TY - JOUR A1 - Hoang, Hoa T. A1 - Mertens, Monique A1 - Wessig, Pablo A1 - Sellrie, Frank A1 - Schenk, Jörg A. A1 - Kumke, Michael Uwe T1 - Antibody Binding at the Liposome-Water Interface BT - a FRET Investigation toward a Liposome-Based Assay JF - ACS Omega N2 - Different signal amplification strategies to improve the detection sensitivity of immunoassays have been applied which utilize enzymatic reactions, nanomaterials, or liposomes. The latter are very attractive materials for signal amplification because liposomes can be loaded with a large amount of signaling molecules, leading to a high sensitivity. In addition, liposomes can be used as a cell-like "bioscaffold" to directly test recognition schemes aiming at cell-related processes. This study demonstrates an easy and fast approach to link the novel hydrophobic optical probe based on [1,3]dioxolo[4,5-f]-[1,3]benzodioxole (DBD dye mm239) with tunable optical properties to hydrophilic recognition elements (e.g., antibodies) using liposomes for signal amplification and as carrier of the hydrophobic dye. The fluorescence properties of mm239 (e.g., long fluorescence lifetime, large Stokes shift, high photostability, and high quantum yield), its high hydrophobicity for efficient anchoring in liposomes, and a maleimide bioreactive group were applied in a unique combination to build a concept for the coupling of antibodies or other protein markers to liposomes (coupling to membranes can be envisaged). The concept further allowed us to avoid multiple dye labeling of the antibody. Here, anti-TAMRA-antibody (DC7-Ab) was attached to the liposomes. In proof-of-concept, steady-state as well as time-resolved fluorescence measurements (e.g., fluorescence depolarization) in combination with single molecule detection (fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, FCS) were used to analyze the binding interaction between DC7-Ab and liposomes as well as the binding of the antigen rhodamine 6G (R6G) to the antibody. Here, the Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between mm239 and R6G was monitored. In addition to ensemble FRET data, single-molecule FRET (PIE-FRET) experiments using pulsed interleaved excitation were used to characterize in detail the binding on a single-molecule level to avoid averaging out effects. KW - energy-transfer KW - immunoassay KW - complexes KW - probes Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.8b03016 SN - 2470-1343 VL - 3 IS - 12 SP - 18109 EP - 18116 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ziesemer, Florence A1 - Hüttel, Alexandra A1 - Balderjahn, Ingo T1 - Anti-Consumption JF - Sustainability N2 - Transcending the conventional debate around efficiency in sustainable consumption, anti-consumption patterns leading to decreased levels of material consumption have been gaining importance. Change agents are crucial for the promotion of such patterns, so there may be lessons for governance interventions that can be learnt from the every-day experiences of those who actively implement and promote sustainability in the field of anti-consumption. Eighteen social innovation pioneers, who engage in and diffuse practices of voluntary simplicity and collaborative consumption as sustainable options of anti-consumption share their knowledge and personal insights in expert interviews for this research. Our qualitative content analysis reveals drivers, barriers, and governance strategies to strengthen anti-consumption patterns, which are negotiated between the market, the state, and civil society. Recommendations derived from the interviews concern entrepreneurship, municipal infrastructures in support of local grassroots projects, regulative policy measures, more positive communication to strengthen the visibility of initiatives and emphasize individual benefits, establishing a sense of community, anti-consumer activism, and education. We argue for complementary action between top-down strategies, bottom-up initiatives, corporate activities, and consumer behavior. The results are valuable to researchers, activists, marketers, and policymakers who seek to enhance their understanding of materially reduced consumption patterns based on the real-life experiences of active pioneers in the field. KW - social innovation KW - sufficiency KW - collaborative consumption KW - expert interview KW - consumer behavior KW - sustainability KW - innovation policy KW - governance for sustainable development KW - consumer education Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236663 SN - 2071-1050 VL - 11 IS - 23 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Linke, Christian A1 - Wösle, Markus A1 - Harder, Anja T1 - Anti-cancer agent 3-bromopyruvate reduces growth of MPNST and inhibits metabolic pathways in a representative in-vitro model JF - BMC cancer N2 - Background Anticancer compound 3-bromopyruvate (3-BrPA) suppresses cancer cell growth via targeting glycolytic and mitochondrial metabolism. The malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST), a very aggressive, therapy resistant, and Neurofibromatosis type 1 associated neoplasia, shows a high metabolic activity and affected patients may therefore benefit from 3-BrPA treatment. To elucidate the specific mode of action, we used a controlled cell model overexpressing proteasome activator (PA) 28, subsequently leading to p53 inactivation and oncogenic transformation and therefore reproducing an important pathway in MPNST and overall tumor pathogenesis. Methods Viability of MPNST cell lines S462, NSF1, and T265 in response to increasing doses (0-120 mu M) of 3-BrPA was analyzed by CellTiter-Blue (R) assay. Additionally, we investigated viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production (dihydroethidium assay), nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase activity (NADH-TR assay) and lactate production (lactate assay) in mouse B8 fibroblasts overexpressing PA28 in response to 3-BrPA application. For all experiments normal and nutrient deficient conditions were tested. MPNST cell lines were furthermore characterized immunohistochemically for Ki67, p53, bcl2, bcl6, cyclin D1, and p21. Results MPNST significantly responded dose dependent to 3-BrPA application, whereby S462 cells were most responsive. Human control cells showed a reduced sensitivity. In PA28 overexpressing cancer cell model 3-BrPA application harmed mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase activity mildly and significantly failed to inhibit lactate production. PA28 overexpression was associated with a functional glycolysis as well as a partial resistance to stress provoked by nutrient deprivation. 3-BrPA treatment was not associated with an increase of ROS. Starvation sensitized MPNST to treatment. Conclusions Aggressive MPNST cells are sensitive to 3-BrPA therapy in-vitro with and without starvation. In a PA28 overexpression cancer cell model leading to p53 inactivation, thereby reflecting a key molecular feature in human NF1 associated MPNST, known functions of 3-BrPA to block mitochondrial activity and glycolysis were reproduced, however oncogenic cells displayed a partial resistance. To conclude, 3-BrPA was sufficient to reduce NF1 associated MPNST viability potentially due inhibition of glycolysis which should lead to the initiation of further studies and promises a potential benefit for NF1 patients. KW - MPNST KW - NF1 KW - 3-BrPA KW - glycolysis KW - mitochondrial respiration KW - p53 KW - starvation KW - cell cycle KW - PA28 KW - B8 fibroblasts Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-020-07397-w SN - 1471-2407 VL - 20 IS - 1 PB - BioMed Central CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Crane, Kylie Ann T1 - Anthropocene Presences and the Limits of Deferral BT - Alexis Wright's Carpentaria and The Swan Book JF - Open library of humanities N2 - Literary criticism, particularly ecocriticism, occupies an uneasy position with regard to activism: reading books (or plays, or poems) seems like a rather leisurely activity to be undertaking if our environment—our planet—is in crisis. And yet, critiquing the narratives that structure worlds and discourses is key to the activities of the (literary) critic in this time of crisis. If this crisis manifests as a ‘crisis of imagination’ (e.g. Ghosh), I argue that this not so much a crisis of the absence of texts that address the environmental disaster, but rather a failure to comprehend the presences of the Anthropocene in the present. To interpret (literary) texts in this framework must entail acknowledging and scrutinising the extent of the incapacity of the privileged reader to comprehend the crisis as presence and present rather than spatially or temporally remote. The readings of the novels Carpentaria (2006) and The Swan Book (2013) by Waanyi writer Alexis Wright (Australia) trace the uneven presences of Anthropocenes in the present by way of bringing future worlds (The Swan Book) to the contemporary (Carpentaria). In both novels, protagonists must forge survival amongst ruins of the present and future: the depicted worlds, in particular the representations of the disenfranchisement of indigenous inhabitants of the far north of the Australian continent, emerge as a critique of the intersections of capitalist and colonial projects that define modernity and its impact on the global climate. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.348 SN - 2056-6700 VL - 5 IS - 1 PB - Open library of humanities CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Agthe, Maria A1 - Kayser, Daniela Niesta A1 - Schwarz, Sascha A1 - Maner, Jon K. T1 - Antecedents of the red-romance effect BT - men's attractiveness and women's fertility JF - PLOS ONE / Public Library of Science N2 - The color red has been implicated in a variety of social processes, including those involving mating. While previous research suggests that women sometimes wear red strategically to increase their attractiveness, the replicability of this literature has been questioned. The current research is a reasonably powered conceptual replication designed to strengthen this literature by testing whether women are more inclined to display the color red 1) during fertile (as compared with less fertile) days of the menstrual cycle, and 2) when expecting to interact with an attractive man (as compared with a less attractive man and with a control condition). Analyses controlled for a number of theoretically relevant covariates (relationship status, age, the current weather). Only the latter hypothesis received mixed support (mainly among women on hormonal birth control), whereas results concerning the former hypothesis did not reach significance. Women (N = 281) displayed more red when expecting to interact with an attractive man; findings did not support the prediction that women would increase their display of red on fertile days of the cycle. Findings thus suggested only mixed replicability for the link between the color red and psychological processes involving romantic attraction. They also illustrate the importance of further investigating the boundary conditions of color effects on everyday social processes. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284035 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 18 IS - 4 PB - PLOS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reese, Ronja A1 - Albrecht, Torsten A1 - Mengel, Matthias A1 - Asay-Davis, Xylar A1 - Winkelmann, Ricarda T1 - Antarctic sub-shelf melt rates via PICO JF - The Cryosphere : TC ; an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union N2 - Ocean-induced melting below ice shelves is one of the dominant drivers for mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet at present. An appropriate representation of sub-shelf melt rates is therefore essential for model simulations of marine-based ice sheet evolution. Continental-scale ice sheet models often rely on simple melt-parameterizations, in particular for long-term simulations, when fully coupled ice-ocean interaction becomes computationally too expensive. Such parameterizations can account for the influence of the local depth of the ice-shelf draft or its slope on melting. However, they do not capture the effect of ocean circulation underneath the ice shelf. Here we present the Potsdam Ice-shelf Cavity mOdel (PICO), which simulates the vertical overturning circulation in ice-shelf cavities and thus enables the computation of sub-shelf melt rates consistent with this circulation. PICO is based on an ocean box model that coarsely resolves ice shelf cavities and uses a boundary layer melt formulation. We implement it as a module of the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM) and evaluate its performance under present-day conditions of the Southern Ocean. We identify a set of parameters that yield two-dimensional melt rate fields that qualitatively reproduce the typical pattern of comparably high melting near the grounding line and lower melting or refreezing towards the calving front. PICO captures the wide range of melt rates observed for Antarctic ice shelves, with an average of about 0.1 ma(-1) for cold sub-shelf cavities, for example, underneath Ross or Ronne ice shelves, to 16 ma(-1) for warm cavities such as in the Amundsen Sea region. This makes PICO a computationally feasible and more physical alternative to melt parameterizations purely based on ice draft geometry. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1969-2018 SN - 1994-0416 SN - 1994-0424 VL - 12 IS - 6 SP - 1969 EP - 1985 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bittmann, Frank A1 - Dech, Silas A1 - Schaefer, Laura T1 - Another way to confuse motor control BT - manual technique supposed to shorten muscle spindles reduces the muscular holding stability in the sense of adaptive force in male soccer players JF - Brain Sciences N2 - Sensorimotor control can be impaired by slacked muscle spindles. This was shown for reflex responses and, recently, also for muscular stability in the sense of Adaptive Force (AF). The slack in muscle spindles was generated by contracting the lengthened muscle followed by passive shortening. AF was suggested to specifically reflect sensorimotor control since it requires tension-length control in adaptation to an increasing load. This study investigated AF parameters in reaction to another, manually performed slack procedure in a preselected sample (n = 13). The AF of 11 elbow and 12 hip flexors was assessed by an objectified manual muscle test (MMT) using a handheld device. Maximal isometric AF was significantly reduced after manual spindle technique vs. regular MMT. Muscle lengthening started at 64.93 & PLUSMN; 12.46% of maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC). During regular MMT, muscle length could be maintained stable until 92.53 & PLUSMN; 10.12% of MVIC. Hence, muscular stability measured by AF was impaired after spindle manipulation. Force oscillations arose at a significantly lower level for regular vs. spindle. This supports the assumption that they are a prerequisite for stable adaptation. Reduced muscular stability in reaction to slack procedures is considered physiological since sensory information is misled. It is proposed to use slack procedures to test the functionality of the neuromuscular system, which is relevant for clinical practice. KW - maximal isometric Adaptive Force KW - holding capacity KW - muscle stability KW - muscle instability KW - neuromuscular functioning KW - neuromuscular control KW - motor control KW - muscle spindle KW - muscle physiology KW - regulatory physiology Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13071105 SN - 2076-3425 VL - 13 IS - 7 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dieterich, Peter A1 - Lindemann, Otto A1 - Moskopp, Mats Leif A1 - Tauzin, Sebastien A1 - Huttenlocher, Anna A1 - Klages, Rainer A1 - Chechkin, Aleksei V. A1 - Schwab, Albrecht T1 - Anomalous diffusion and asymmetric tempering memory in neutrophil chemotaxis JF - PLoS Computational Biology : a new community journal N2 - Neutrophil granulocytes are essential for the first host defense. After leaving the blood circulation they migrate efficiently towards sites of inflammation. They are guided by chemoattractants released from cells within the inflammatory foci. On a cellular level, directional migration is a consequence of cellular front-rear asymmetry which is induced by the concentration gradient of the chemoattractants. The generation and maintenance of this asymmetry, however, is not yet fully understood. Here we analyzed the paths of chemotacting neutrophils with different stochastic models to gain further insight into the underlying mechanisms. Wildtype chemotacting neutrophils show an anomalous superdiffusive behavior. CXCR2 blockade and TRPC6-knockout cause the tempering of temporal correlations and a reduction of chemotaxis. Importantly, such tempering is found both in vitro and in vivo. These findings indicate that the maintenance of anomalous dynamics is crucial for chemotactic behavior and the search efficiency of neutrophils. The motility of neutrophils and their ability to sense and to react to chemoattractants in their environment are of central importance for the innate immunity. Neutrophils are guided towards sites of inflammation following the activation of G-protein coupled chemoattractant receptors such as CXCR2 whose signaling strongly depends on the activity of Ca2+ permeable TRPC6 channels. It is the aim of this study to analyze data sets obtained in vitro (murine neutrophils) and in vivo (zebrafish neutrophils) with a stochastic mathematical model to gain deeper insight into the underlying mechanisms. The model is based on the analysis of trajectories of individual neutrophils. Bayesian data analysis, including the covariances of positions for fractional Brownian motion as well as for exponentially and power-law tempered model variants, allows the estimation of parameters and model selection. Our model-based analysis reveals that wildtype neutrophils show pure superdiffusive fractional Brownian motion. This so-called anomalous dynamics is characterized by temporal long-range correlations for the movement into the direction of the chemotactic CXCL1 gradient. Pure superdiffusion is absent vertically to this gradient. This points to an asymmetric 'memory' of the migratory machinery, which is found both in vitro and in vivo. CXCR2 blockade and TRPC6-knockout cause tempering of temporal correlations in the chemotactic gradient. This can be interpreted as a progressive loss of memory, which leads to a marked reduction of chemotaxis and search efficiency of neutrophils. In summary, our findings indicate that spatially differential regulation of anomalous dynamics appears to play a central role in guiding efficient chemotactic behavior. KW - neutrophils KW - chemotaxis KW - autocorrelation KW - zebrafish KW - cell migration KW - covariance KW - brownian motion KW - stochastic processes Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010089 SN - 1553-734X SN - 1553-7358 VL - 18 IS - 5 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Munyaev, Vyacheslav O. A1 - Smirnov, Lev A. A1 - Kostin, Vasily A. A1 - Osipov, Grigory V. A1 - Pikovskij, Arkadij T1 - Analytical approach to synchronous states of globally coupled noisy rotators JF - New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics N2 - We study populations of globally coupled noisy rotators (oscillators with inertia) allowing a nonequilibrium transition from a desynchronized state to a synchronous one (with the nonvanishing order parameter). The newly developed analytical approaches resulted in solutions describing the synchronous state with constant order parameter for weakly inertial rotators, including the case of zero inertia, when the model is reduced to the Kuramoto model of coupled noise oscillators. These approaches provide also analytical criteria distinguishing supercritical and subcritical transitions to the desynchronized state and indicate the universality of such transitions in rotator ensembles. All the obtained analytical results are confirmed by the numerical ones, both by direct simulations of the large ensembles and by solution of the associated Fokker-Planck equation. We also propose generalizations of the developed approaches for setups where different rotators parameters (natural frequencies, masses, noise intensities, strengths and phase shifts in coupling) are dispersed. KW - coupled rotators KW - synchronization transition KW - hysteresis KW - Kuramoto KW - model KW - noisy systems Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ab6f93 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 22 IS - 2 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Haag, Johannes T1 - Analytic Kantianism BT - Sellars and McDowell on Sensory Consciousness JF - Con-textos kantianos : international journal of philosophy N2 - Wilfrid Sellars and John McDowell can both be read as proponents of Analytic Kantianism. However, their accounts differ in important detail. In particular, McDowell has criticized Sellars’s account of sensory consciousness in a number of papers (most notably in LFI and SC), both as a reading of Kant and on its systematic merits. The present paper offers a detailed analysis of this criticism and a defense of Sellars’s position against the background of a methodology of transcendental philosophy. KW - Kant KW - Sellars KW - McDowell KW - Transcendental Philosophy KW - perception KW - intuition KW - judgment Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1092766 SN - 2386-7655 SP - 18 EP - 41 PB - Instituto de Filosofía del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas CY - Madrid ER -