14-05-2013 | Guizhi Zhu; Jing Zheng; Erqun Song; Michael Donovan; Kejing Zhang; Chen Liu; Weihong Tan, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Nanotechnology has allowed the construction of various nanostructures for applications, including biomedicine. However, a simple target-specific, economical, and biocompatible drug delivery platform with high maximum tolerated doses is still in demand. Here, we report aptamer-tethered DNA ...

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14-05-2013 | Haiyan Zhao; Theodore E. Christensen; Yvonne N. Kamau; Liang Tang, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Many DNA viruses use powerful molecular motors to cleave concatemeric viral DNA into genome-length units and package them into preformed procapsid powered by ATP hydrolysis. Here we report the structures of the DNA-packaging motor gp2 of bacteriophage Sf6, which reveal a unique clade of ...

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14-05-2013 | Myriam Aouadi; Michaela Tencerova; Pranitha Vangala; Joseph C. Yawe; Sarah M. Nicoloro; Shinya U. Amano; Jessica L. ..., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Adipose tissue (AT) inflammation and infiltration by macrophages is associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in obese humans, offering a potential target for therapeutics. However, whether AT macrophages (ATMs) directly contribute to systemic glucose intolerance has not been ...

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14-05-2013 | Lindsay Renbaum-Wolff; James W. Grayson; Adam P. Bateman; Mikinori Kuwata; Mathieu Sellier; Benjamin J. Murray; John ..., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Particles composed of secondary organic material (SOM) are abundant in the lower troposphere. The viscosity of these particles is a fundamental property that is presently poorly quantified yet required for accurate modeling of their formation, growth, evaporation, and environmental impacts. ...

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14-05-2013 | Yohei Kirino; Qing Zhou; Yoshiaki Ishigatsubo; Nobuhisa Mizuki; Ilknur Tugal-Tutkun; Emire Seyahi; Yilmaz Özyazgan; ..., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are a powerful means of identifying genes with disease-associated common variants, but they are not well-suited to detecting genes with disease-associated rare and low-frequency variants. In the current study of Behçet disease (BD), nonsynonymous ...

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14-05-2013 | Daniel C. Donato, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Rapid changes to the earth’s climate are well underway, already influencing biological systems across the globe. Among the key impacts are potential shifts in the geographic range of many species or ecosystems, often predicted to move either poleward or upward in response to warmer conditions ...

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14-05-2013 | Pavel Urban; David Schmoranzer; Pavel Hanzelka; Katepalli R. Sreenivasan; Ladislav Skrbek, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

When a hot body A is thermally connected to a cold body B, the textbook knowledge is that heat flows from A to B. Here, we describe the opposite case in which heat flows from a colder but constantly heated body B to a hotter but constantly cooled body A...

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14-05-2013 | Franck Prugnolle; Virginie Rougeron; Pierre Becquart; Antoine Berry; Boris Makanga; Nil Rahola; Céline Arnathau; Bar ..., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Plasmodium vivax is considered to be absent from Central and West Africa because of the protective effect of Duffy negativity. However, there are reports of persons returning from these areas infected with this parasite and observations suggesting the existence of transmission. Among the ...

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14-05-2013 | Maxim B. Prigozhin; Yanxin Liu; Anna Jean Wirth; Shobhna Kapoor; Roland Winter; Klaus Schulten; Martin Gruebele, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Using a newly developed microsecond pressure-jump apparatus, we monitor the refolding kinetics of the helix-stabilized five-helix bundle protein λ*YA, the Y22W/Q33Y/G46,48A mutant of λ-repressor fragment 6–85, from 3 μs to 5 ms after a 1,200-bar P-drop. In addition to a microsecond phase, we ...

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14-05-2013 | Yi Jia; Joanne Domenico; Katsuyuki Takeda; Junyan Han; Meiqin Wang; Michael Armstrong; Nichole Reisdorph; Brian P. O ..., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences current issue, 2013

Allergic asthma is a heterogeneous inflammatory disorder of the airways characterized by chronic airway inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness. Numbers of CD8+IL-13+ T cells are increased in asthmatics and during the development of experimental asthma in mice. In an atopic environment ...

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