Beta1,4-galactosyltransferase V functions as a positive growth regulator in glioma.

beta1,4-galactosyltransferase V (GalT V; EC 2.4.1.38) can effectively galactosylate the GlcNAcbeta1-->6Man arm of the highly branched N-glycans that are characteristic of glioma. Previously, we have reported that the expression of GalT V is increased in the process of glioma. However, currently little is known about the role of GalT V in this process. In this study, the ectopic expression of GalT V could promote the invasion and survival of glioma cells and transformed astrocytes. Furthermore, decreasing the expression of GalT V in glioma cells promoted apoptosis, inhibited the invasion and migration and the ability of tumor formation in vivo, and reduced the activation of AKT. In addition, the activity of GalT V promoter could be induced by epidermal growth factor, dominant active Ras, ERK1, JNK1, and constitutively active AKT. Taken together, our results suggest that GalT V functioned as a novel glioma growth activator and might represent a novel target in glioma therapy.

Electron and laser interactions with positive ions

Recent progress in laboratory-based electron-ion scattering is reviewed, and the sensitivity of observed interference structure as a probe of collision dynamics is discussed. The extension of our use of positive ions as scattering targets to photon-ion interactions is demonstrated with the first ion-beam measurements for the fragmentation of a molecular ion, H-2(+), using intense femtosecond laser pulses.

Short pulse laser interaction with positive ions

The viability of using beams of molecular ions as a target for strong field fragmentation studies using intense ultra-short laser pulses is demonstrated. In this way the production mechanism for multiply charged ions in strong fields may be elucidated.

Thin film capacitor cut from single crystals using focused ion beam milling

The focused ion beam microscope (FIB) has been used to fabricate thin parallel-sided ferroelectric capacitors from single crystals of BaTiO3 and SrTiO3. A series of nano-sized capacitors ranging in thickness from similar to660 nm to similar to300 nm were made. Cross-sectional high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) revealed that during capacitor fabrication, the FIB rendered around 20 nm of dielectric at the electrode-dielectric interface amorphous, associated with local gallium impregnation. Such a region would act electrically in series with the single crystal and would presumably have a considerable negative influence on the dielectric properties. However, thermal annealing prior to gold electrodes deposition was found to fully recover the single crystal capacitors and homogenise the gallium profile. The dielectric testing of the STO ultra-thin single crystal capacitors was performed yielding a room temperature dielectric constant of similar to300, as is the case in bulk. Therefore, there was no evidence of a collapse in dielectric constant associated with thin film dimensions.

Positive dilations of piecewise monotonic Markov maps

We provide an explicit formula which gives natural extensions of piecewise monotonic Markov maps defined on an interval of the real line. These maps are exact endomorphisms and define chaotic discrete dynamical systems.