Effectiveness of sodium silicate as gangue depressants in iron ore slimes flotation

The recovery of iron from the screw classifier overflow slimes by direct flotation was studied. The relative effectiveness of sodium silicates with different silica-to-soda mole ratios as depressants for silica and silicate bearing minerals was investigated. Silica-to-soda mole ratio and silicate dosage were found to have significant effect on the separation efficiency. The results show that an increase of Fe content in the concentrate is observed with concomitant reduction in SiO₂ and Al₂O₃ levels when a particular type of sodium silicate at a proper dosage is used. The concentrate of 58.89wt% Fe, 4.68wt% SiO₂, and 5.28wt% Al₂O₃ with the weight recovery of 38.74% and the metal recovery of 41.13% can be obtained from the iron ore slimes with 54.44wt% Fe, 6.72wt% SiO₂, and 6.80wt% Al₂O₃, when Na₂SiO₃ with a silica-to-soda mole ratio of 2.19 is used as a depressant at a feed rate of 0.2 kg/t.     

Reduced airway surface pH impairs bacterial killing in the porcine cystic fibrosis lung

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-shortening disease caused by mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. Although bacterial lung infection and the resulting inflammation cause most of the morbidity and mortality, how the loss of CFTR function first disrupts airway host defence has remained uncertain. To investigate the abnormalities that impair elimination when a bacterium lands on the pristine surface of a newborn CF airway, we interrogated the viability of individual bacteria immobilized on solid grids and placed onto the airway surface. As a model, we studied CF pigs, which spontaneously develop hallmark features of CF lung disease. At birth, their lungs lack infection and inflammation, but have a reduced ability to eradicate bacteria. Here we show that in newborn wild-type pigs, the thin layer of airway surface liquid (ASL) rapidly kills bacteria in vivo, when removed from the lung and in primary epithelial cultures. Lack of CFTR reduces bacterial killing. We found that the ASL pH was more acidic in CF pigs, and reducing pH inhibited the antimicrobial activity of ASL. Reducing ASL pH diminished bacterial killing in wild-type pigs, and, conversely, increasing ASL pH rescued killing in CF pigs. These results directly link the initial host defence defect to the loss of CFTR, an anion channel that facilitates HCO(3)(-) transport. Without CFTR, airway epithelial HCO(3)(-) secretion is defective, the ASL pH falls and inhibits antimicrobial function, and thereby impairs the killing of bacteria that enter the newborn lung. These findings suggest that increasing ASL pH might prevent the initial infection in patients with CF, and that assaying bacterial killing could report on the benefit of therapeutic interventions.     

Unraveling adaptive evolution: how a single point mutation affects the protein coregulation network

Understanding the mechanisms of evolution requires identification of the molecular basis of the multiple (pleiotropic) effects of specific adaptive mutations. We have characterized the pleiotropic effects on protein levels of an adaptive single-base pair substitution in the coding sequence of a signaling pathway gene in the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25. We find 52 proteomic changes, corresponding to 46 identified proteins. None of these proteins is required for the adaptive phenotype. Instead, many are found within specific metabolic pathways associated with fitness-reducing (that is, antagonistic) effects of the mutation. The affected proteins fall within a single coregulatory network. The mutation 'rewires' this network by drawing particular proteins into tighter coregulating relationships. Although these changes are specific to the mutation studied, the quantitatively altered proteins are also affected in a coordinated way in other examples of evolution to the same niche.     

Cultivation ofSpirulina in sewage for poultry feed

Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences - A method for cultivatingSpirulina platensis in domestic raw sewage, coupled with pisciculture and water reclamation in an integrated recycling system, has...     

Chemical composition of sewage-grownSpirulina platensis

Summary Spirulina platensis has been grown in an outdoor pilot production unit, with an exposed surface area of 450 m², on a medium consisting of raw domestic sewage supplemented with sodium bicarbonate and nitrate or urea fertilizer. The chemical composition and yield of the biomass grown on sewage-nitrate was comparable to that grown on synthetic medium. The protein content was much lower in the alga cultivated in sewage-urea medium.NBRI Research Publication No. 143 (NS).     

In vivo imaging of Treg cells providing immune privilege to the haematopoietic stem-cell niche

Stem cells reside in a specialized regulatory microenvironment or niche, where they receive appropriate support for maintaining self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation capacity. The niche may also protect stem cells from environmental insults including cytotoxic chemotherapy and perhaps pathogenic immunity. The testis, hair follicle and placenta are all sites of residence for stem cells and are immune-suppressive environments, called immune-privileged sites, where multiple mechanisms cooperate to prevent immune attack, even enabling prolonged survival of foreign allografts without immunosuppression. We sought to determine if somatic stem-cell niches more broadly are immune-privileged sites by examining the haematopoietic stem/progenitor cell (HSPC) niche in the bone marrow, a site where immune reactivity exists. We observed persistence of HSPCs from allogeneic donor mice (allo-HSPCs) in non-irradiated recipient mice for 30?days without immunosuppression with the same survival frequency compared to syngeneic HSPCs. These HSPCs were lost after the depletion of FoxP3 regulatory T (T(reg)) cells. High-resolution in vivo imaging over time demonstrated marked co-localization of HSPCs with T(reg) cells that accumulated on the endosteal surface in the calvarial and trabecular bone marrow. T(reg) cells seem to participate in creating a localized zone where HSPCs reside and where T(reg) cells are necessary for allo-HSPC persistence. In addition to processes supporting stem-cell function, the niche will provide a relative sanctuary from immune attack.     

In vivo enhancer analysis of human conserved non-coding sequences

Identifying the sequences that direct the spatial and temporal expression of genes and defining their function in vivo remains a significant challenge in the annotation of vertebrate genomes. One major obstacle is the lack of experimentally validated training sets. In this study, we made use of extreme evolutionary sequence conservation as a filter to identify putative gene regulatory elements, and characterized the in vivo enhancer activity of a large group of non-coding elements in the human genome that are conserved in human-pufferfish, Takifugu (Fugu) rubripes, or ultraconserved in human-mouse-rat. We tested 167 of these extremely conserved sequences in a transgenic mouse enhancer assay. Here we report that 45% of these sequences functioned reproducibly as tissue-specific enhancers of gene expression at embryonic day 11.5. While directing expression in a broad range of anatomical structures in the embryo, the majority of the 75 enhancers directed expression to various regions of the developing nervous system. We identified sequence signatures enriched in a subset of these elements that targeted forebrain expression, and used these features to rank all approximately 3,100 non-coding elements in the human genome that are conserved between human and Fugu. The testing of the top predictions in transgenic mice resulted in a threefold enrichment for sequences with forebrain enhancer activity. These data dramatically expand the catalogue of human gene enhancers that have been characterized in vivo, and illustrate the utility of such training sets for a variety of biological applications, including decoding the regulatory vocabulary of the human genome.     

The DNA sequence and comparative analysis of human chromosome 5

Chromosome 5 is one of the largest human chromosomes and contains numerous intrachromosomal duplications, yet it has one of the lowest gene densities. This is partially explained by numerous gene-poor regions that display a remarkable degree of noncoding conservation with non-mammalian vertebrates, suggesting that they are functionally constrained. In total, we compiled 177.7 million base pairs of highly accurate finished sequence containing 923 manually curated protein-coding genes including the protocadherin and interleukin gene families. We also completely sequenced versions of the large chromosome-5-specific internal duplications. These duplications are very recent evolutionary events and probably have a mechanistic role in human physiological variation, as deletions in these regions are the cause of debilitating disorders including spinal muscular atrophy.     

Adherens junction protein nectin-4 is the epithelial receptor for measles virus

Measles virus is an aerosol-transmitted virus that affects more than 10 million children each year and accounts for approximately 120,000 deaths. Although it was long believed to replicate in the respiratory epithelium before disseminating, it was recently shown to infect initially macrophages and dendritic cells of the airways using signalling lymphocytic activation molecule family member 1 (SLAMF1; also called CD150) as a receptor. These cells then cross the respiratory epithelium and transport the infection to lymphatic organs where measles virus replicates vigorously. How and where the virus crosses back into the airways has remained unknown. On the basis of functional analyses of surface proteins preferentially expressed on virus-permissive human epithelial cell lines, here we identify nectin-4 (ref. 8; also called poliovirus-receptor-like-4 (PVRL4)) as a candidate host exit receptor. This adherens junction protein of the immunoglobulin superfamily interacts with the viral attachment protein with high affinity through its membrane-distal domain. Nectin-4 sustains measles virus entry and non-cytopathic lateral spread in well-differentiated primary human airway epithelial sheets infected basolaterally. It is downregulated in infected epithelial cells, including those of macaque tracheae. Although other viruses use receptors to enter hosts or transit through their epithelial barriers, we suggest that measles virus targets nectin-4 to emerge in the airways. Nectin-4 is a cellular marker of several types of cancer, which has implications for ongoing measles-virus-based clinical trials of oncolysis.