Indiana University

About: Indiana University is a education organization based out in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 64480 authors who have published 150058 publications receiving 6392902 citations. The organization is also known as: Indiana University system & indiana.edu.

Resistin / Fizz3 Expression in Relation to Obesity and Peroxisome Proliferator - Activated Receptor-γ Action in Humans

Abstract: Recent studies in murine models suggest that resistin (also called Fizz3 [1]), a novel cysteine-rich protein secreted by adipocytes, may represent the long-sought link between obesity and insulin resistance (2). Furthermore, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPAR-gamma) agonists appear to inhibit resistin expression in murine adipocytes, providing a possible explanation for the mode of action of this class of insulin sensitizers (2). Using a fluorescent real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction-based assay, we found that resistin mRNA levels in whole adipose tissue samples were increased in morbidly obese humans compared with lean control subjects. However, in freshly isolated human adipocytes, resistin mRNA levels were very low and showed no correlation with BMI. Resistin mRNA was undetectable in preadipocytes, endothelial cells, and vascular smooth muscle cells, but it was readily detectable in circulating mononuclear cells. Although exposure of human mononuclear cells to PPAR-gamma agonists markedly upregulated fatty acid-binding protein-4 expression, these agents had no effect on mononuclear cell resistin expression. Finally, resistin mRNA was undetectable in adipocytes from a severely insulin-resistant subject with a dominant-negative mutation in PPAR-gamma (3). We conclude that the recently described relationships of murine resistin/Fizz3 expression with obesity, insulin resistance, and PPAR-gamma action may not readily translate to humans. Further studies of this novel class of proteins are needed to clarify their roles in human metabolism.

A habitable fluvio-lacustrine environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale crater, Mars.

Abstract: The Curiosity rover discovered fine-grained sedimentary rocks, which are inferred to represent an ancient lake and preserve evidence of an environment that would have been suited to support a martian biosphere founded on chemolithoautotrophy. This aqueous environment was characterized by neutral pH, low salinity, and variable redox states of both iron and sulfur species. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorus were measured directly as key biogenic elements; by inference, phosphorus is assumed to have been available. The environment probably had a minimum duration of hundreds to tens of thousands of years. These results highlight the biological viability of fluvial-lacustrine environments in the post-Noachian history of Mars.

Evolutionary consequences of indirect genetic effects

Abstract: Indirect genetic effects (IGEs) are environmental influences on the phenotype of one individual that are due to the expression of genes in a different, conspecific, individual. Historically, work has focused on the influence of parents on offspring but recent advances have extended this perspective to interactions among other relatives and even unrelated individuals. IGEs lead to complicated pathways of inheritance, where environmental sources of variation can be transmitted across generations and therefore contribute to evolutionary change. The existence of IGEs alters the genotype-phenotype relationship, changing the evolutionary process in some dramatic and non-intuitive ways.

The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey. I. Science goals, survey design, and strategy

Abstract: The recently initiated Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey aims to map ~7000 deg2 of the high Galactic latitude sky visible from Arecibo, providing a H I line spectral database covering the redshift range between -1600 and 18,000 km (s-1) with ~5 km s(-1) resolution. Exploiting Arecibo's large collecting area and small beam size, ALFALFA is specifically designed to probe the faint end of the H I mass function in the local universe and will provide a census of H I in the surveyed sky area to faint flux limits, making it especially useful in synergy with wide-area surveys conducted at other wavelengths. ALFALFA will also provide the basis for studies of the dynamics of galaxies within the Local Supercluster and nearby superclusters, allow measurement of the H I diameter function, and enable a first wide-area blind search for local H I tidal features, H I absorbers at z < 0.06, and OH megamasers in the redshift range 0.16 < z < 0.25. Although completion of the survey will require some 5 years, public access to the ALFALFA data and data products will be provided in a timely manner, thus allowing its application for studies beyond those targeted by the ALFALFA collaboration. ALFALFA adopts a two-pass, minimum intrusion, drift scan observing technique that samples the same region of sky at two separate epochs to aid in the discrimination of cosmic signals from noise and terrestrial interference. Survey simulations, which take into account large-scale structure in the mass distribution and incorporate experience with the ALFA system gained from tests conducted during its commissioning phase, suggest that ALFALFA will detect on the order of 20,000 extragalactic H I line sources out to z ~ 0.06, including several hundred with H I masses M(HI) < 10(7.5) M ?.