Disruption of the circadian clock within the cardiomyocyte influences myocardial contractile function, metabolism, and gene expression

Virtually every mammalian cell, including cardiomyocytes, possesses an intrinsic circadian clock. The role of this transcriptionally based molecular mechanism in cardiovascular biology is poorly understood. We hypothesized that the circadian clock within the cardiomyocyte influences diurnal variations in myocardial biology. We, therefore, generated a cardiomyocyte-specific circadian clock mutant (CCM) mouse to test this hypothesis. At 12 wk of age, CCM mice exhibit normal myocardial contractile function in vivo, as assessed by echocardiography. Radiotelemetry studies reveal attenuation of heart rate diurnal variations and bradycardia in CCM mice (in the absence of conduction system abnormalities). Reduced heart rate persisted in CCM hearts perfused ex vivo in the working mode, highlighting the intrinsic nature of this phenotype. Wild-type, but not CCM, hearts exhibited a marked diurnal variation in responsiveness to an elevation in workload (80 mmHg plus 1 mu M epinephrine) ex vivo, with a greater increase in cardiac power and efficiency during the dark (active) phase vs. the light (inactive) phase. Moreover, myocardial oxygen consumption and fatty acid oxidation rates were increased, whereas cardiac efficiency was decreased, in CCM hearts. These observations were associated with no alterations in mitochondrial content or structure and modest mitochondrial dysfunction in CCM hearts. Gene expression microarray analysis identified 548 and 176 genes in atria and ventricles, respectively, whose normal diurnal expression patterns were altered in CCM mice. These studies suggest that the cardiomyocyte circadian clock influences myocardial contractile function, metabolism, and gene expression.

A Time Efficient Optical Model for GATE Simulation of a LYSO Scintillation Matrix Used in PET Applications

A time efficient optical model is proposed for GATE simulation of a LYSO scintillation matrix coupled to a photomultiplier. The purpose is to avoid the excessively long computation time when activating the optical processes in GATE. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated by comparing the simulated and experimental energy spectra obtained with the dual planar head equipment for dosimetry with a positron emission tomograph ( DoPET). The procedure to apply the model is divided in two steps. Firstly, a simplified simulation of a single crystal element of DoPET is used to fit an analytic function that models the optical attenuation inside the crystal. In a second step, the model is employed to calculate the influence of this attenuation in the energy registered by the tomograph. The use of the proposed optical model is around three orders of magnitude faster than a GATE simulation with optical processes enabled. A good agreement was found between the experimental and simulated data using the optical model. The results indicate that optical interactions inside the crystal elements play an important role on the energy resolution and induce a considerable degradation of the spectra information acquired by DoPET. Finally, the same approach employed by the proposed optical model could be useful to simulate a scintillation matrix coupled to a photomultiplier using single or dual readout scheme.

Negishi cross-coupling of organotellurium compounds: synthesis of biaryls, aryl-, and diaryl acetylenes

A functional group tolerant palladium-catalyzed Negishi coupling of diaryl tellurides with organozinc has been developed. This methodology permits efficient preparation of biaryls, aryl acetylenes and diaryl acetylenes in moderate to good yields. A preliminary study to gain further insight into the reaction was performed using in situ ReactIR technology. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Synthesis of alpha,beta-unsaturated aryl esters via Heck reaction of unsymmetrical aryl tellurides

A variety of alpha,beta-unsaturated aryl esters were prepared by the direct reaction of unsymmetrical aryltellurides and ethyl acrylate, catalyzed by PdCl(2) via a Heck cross-coupling reaction. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Tellurium tetrachloride: an improved method of preparation

An efficient and practical synthesis of tellurium tetrachloride from elemental tellurium and sulfuryl chloride is described. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Viabilidade e fertilização in vitro de oócitos bovinos após vitrificação em soluções 6 M de DMSO

Resumo não disponível.

Hydrobiidae (Gastropoda, Neotaenioglossa, Rissooidea) da planície costeira do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil

A família Hydrobiidae, que apresenta maior diversidade entre os moluscos límnicos e estuarinos, com mais de 300 gêneros e cerca de mil espécies Recentes, constitui-se em um importante componente biótico de águas continentais. A monofilia da família ainda é duvidosa, uma vez que a maioria das espécies é apenas conhecida pelos caracteres da concha, opérculo, pênis e rádula, insuficientes para traçar relações filogenéticas em Hydrobiidae. Apresentam alta diversidade específica e genérica, nos diferentes continentes, sendo a América do Sul uma exceção, com 120 espécies em sete gêneros recentes, enquanto que na América do Norte as mais de 200 espécies da família estão distribuídas em 40 gêneros, como registrado pela literatura. Estes caracóis acham-se distribuídos ao longo de toda Planície Costeira do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. A presente tese objetiva: identificar, definir e redefinir os hidrobiideos ocorrentes em ambientes límnicos e estuarinos da Planície Costeira do Rio Grande do Sul, a partir de coleções científicas e amostragens de material vivo. Examinou-se Hydrobiidae das coleções: Museu Museu de Ciências Naturais da Fundação Zoobotânica do Rio Grande do Sul (MCNZ); Departamento de Zoologia da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS); coleção particular de Rosane Lanzer (RL); The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP); The Natural History Museum, Londres (BMNH). Realizou-se coleta no rio Hercílio em Santa Catarina, nas lagoas Itapeva, Tramandaí, Rondinha, Fortaleza e arroio do Carvão (bacia do rio Maquiné) no Rio Grande do Sul, utilizando peneira com malha de 1mm de abertura para a amostragem. Material coletado está depositado na coleção de moluscos da UFRGS. Obtiveram-se dados conquililógicos, conquiliometricos e morfoanatômicos in vivo - cabeça-pé, cavidade palial, sistemas reprodutores feminino e masculino e rádula. As ilustrações correspondem a desenhos da morfo-anatomia, e fotomicrografias da concha, opérculo, cabeça-pé e rádula. Foram inventariados 145 táxons do grupo da espécie de Hydrobiidae, descritos para a América do Sul, acrescidos de lista sinonímica e informações morfológicas de material-tipo. Registram-se os seguintes hidrobídeos para Planície Costeira do Rio Grande do Sul: Heleobia australis (Orbingy, 1835) (rio Tramandaí, lagunas Tramandaí e Armazém, lagoas Custódia e Paurá e laguna dos Patos); Heleobia bertoniana (Pilsbry, 1911) (lagoa Caieiras); Heleobia cuzcoensis (Pilsbry, 1911) ( lagoa Rondinha); Heleobia doellojuradoi (Parodiz, 1960) (lagoas Figueiras, Bojuru Velho e Mangueira); Heleobia parchappei (Orbigny, 1835) (lagoas Itapeva, Quadros, Ramalhete, Negra, Malvas, Marcelino, Quintão, Barro Velho, Moleques, Peixe, Jacaré, Mangueira e Laguna dos Patos); Heleobia xi sp. (lagoas Itapeva, Quadros, Malvas, Palmital, Pinguela, Lessa, Peixoto, Marcelino, laguna Tramandaí, lagoas Gentil, Manuel Nunes, Fortaleza, Rondinha, Cerquinha, Rincão das Éguas, Cipó, Porteira, Capão Alto, Quintão, Charqueadas, Barro Velho, São Simão, Veiana, laguna Mirim, lagoas Nicola e Jacaré); Potamolithus kusteri (Strobel, 1874) (arroio Carvão); Potamolithus philippianus Pilsbry, 1911 (lagoas Itapeva e Figueiras). Registra-se pela primeira vez para o Brasil, H. bertoniana, H. doelojuradoi e P. kusteri; para o Rio Grande do Sul, P. philippianus; e para a Planície Costeira, H. cuzcoensis. A partir de topótipos, é redescrito o táxon Potamolithus catharinae Pilsbry, 1911, assinalado na literatura para o litoral norte da Planície Costeira do Rio Grande do Sul, cuja ocorrência não é confirmada. Heleobia charruana (Orbigny, 1835), registrada na literatura para o litoral norte do RS, não tem sua ocorrência confirmada. Transfere-se o gênero monotípico Parodizia, arrolado entre os hidrobídeos, para Pyramidellidae (Gastropoda, Heterobranchia), a partir da morfologia das partes moles, desconhecidas até o presente. A morfologia do pênis de exemplares de Potamolithus kusteri (Strobel, 1874), do arroio Carvão, justifica sua remoção de Heleobia para Potamolithus. Heleobia australis nana (MARCUS & MARCUS, 1963) é considerada sinônimo de H. australis, por tratar-se de táxons morfoanatomicamente iguais. As distintas dimensões da concha (2,0 a 8,4 mm) de populações, ao longo da distribuição da espécie (Rio de Janeiro á Baía San Blás), decorrem de fatores ambientais, provavelmente relacionados com o grau de variação da salinidade.

Aspetos desenvolvimentais da inteligência emocional em jovens institucionalizados: estudo de caso

Nos últimos anos o interesse acerca do construto de inteligência emocional e das competências sociais tem aumentado. Este facto é explicado pela proliferação de vários estudos, que tem demonstrado a importância das competências socioemocionais na vida dos indivíduos. Os estudos, que incidem nas faixas etárias da infância e da adolescência, têm descrito a influência das competências sociemocionais em aspetos como o sucesso escolar, a adaptação social, bem-estar e ajuste psicológico. O processo de institucionalização envolve grandes mudanças na estrutura emocional e social de crianças e jovens. Neste âmbito é importante conhecer como é e como ocorre o desenvolvimento sociemocional destes jovens e qual o impacto da institucionalização nas suas competências socioemocionais. O estudo deu continuidade a uma investigação que tinha-se iniciado no ano de 2007, de forma a acompanhar o desenvolvimento dos indivíduos. A amostra incidiu sobre 20 utentes de uma instituição, com regime de internamento integral da Região Autónoma da Madeira. Foram aplicados os seguintes instrumentos: Matrizes Progressivas de Raven (CPM-SPM), Inventário de Quociente Emocional de Bar-On: versão para jovens (EQ-i:YV), Prova Cognitiva de Inteligência Social (PCIS) e Prova de Avaliação da Competência Social (PACS). Os resultados apontam para um destaque das competências como a adaptabilidade flexibilidade, resolução de problemas e de aspetos relacionados com a resolução de situações sociais. Verificou-se igualmente uma redução das competências sociemocionais ao longo do tempo, particularmente no que concerne à perceção dos jovens acerca das suas competências intrapessoais, a motivação e autoconfiança para a para a resolução de situações sociais e as competências sociais em termos de liderança.

The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle: A Window to Ruminant Biology and Evolution

To understand the biology and evolution of ruminants, the cattle genome was sequenced to about sevenfold coverage. The cattle genome contains a minimum of 22,000 genes, with a core set of 14,345 orthologs shared among seven mammalian species of which 1217 are absent or undetected in noneutherian (marsupial or monotreme) genomes. Cattle-specific evolutionary breakpoint regions in chromosomes have a higher density of segmental duplications, enrichment of repetitive elements, and species-specific variations in genes associated with lactation and immune responsiveness. Genes involved in metabolism are generally highly conserved, although five metabolic genes are deleted or extensively diverged from their human orthologs. The cattle genome sequence thus provides a resource for understanding mammalian evolution and accelerating livestock genetic improvement for milk and meat production.

Cooperação em sagüis comuns callithrix jacchus: condições e restrições

The cooperative behavior is no longer a dilemma for the theory of evolution, since there are models that explain the evolution of this behavior by means of natural selection at the individual level. However, there have been few studies on the proximal factors that interfere with cooperative behavior. In the study of the influence of cognition on cooperation, many authors have been interested in situations in which individuals decide whether to act cooperatively and select partners with different qualities to cooperate. Of the factors studied, we highlight the need for understanding the apparatus and communication between partners to the occurrence of cooperation. Recently, highlight is the proposal that the ability to cooperate would be greater in species with cooperative breeding system. Thus, the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a New World monkey which stands as a valuable species for this type of study because it presents cooperative actions in nature, such as sharing food and protection of the community territory. Our experiment investigated whether common marmosets unrelated females (n = 6) were able to cooperate using an electrical and a mechanical apparatus, if this cooperation is a byproduct of individual actions or involve social attention, if it occurs inter-individual variation in the use of devices and formation of roles (producer / scrounger) in dyads. We use the number of rewards obtained by animals (Ratio of Correct Pulls) as indicators of cooperation and glances for partners (Ratio of Correct Glances) as indicators of social attention and communication. The results indicate that the type of apparatus was not a constraint for the occurrence of cooperation between the marmosets, but still has not been verified formation of roles in the dyads. The performance of animals in the two devices showed a large variation in the learning time, not having relationship with the performance in the tests phase. In both devices the level of social glances at control phases were casually correlated with any other phase, but the data showed that there was not social attention, that is, the monkeys realized that they gave food to the partners, but the partners did

A influência da recompensa e da experiência na discriminação visual simultânea em sagüi comum (Callithrix jacchus)

The discrimination learning is assessed through instrumental tasks in which the individual is rewarded for choosing one item over another. Thus, in concurrent visual discrimination of objects the animal must learn that only one of the objects will be rewarded. The concurrent visual discrimination is relatively simple, and already been observed Callithrix jacchus is able to accomplish this task. As yet wasn't seen the influence of the qualitative aspects of the rewards, in the performance of concurrent visual discrimination of objects in nonhuman primates, and as in most tests are used isolated animals, the present study had two stages: at first we had as objective to analyze the influence of the caloric value of the reward on the performance in concurrent visual discrimination of objects in isolated animals; in the second, we had the intention analyze performance of C. jacchus in realization of discrimination task in different social contexts, as well as, analyze the influence of previous experience in task performance. In the first stage (Study 1), the animals were not able to discriminate foods that presented small caloric differences . This incapacity in discriminates the rewards was responsible by generating randomness in task of concurrent visual discrimination of objects. In the second stage (Study 2), observed that, independent of social context in which the task was presented, the performance both of the experienced animals as the inexperienced animals tended to randomness. In the first case, is likely that the pattern of responses of the experienced animals is a reflection of their own performance when they were observed in isolation. In the second case, in turn, the randomness was probably due to the small number of sessions. Although present a pattern of performance similar to inexperienced individuals, we verify that the experienced animals monopolize the food consumption when they were in the presence of inexperienced individuals. This was a consequence of the experienced animals have presented lower latency the approximation of apparatus and, consequently, obtain more food. In turn, the inexperienced animals, when were in the presence of experienced, had to adopt alternative strategies to obtain food. Thus, C. jacchus is able to use the previous information he had about the task of solving their own benefit.

Treatment seeking by individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder from the British Psychiatric Morbidity Survey of 2000

Objective: For several reasons, many individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) do not seek treatment. However, data on treatment seeking from community samples are scant. This study analyzed service use by adults with OCD living in private households in Great Britain. Methods: Data from the British Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity of 2000, in which 8,580 individuals were surveyed, were analyzed. Service use was compared for those with OCD, with other neuroses, with different subtypes of OCD (only obsessions, only compulsions, or both), and with OCD and comorbid neuroses. Results: Persons with OCD (N=114) were more likely than persons with other neuroses (N=1,395) to be receiving treatment (40% compared with 23%, p<.001). However, those with OCD alone (N=38) were much less likely than those with OCD and a comorbid disorder to be in treatment (14% compared with 56%, p<.001). In the previous year, 9.4% of persons with OCD had seen a psychiatrist and 4.6% had seen a psychologist. Five percent were receiving cognitive-behavioral therapy, 2% were taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and 10% were taking tricyclics. Conclusions: Most persons with OCD were not in contact with a mental health professional, and apparently very few were receiving appropriate treatments. Very few persons with noncomorbid OCD were receiving treatment. Individuals with OCD who are in treatment may not be disclosing their obsessions and compulsions and may be discussing other emotional symptoms, leading to inappropriate treatment strategies. Public awareness of OCD symptoms should be raised, and primary care professionals should inquire about them with all patients who have depressive or anxiety disorders.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Prevalence, comorbidity, impact, and help-seeking in the British National Psychiatric Morbidity Survey of 2000

Objective: There is little information about obsessive-compulsive disorder in large representative community samples. The authors aimed to establish obsessive-compulsive disorder prevalence and its clinical typology among adults in private households in Great Britain and to obtain generalizable estimates of impairment and help-seeking.Method: Data from the British National Psychiatric Morbidity Survey of 2000, comprising 8,580 individuals, were analyzed using appropriate measurements. The study compared individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder, individuals with other neurotic disorders, and a nonneurotic comparison group. ICD-10 diagnoses were derived from the Clinical Interview Schedule-Revised.Results: the authors identified 114 individuals (74 women, 40 men) with obsessive-compulsive disorder, with a weighted 1-month prevalence of 1.1%. Most individuals (55%) in the obsessive-compulsive group had obsessions only. Comorbidity occurred in 62% of these individuals, which was significantly greater than the group with other neuroses (10%). Co-occurring neuroses were depressive episode (37%), generalized anxiety disorder (31%), agoraphobia or panic disorder (22%), social phobia (17%), and specific phobia (15%). Alcohol dependence was present in 20% of participants, mainly men, and drug dependence was present in 13%. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, compared with other neurotic disorders, was associated with more marked social and occupational impairment. One-quarter of obsessive-compulsive disorder participants had previously attempted suicide. Individuals with pure and comorbid obsessive-compulsive disorder did not differ according to most indices of impairment, including suicidal behavior, but pure individuals were significantly less likely to have sought help (14% versus 56%).Conclusions: A rare yet severe mental disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder is an atypical neurosis, of which the public health significance has been underestimated. Unmet need among individuals with pure obsessive-compulsive disorder is a cause for concern, requiring further investigation of barriers to care and interventions to encourage help-seeking.

A variedade da dieta é fator protetor para a pressão arterial sistólica elevada

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)