scholarly journals The asynchronous growth and movement reconstruction of the early molting animals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tian Lan

Abstract Epithelium is one of the basic types of animal tissue, in which tissue boundaries are the physical barriers to separate adjust cell clusters. However, tissue boundary in cellular level can hardly found in the fossil records. Here I focus on the growth and movement patterns of the early Ecdysozoa being through quantifying forces in cellular level of the epithelium of two worms from the early Cambrian and Ordovician period. The epithelium cells (might be but not necessarily represent the biological cell) separate adjust body ring of the early Ecdysozoa indicates a precise morphological patterning in cellular level has been established in the early Cambrian. The forces distribution patterns on the body ring suggest the boundary cells are contribute to maintain pressure gradient among rings which are the building blocks of the movement pattern of the worm. The active tension field of the worms plates though ontogenetic trajectory while epithelium cells are in the steady state indicate these molting animals employ asynchronous growth pattern of the epithelium.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tian Lan ◽  
Daniel Meulemans Medeiros

Abstract Epithelium is one of the basic types of animal tissue, and forms tissue boundaries that act as physical barriers to separate adjacent cell clusters. However, tissue boundaries at cellular resolutions can hardly be found in the fossil record. Here we focus on the growth and movement patterns of early Ecdysozoans by quantifying cell-level forces in the epithelium of two worms from the early Cambrian and Ordovician period. The arrangement of the epithelium cells (that do not necessarily represent biological cells) separating the body rings of these early Ecdysozoans indicates precise morphological patterning at the cellular level was established in the early Cambrian. The force distribution patterns on the body ring further suggest that the boundary cells helped maintain a pressure gradient between the rings, consistent with a role in movement. Finally, the active tension field of the worms plates throughout their ontogeny, and steady state of their epithelium cells, indicate these molting animals employed an asynchronous growth pattern in their epithelium.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 1780
Author(s):  
Maria Chiara di Gregorio ◽  
Jacopo Cautela ◽  
Luciano Galantini

Bile acids (BAs) are facial amphiphiles synthesized in the body of all vertebrates. They undergo the enterohepatic circulation: they are produced in the liver, stored in the gallbladder, released in the intestine, taken into the bloodstream and lastly re-absorbed in the liver. During this pathway, BAs are modified in their molecular structure by the action of enzymes and bacteria. Such transformations allow them to acquire the chemical–physical properties needed for fulling several activities including metabolic regulation, antimicrobial functions and solubilization of lipids in digestion. The versatility of BAs in the physiological functions has inspired their use in many bio-applications, making them important tools for active molecule delivery, metabolic disease treatments and emulsification processes in food and drug industries. Moreover, moving over the borders of the biological field, BAs have been largely investigated as building blocks for the construction of supramolecular aggregates having peculiar structural, mechanical, chemical and optical properties. The review starts with a biological analysis of the BAs functions before progressively switching to a general overview of BAs in pharmacology and medicine applications. Lastly the focus moves to the BAs use in material science.


Instruments ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Fabio Acerbi ◽  
Anurag Behera ◽  
Alberto Dalla Mora ◽  
Laura Di Sieno ◽  
Alberto Gola

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) are pixelated single-photon detectors combining high sensitivity, good time resolution and high dynamic range. They are emerging in many fields, such as time-domain diffuse optics (TD-DO). This is a promising technique in neurology, oncology, and quality assessment of food, wood, and pharmaceuticals. SiPMs can have very large areas and can significantly increase the sensitivity of TD-DO in tissue investigation. However, such improvement is currently limited by the high detector noise and the worsening of SiPM single-photon time resolution due to the large parasitic capacitances. To overcome such limitation, in this paper, we present two single-photon detection modules, based on 6 × 6 mm2 and 10 × 10 mm2 SiPMs, housed in vacuum-sealed TO packages, cooled to −15 °C and −36 °C, respectively. They integrate front-end amplifiers and temperature controllers, being very useful instruments for TD-DO and other biological and physical applications. The signal extraction from the SiPM was improved. The noise is reduced by more than two orders of magnitude compared to the room temperature level. The full suitability of the proposed detectors for TD-DO measurements is outside the scope of this work, but preliminary tests were performed analyzing the shape and the stability of the Instrument Response Function. The proposed modules are thus fundamental building blocks to push the TD-DO towards deeper investigations inside the body.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishna Kanta Ghosh ◽  
Parasuraman Padmanabhan ◽  
Chang-Tong Yang ◽  
Sachin Mishra ◽  
Christer Halldin ◽  
...  

Abstract Positron emission tomography (PET) offers the study of biochemical, physiological, and pharmacological functions at a cellular and molecular level. The performance of a PET study mostly depends on the used radiotracer of interest. However, the development of a novel PET tracer is very difficult, as it is required to fulfill a lot of important criteria. PET radiotracers usually encounter different chemical modifications including redox reaction, hydrolysis, decarboxylation, and various conjugation processes within living organisms. Due to this biotransformation, different chemical entities are produced, and the amount of the parent radiotracer is declined. Consequently, the signal measured by the PET scanner indicates the entire amount of radioactivity deposited in the tissue; however, it does not offer any indication about the chemical disposition of the parent radiotracer itself. From a radiopharmaceutical perspective, it is necessary to quantify the parent radiotracer’s fraction present in the tissue. Hence, the identification of radiometabolites of the radiotracers is vital for PET imaging. There are mainly two reasons for the chemical identification of PET radiometabolites: firstly, to determine the amount of parent radiotracers in plasma, and secondly, to rule out (if a radiometabolite enters the brain) or correct any radiometabolite accumulation in peripheral tissue. Besides, radiometabolite formations of the tracer might be of concern for the PET study, as the radiometabolic products may display considerably contrasting distribution patterns inside the body when compared with the radiotracer itself. Therefore, necessary information is needed about these biochemical transformations to understand the distribution of radioactivity throughout the body. Various published review articles on PET radiometabolites mainly focus on the sample preparation techniques and recently available technology to improve the radiometabolite analysis process. This article essentially summarizes the chemical and structural identity of the radiometabolites of various radiotracers including [11C]PBB3, [11C]flumazenil, [18F]FEPE2I, [11C]PBR28, [11C]MADAM, and (+)[18F]flubatine. Besides, the importance of radiometabolite analysis in PET imaging is also briefly summarized. Moreover, this review also highlights how a slight chemical modification could reduce the formation of radiometabolites, which could interfere with the results of PET imaging. Graphical abstract


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 201185
Author(s):  
Victor M. Ortega-Jimenez ◽  
Eva C. Herbst ◽  
Michelle S. Leung ◽  
Robert Dudley

Waterfalls are conspicuous geomorphological features with heterogeneous structure, complex dynamics and multiphase flows. Swifts, dippers and starlings are well-known to nest behind waterfalls, and have been reported to fly through them. For smaller fliers, by contrast, waterfalls seem to represent impenetrable barriers, but associated physical constraints and the kinematic responses of volant animals during transit are unknown. Here, we describe the flight behaviour of hummingbirds (the sister group to the swifts) and of various insect taxa as they fly through an artificial sheet waterfall. We additionally launched plastic balls at different speeds at the waterfall so as to assess the inertial dependence of sheet penetration. Hummingbirds were able to penetrate the waterfall with reductions in both their translational speed, and stroke amplitude. The body tilted more vertically and exhibited greater rotations in roll, pitch and yaw, along with increases in tail spread and pitch. The much smaller plastic balls and some flies moving at speeds greater than 2.3 m s −1 and 1.6 m s −1 , respectively, also overcame effects of surface tension and water momentum and passed through the waterfall; objects with lower momentum, by contrast, entered the sheet but then fell along with the moving water. Waterfalls can thus represent impenetrable physical barriers for small and slow animal fliers, and may also serve to exclude both predators and parasites from nests of some avian taxa.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL4) ◽  
pp. 2756-2767
Author(s):  
Vijaya Vemani ◽  
Mounika P ◽  
Poulami Das ◽  
Anand Kumar Tengli

In the preservation of normal physiological functions, the building blocks of the body called amino acids play a crucial role. A number of valuable and nutritional phytoconstituents are contained in fruit juices, such as vitamins, minerals, microelements, organic acids, antioxidants, flavonoids, amino acids and other components. Due to the growing population and demand, the quality of fruit juices is decreasing. One of the unethical and harmful practices called adulteration or food fraudulence has been adopted by most food and beverage industries. The amino acids which is one of the most important phytochemicals of fruit and fruit juices which affects the organoleptic properties like color, odor, and taste of juices and also helps in authenticity process from governing bodies by providing total amino acid content. Consequently, the main aim of the present review work is to provide information regarding the importance of amino acids, how they are adulterated, the potential analytical approach to detected amino acids and which methods are generally accepted method by the food industries. According to the literature review, we presume that reverse phased high-performance liquid chromatography with pre-column derivatization was the most adopted method for quality checking due to its advantages over other old and recent analytical approaches like simple, rapid, cost-effective nature, less / no sample matrix effect with high sensitivity, accuracy, and precision.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ye Li

<p>Infections caused by RNA viruses, such as Ebola and Zika, continue to exist worldwide as significant public health problems. In response to the urgent need for safer and more efficacious treatment options to treat infections caused by RNA viruses, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have devoted significant efforts over the last two decades to discovering and developing new antiviral agents. One such antiviral, Sofosbuvir®, was approved by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in 2014 and has revolutionized the treatment of Hepatitis-C. Sofosbuvir® was the second largest selling drug in the world in 2016 and in just twenty-one months Gilead reported sales worth $26.6 billion USD.The strategy of using nucleoside analogues to inhibit viral RNA dependent RNA polymerase(RdRp)has been pursued since the 1970s, and exemplified bythe discovery and development of ribavirin. The natural substrates of RNA polymerases are nucleoside triphosphates and often the efficacy of nucleoside analogues as antivirals are dependent on their ability to be converted by the host or virus to mono-, di-, and ultimately tri-phosphate analogues which block the active site of RNA polymerase as an analogue of the substrate causing chain termination. Recently Biocryst Pharmaceuticals (Biocryst) described the anti-viral properties of Immucillin-A (Galidesivir), an iminoribitol based nucleoside analogue, which was found to have broad spectrum antiviral activity especially against RNA viruses including Ebola. Researchers at the Ferrier Research Institute (Ferrier) have synthesizedan analogue of Immucillin-A, 8-aza-Immucillin-A (AIA) which shows comparable activityto Immucillin-A, in anti-viral screens against Ebola, and this antiviral activity forms part of a US patent application. The Ferrier is keen to further exemplify this compound class through the synthesis of analogues of both Immucillin-A and AIA as well as improve the overall synthesis of the lead compound AIA.Included as part of this study is the synthesis of pro-drugs of these iminoribitol based nucleoside analogues. Prodrugs are metabolized inside the body and are often converted to the corresponding pharmacologically active form. In general, prodrug strategies have improved the bioavailability and efficacy of many drugs. In particular, prodrugs strategies involving nucleoside analogue antivirals, which target RNA polymerase, have been particularly effective as they ensure conversion to the monophosphate in vivo. Conversion to the 5’-monophosphate form of a nucleoside analogue is the rate limiting step to the inhibition of the RNA polymerase –prior to its conversion to the triphosphateanalogue. The prodrug is effectively a protected monophosphate, and is then readily converted to monophosphate by the host and then onto the di-and tri-phosphate by kinases in both the host and virus. ProTide prodrugs, such as Sofosbuvir® provide a verified strategy for improving anti-viral activity and hence our desire to synthesize pro-drugs of all our iminoribitol based nucleoside analogues. This research thesis also involved repeating the known synthesis of the Immucillins, in particular, Immucillin-H (Forodesine), which requires in excess of 20 linear synthetic steps to make. The linear synthetic route to Immucillin-H was used instead of the more convenient convergent method developed by the Ferrier as several key synthetic intermediates in this progress were utilized in the attempted synthesis of some of the planned nucleoside analogues of AIA. As part of this work the candidate learned aspects of scaling up chemical reactions andthe critical analysis of both reaction hazards and reagent compatibilities at scale. Where possible and given the number of synthetic steps involved the candidate was also interested in improving the yields of the building blocks involved in the synthesis of the Immucillins with limited success.</p>


Author(s):  
Andri Wibowo

Astragalus bone is one of the most important fossil records as it can reconstruct the prehistoric life. Respectively, this study aims to model the body mass, habitat preference, and population density of prehistoric bovid Duboisia santeng (Dubois 1891) in eastern Java island in the early Pleistocene. The astragali from 9 specimens were used to estimate the body mass and population density. Likewise regression models are used to analyze the relationship between astragalus lateral length, width, and body mass compared to the astragalus of extant Bovid species. The result revealed the body mass average was 60.3 kg (95%CI: 58.9-61.7) and this indicates the D. santeng belongs to large herbivores. While the population density was estimated at about 5.39 individuals per km2 (95% CI: 3.18-7.6).


1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wulf Schiefenhövel

The ArgumentPain has important biomedical socioanthropological, semiotic, and other facets. In this contribution pain and the experssion of pain are looked at from the perspective of evolutionary biology, utilizing, among others, cross-cultural data from field work in Melanesia.No other being cares for sick and suffering conspecifics in the way humans do. Notwithstanding aggression and neglect, common in all cultures, human societies can be characterized as empathic, comforting, and promoting the health and well-being of their members. One important stimulus triggering this caring response in others is the expression of pain. The nonverbal channel of communication, particularly certain universal — i.e., culture-independent facial expressions, gestures, and body postures, convey much of the message from the painstricken person to the group.These behaviors signal the person's physical and psychical pain, sadness, grief, and despair in ways very similar to the signs given by infants and small children: the body loses tonus and sinks or drops to the ground, the gestures are those of helplessness. Pain and grief may be so strong that control is lost not only over the body's posture but also over the mind's awareness. In such cases the afflicted person may carry out actions endangering himself or others. In general, these behavior patterns resemble those of infants in situations of distress and danger, and it is not surprising that the response of the members of the group is basically parental: taking care, assisting and consoling.Perceptive and behavioral patterns which developed in the course of avian and mammalian phylogeny to serve the well-being of the young have proven, as was shown by Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1989), to be powerful building blocks for actions in other spheres of human interaction. Love is one such field, the reactions to a conspecific suffering pain is another.


1952 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Smith

As in the Middle Ages in the West, so in Tokugawa Japan (1600–1868) men were fond of explaining the hierarchical society in which they lived by comparing it to an organism. Social classes, Confucian scholars said, were like parts of the body: each had a vital function to perform, but their functions were essentially different and unequal in value. In this scheme the peasants were second in importance only to the ruling military class. Just as the samurai officials were the brains that guided other organs, so the peasants were the feet that held the social body erect. They were the “basis of the country,” the valued producers whose labor sustained all else. But, as a class, they tended innately to backsliding and extravagance. Left alone they would consume more than their share of the social income, ape the manners and tastes of their betters, and even encroach upon the functions of other classes to the perilous neglect of their own. Only the lash of necessity and the sharp eye of the official could hold them to their disagreeable role. They had to be bound to the land; social distinctions had to be thrown up around them like so many physical barriers; and, to remove all temptation to indolence and luxury, they had to be left only enough of what they produced to let them continue producing.


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