. They form icosahedral particles with 240 copies of the trimeric hexon protein arranged on the planes and a penton complex at each of the twelve vertices. The penton consists of a pentameric base, implicated in virus internalization, and a protruding trimeric fibre, responsible for receptor attachment. The fibres are homo-trimeric proteins containing an amino-terminal penton base attachment domain, a long, thin central shaft and a carboxy-terminal cell attachment or head domain. The shaft domain contains a repeating sequence motif with an invariant glycine or proline and a conserved pattern of hydrophobic residues. Here we describe the crystal structure at 2.4 A resolution of a recombinant protein containing the four distal repeats of the adenovirus type 2 fibre shaft plus the receptor-binding head domain. The structure reveals a novel triple beta-spiral fibrous fold for the shaft. Implications for folding of fibrous proteins (misfolding of shaft peptides leads to amyloid-like fibrils) and for the design of a new class of artificial, silk-like fibrous materials are discussed.     

An unpublished autograph by Christiaan Huygens: His letter to David Gregory of 19 January 1694

A letter written by Christiaan Huygens to David Gregory (19 January 1694) is published here for the first time. After an introduction about the contacts between the two correspondents, an annotated English translation of the letter is given. The letter forms part of the wider correspondence about the ‘new calculus’, in which L'Hospital and Leibniz also participated, and gives some new evidence about Huygens's ambivalent attitude towards the new developments. Therefore, two mathematical passages in the letter are discussed separately. An appendix contains the original Latin text.     

An isoform of the vacuolar (H+)-ATPase accessory subunit Ac45

The vacuolar (H⁺)-ATPase (V-ATPase) is the main regulator of intraorganellar pH and in neuroendocrine cells is controlled by its accessory subunit, Ac45. Here, we report the discovery of the first isoform of a V-ATPase accessory subunit, namely an Ac45-like protein, denoted Ac45LP. Phylogenetic analysis revealed a lineage-dependent evolutionary history: Ac45 is absent in birds, and Ac45LP is absent in placental mammals, whereas all other tetrapod species contain both genes. In contrast to Ac45, Ac45LP is not proteolytically cleaved, a prerequisite for proper Ac45 routing. Intriguingly, Xenopus Ac45LP mRNA was expressed in developing neural tissue and in neural crest cells. In adult Xenopus, Ac45 mRNA is widely expressed mostly in neuroendocrine tissues, while Ac45LP mRNA expression was found to be restricted to the kidney and the lung. This novel Ac45LP may provide additional possibilities for V-ATPase regulation during neurodevelopment as well as in kidney and lung cells.