Sum Of Individual Activities Research Articles

The effect of combined knockdowns of Attacins on survival and bacterial load in Tenebrio molitor.

Upon infection, insect hosts simultaneously express a cocktail of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) which can impede pathogen colonization and increase host fitness. It has been proposed that such a cocktail might be adaptive if the effects of co-expressed AMPs are greater than the sum of individual activities. This could potentially prevent the evolution of bacterial resistance. However, in vivo studies on AMPs in combination are scarce. Attacins are one of the relatively large AMP families, which show anti-Gram-negative activity in vitro. Here, we used RNA interference (RNAi) to silence three members of the Attacin family genes in the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor: (TmAttacin1a (TmAtt1a), TmAttacin1b (TmAtt1b), and TmAttacin2 (TmAtt2) both individually and in combination. We then infected T. molitor with the Gram negative entomopathogen Pseudomonas entomophila. We found that survival of the beetles was only affected by the knockdown of TmAttacin1b, TmAttacin2 and the knockdown of all three Attacins together. Triple knockdown, rather than individual or double knockdowns of AMPs, changes the temporal dynamics of their efficiency in controlling the colonization of P. entomophila in the insect body. More precisely, AMP gene expression influences P. entomophila load early in the infection process, resulting in differences in host survival. Our results highlight the importance of studying AMP-interactions in vivo.

Representing the Disadvantaged: Group Interests and Legislator Reputation in US Congress

Katrina F. McNally. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2021. 300 pp. $99.00. Why do Members of Congress build legislative reputation for disadvantaged groups? In Representing the Disadvantaged, McNally tries to answer this classical but highly timely question with some interesting tweaks both theoretically and empirically. While it ultimately shows importance of not only member’s characteristics but also constituency conditions, there are a lot of nuances throughout the book that academic and nonacademic readers would find very interesting. First and foremost, McNally does an excellent job in theoretically conceptualizing and empirically measuring the notion of legislative reputation for disadvantaged groups. She is not satisfied with scholarly tradition of paying narrow attention to specific activities, such as roll call voting or committee membership. Instead, a reputation is defined in a way that is greater than the sum of individual activities. Moreover, it also captures symbolic values that legislators would like to build ultimately.

In vitro antibacterial activity and in vivo therapeutic effect of Sesbania grandiflora in bacterial infected silkworms

Context: Antibiotic resistance is a serious problem worldwide. Searching for new potential agents is, therefore, essential. The bark of Sesbania grandiflora (L.) Pers. (Fabaceae) has been used in folk medicine against various diseases. Objective: To investigate the antibacterial activity of S. grandiflora bark and explore the therapeutic effect of the highest potent fraction. Materials and methods: Bacteria and healthy silkworms were exposed to three fractionated extracts (3.1–400 mg/mL) of S. grandiflora bark from hexane (HXF), chloroform (CFF), and ethyl acetate (EAF). The sets of bacteria were incubated at 37 °C while silkworms were kept at 27 °C for 24 h. To evaluate the therapeutic effect, silkworms infected with bacteria were exposed to the extracts (0.5–60 mg/mL) and incubated at 27 °C for 52 h. Qualitative analysis of the most potent extract was done using HPLC. Results: EAF showed the highest activity with MIC against methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) of 1.6 and 0.4 mg/mL, respectively, and against Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa of 6.2 and 3.1 mg/mL, respectively. It is nontoxic to silkworms with LC50 >400 mg/mL and has high therapeutic effect on infected silkworms with EC50 of 1.9 mg/mL. EAF consists of at least five major compounds, one of them is gallic acid. The activity of EAF is higher than the sum of individual activities of separated compounds. Discussion and conclusion: These results suggest that EAF is a promising antibacterial extract, suitable for further investigation in rodents infected with drug resistant bacteria.

3D-QSAR study of tyrosine and propanoic acid derivatives as PPARα/γ dual agonists using CoMSIA

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) have increasingly become attractive targets for developing novel therapeutics for Type 2 Diabetes. Three dimensional-quantitative structure–activity relationship approach has been applied to a series of α-substituted 3-phenylpropanoic acid and tyrosine derivatives, reported as PPARα/γ dual agonists. Comparative molecular similarity indices analysis has been employed in correlating pharmacological data available for single enantiomer at individual receptor subtype. Three models: PPARα, PPARγ and PPARdual-model, using sum of individual activities as dependent parameter, are developed with statistically significant r cv 2 > 0.5 and r ncv 2 > 0.9 and lower values of standard error of estimation. This information can be used to design and prediction of enantioselective novel PPAR agonists. Activities of two sets of designed new molecules have also been predicted using generated models.

Politics and Volunteering in Japan: A Global Perspective (review)

Reviewed by: Politics and Volunteering in Japan: A Global Perspective Patricia L. Maclachlan (bio) Politics and Volunteering in Japan: A Global Perspective. By Mary Alice Haddad. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007. xviii, 218 pages. $80.00. There is something distinctive about the way state and society interact in contemporary Japan—distinctive, that is, from the perspective of Western conceptualizations of civil society. To varying degrees, Western scholars define civil society in a democracy as an autonomous social realm in which individuals freely interact with one another. Although few countries come close to achieving this ideal, there is a tendency in the literature to evaluate different civil societies according to the extent to which they approximate it. Against this measure, Japan invariably comes up short. Postwar Japanese civil society, it is said, has been long weakened by a strong state. In Politics and Volunteering in Japan, Mary Alice Haddad takes issue with these Western assumptions by exploring the rich and varied phenomenon of volunteerism in Japan. In their fixation with citizen participation in autonomous social groups, she observes, students of civil society have overlooked the comparatively high rates of Japanese citizen participation in what she terms "embedded organizations"—those that have close relations with the state. These entities, she argues, should be interpreted not so much as examples of the state's control over civil society as evidence that the two spheres are complementary; the state helps nurture civil society, while civil society helps perform state functions for the sake of the community. Japan, in other words, has a strong state and a vibrant civil society all at the same time. [End Page 224] Haddad deepens her observations by exploring different patterns and rates of volunteerism not only in Japan but also in the United States, Finland, and Turkey. Differences in volunteer patterns, she explains, are determined by norms of civic engagement that are in turn shaped by prevailing citizen ideas about the responsibilities of governments and individuals toward solving social problems. Drawing on data from the World Values Surveys, Haddad establishes a correlation in the United States between preferences for individual responsibility and the proliferation of autonomous or "non-embedded" organizations. In Japan, where citizens are much more inclined to lean on government to tackle social problems, participation in embedded organizations is far more prevalent. In Finland, community norms favoring a sharing of responsibility between individuals and government have shaped a civic environment in which both types of organizations are common. Finally, in Turkey, where citizens harbor moderate attitudes toward governmental and individual responsibility, mixed-type organizations are most common. To explain variations in rates of participation within Japan, Haddad analyzes the experiences of two embedded organizations (volunteer fire departments and the volunteer welfare commissioner system) and one nonembedded organization (elder care groups) in three mid-sized cities. She persuasively argues that building and sustaining volunteer organizations of any kind are dependent on the availability of three sets of resources: legitimacy, organization, and funding. She finds that government is usually the primary supplier of these resources and that embedded organizations tend to receive more of them than nonembedded organizations. She also observes that even among embedded organizations, the rate of civic participation tends to vary across cities depending on the degree to which these resources are present. Haddad applies both quantitative and qualitative research methods to test not only her Community Volunteerism Model but also alternative explanations. In chapter 3, for example, she draws on survey data to establish that variations in education, income, television viewing, and other conventional predictors of individual volunteerism in a community have less influence on aggregate rates of participation in civic organizations than community norms about individual and government responsibility in solving social problems. Stated in more methodological terms, "[c]ivic participation is a collective phenomenon and not just the sum of individual activities" (p. 167). On the basis of this methodological claim, she builds her theoretical argument that these norms shape patterns of civic engagement in a society, while governmental practices that help legitimize, organize, and fund that engagement determine differences in rates of volunteer participation across communities. Haddad backs these observations with the results of numerous statistical tests, leaving detailed descriptions of those...

Partial purification and characterization of 3'-phosphoadenylylsulfate:keratan sulfate sulfotransferases.

Two 3'-phosphoadenylylsulfate:keratan sulfate sulfotransferases were purified 600-fold and 340-fold, respectively, from isolated bovine cornea cells. Sulfotransferase I exhibited an apparent Mr = 220,000, whereas an Mr = 140,000 was calculated for sulfotransferase II. The final preparations were both devoid of chondroitin sulfate sulfotransferase activity. The position of sulfation was determined by proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Sixty per cent of the sulfate ester groups formed by sulfotransferase I were linked to the C-6 atom of galactosyl residues, the other ones to the C-6 atom of N-acetylglucosamine. Sulfotransferase II showed a different specificity: 23% of the newly formed sulfate ester groups were on galactosyl and 77% on N-acetylglucosaminyl residues. Both sulfotransferase preparations acted in a cooperative manner. In the presence of both sulfotransferases, the incorporation of [35S]sulfate into keratan sulfate was up to 75% higher than could be expected from the sum of individual activities. From the specific radioactivities of the oligosaccharides produced by digestion with endo-beta-galactosidase, it was also concluded that both enzyme species reacted best with keratan sulfate segments exhibiting a relatively high degree of sulfation.