Many pathogenic bacteria have been reported to interact with human platelets to mediate platelet activation and aggregation. The importance of these interactions to the immune response or pathogenesis of bacterial infection has not been clarified. It may therefore be valuable to assess platelet responses mediated by diverse strains of bacteria. Here, I describe a method to study platelet integrin

Negative staining is an essential and versatile staining technique in transmission electron microscopy that can be employed for visualizing bacterial cell morphology, size, and surface architecture at high resolution. Bacteria are usually transferred by passive electrostatic adsorption from suspensions in physiological saline onto suitable hydrophilic support films on electron microscopic grids. T

We consider a case where K closely located users communicate with a base station in the uplink of a wireless communication system. Each user has a certain number of assigned time-frequency slots at its disposal. At a small cost, which we in this paper consider as negliable, the users can communicate with each other and share their data. Thus, they can cooperate in the uplink in order to save trans

This article analyzes the effects of extension services regarding the use of nutrients in Swedish agriculture on nutrient balances and farms’ finances. The key to our research design is that extension visits vary between agents (some agents give more consultation than others), which leads to random variation in “treatment.” We find that the service affects nutrient utilization, which possibly redu

We consider optimal channel shortener design for reduced-state soft-output Viterbi equalizer (RS-SOVE) in singlecarrier (SC) systems. To use RS-SOVE, three receiver filters need to be designed: a prefilter, a target response and a feedback filter. The collection of these three filters are commonly referred to as the “channel shortener”. Conventionally, the channel shortener is designed to transfor

Most bacteria are likely to face osmotic challenges, but there is yet much to learn about how such environmental changes affect the architecture of bacterial cells. Here, we report a cell-biological study in model organisms of the genus Streptomyces, which are actinobacteria that grow in a highly polarized fashion to form branching hyphae. The characteristic apical growth of Streptomyces hyphae is

This paper re-focuses the Silk Road discussions from the position of contemporary art in Central Asian region. Since the late 1980s contemporary art in Central Asia boomed and it eventually became an alternative public space for the discussion of cultural transformations, social and global processes and problems that local societies faced. Initially the questions raised by many artists concerned i

The endoglycosidase EndoS and the protease IdeS from the human pathogen Streptococcus pyogenes are immunomodulating enzymes hydrolyzing human IgG. IdeS cleaves IgG in the lower hinge region, while EndoS hydrolyzes the conserved N-linked glycan in the Fc region. Both enzymes are remarkably specific for human IgG that after hydrolysis loses most of its effector functions, such as binding to leukocyt

Mycobacteria are a major human health problem globally. Regarding tuberculosis the situation is worsened by the poor efficacy of current vaccine regimens and by emergence of drug-resistant strains (Manjelievskaia J et al, Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg 110: 110, 2016; Pereira et al., Lancet Infect Dis 12:300–306, 2012; http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/) undermining both disease-preven

The sterile worker castes found in the colonies of social insects are often cited as archetypal examples of altruism in nature. The challenge is to explain why losing the ability to mate has evolved as a superior strategy for transmitting genes into future generations. We propose that two conditions are necessary for the evolution of sterility: completely overlapping generations and monogamy. A re

The HOPS tethering complex facilitates autophagosome-lysosome fusion by binding to Syx17 (Syntaxin 17), the autophagosomal SNARE. Here we show that loss of the core HOPS complex subunit Vps16A enhances autophagosome formation and slows down Drosophila development. Mechanistically, Tor kinase is less active in Vps16A mutants likely due to impaired endocytic and biosynthetic transport to the lysosom

Homotypic fusion and vacuole protein sorting (HOPS) is a tethering complex required for trafficking to the vacuole/lysosome in yeast. Specific interaction of HOPS with certain SNARE (soluble NSF attachment protein receptor) proteins ensures the fusion of appropriate vesicles. HOPS function is less well characterized in metazoans. We show that all six HOPS subunits (Vps11 [vacuolar protein sorting

Phagophore-derived autophagosomes deliver cytoplasmic material to lysosomes for degradation and reuse. Autophagy mediated by the incompletely characterized actions of Atg proteins is involved in numerous physiological and pathological settings including stress resistance, immunity, aging, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. Here we characterized Atg17/FIP200, the Drosophila ortholog of mammali

The Atg2-Atg18 complex acts in parallel to Atg8 and regulates Atg9 recycling from phagophore assembly site (PAS) during autophagy in yeast. Here we show that in Drosophila, both Atg9 and Atg18 are required for Atg8a puncta formation, unlike Atg2. Selective autophagic degradation of ubiquitinated proteins is mediated by Ref(2)P/p62. The transmembrane protein Atg9 accumulates on refractory to Sigma

Autophagy, a lysosomal self-degradation and recycling pathway, plays dual roles in tumorigenesis. Autophagy deficiency predisposes to cancer, at least in part, through accumulation of the selective autophagy cargo p62, leading to activation of antioxidant responses and tumor formation. While cell growth and autophagy are inversely regulated in most cells, elevated levels of autophagy are observed