University of Antwerp

About: University of Antwerp is a education organization based out in Antwerp, Belgium. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 16682 authors who have published 48837 publications receiving 1689748 citations. The organization is also known as: Universiteit Antwerpen & UAntwerp.

Investigation of selected persistent organic pollutants in farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), salmon aquaculture feed, and fish oil components of the feed.

Abstract: There is extensive literature documenting the bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the marine environment, but relatively little data are available on contamination pathways in aquaculture systems such as that for farmed salmon. In recent years,the salmon industry has grown significantly in Europe. This study reports on the determination of a wide range of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in farmed and wild European Atlantic salmon fish, aquaculture feeds, and fish oils used to supplement the feeds. The study confirms previous reports of relatively high concentrations of PCBs and indicates moderate concentrations of organochlorine pesticides and PBDEs in farmed Scottish and European salmon. Concentrations of the selected persistent organic pollutants varied among the samples: PCBs (salmon, 145-460 ng/g lipid; salmon feeds, 76-1153 ng/g lipid; fish oils, 9-253 ng/g lipid), S DDTs (salmon, 5-250 ng/g lipid; salmon feeds, 34-52 ng/g lipid; fish oils, 11-218 ng/g lipid), and PBDEs (salmon, 1-85 ng/g lipid: salmon feeds, 8-24 ng/g lipid; fish oils, ND-13 ng/g lipid). Comparison of the samples for all groups of contaminants, except for HCHs, showed an increase in concentration in the order fish oil < feed < salmon. Homologue profiles were similar, with an increase in contribution of hepta- and octa-PCBs in the fish, and profiles of DDTs were similar in all three types of samples. With a constant contribution to the total PCB content, the ICES 7 PCBs appear to be reliable predictors of the PCB contamination profile through all the samples. For PBDEs, BDE 47 dominated the profiles, with no significant difference in the PBDE profiles for the three matrixes. Samples with higher PCB contents generally showed higher levels of the pesticide residues, but this was not the case with the PBDEs, indicating the existence of different pollution sources.

RnaViz 2: an improved representation of RNA secondary structure

Abstract: Summary: RnaViz has been developed to easily create nice, publication quality drawings of RNA secondary structure. RnaViz 2 supports CT, DCSE, and RNAML input formats and improves on many aspects of the first version, notably portability and structure annotation. RnaViz is written using a hybrid programming approach combining pieces written in C and in the scripting language Tcl/Tk, making the program very portable and extensible. Availability: Source code, binaries for Linux and MS Windows, and additional documentation are available at http://rrna.uia.ac.be/rnaviz/ Contact: derijkp@uia.ua.ac.be Several formats for storing RNA secondary structure information exist that are not really suitable for eyeball comparison and publication of structures. A new version of RnaViz (De Rijk and De Wachter, 1997) is presented. RnaViz 2 will read files containing the secondary structure, extract the structure information, and automatically draw the structure contained in the file. The structure drawings can then be edited and annotated into publication quality 2D drawings. RnaViz supports reading files in the DCSE (De Rijk and De Wachter, 1993) format that incorporates special symbols indicating the secondary structure in an RNA sequence alignment. It can also read CT files as produced by the mfold program (Jacobson and Zuker, 1993). The detection of helices in CT files has become more advanced: helices consisting of several segments will now be detected as one helix, reducing clutter and improving layout. The new version also supports loading RNAML (Waugh et al., 2002) formatted files. RNAML is a new XML-based format for storing RNA structure. Some of these formats can contain more than one structure; in this case, the user can select to either draw a number of these structures on one page, or batch process them into different pages. Structure drawings are by default saved in the new, more efficient file format, although loading of files in the old format is

Mutations in the novel protocadherin PCDH15 cause Usher syndrome type 1F

Abstract: We have determined the molecular basis for Usher syndrome type 1F (USH1F) in two families segregating for this type of syndromic deafness By fluorescence in situ hybridization, we placed the human homolog of the mouse protocadherin Pcdh15 in the linkage interval defined by the USH1F locus We determined the genomic structure of this novel protocadherin, and found a single-base deletion in exon 10 in one USH1F family and a nonsense mutation in exon 2 in the second Consistent with the phenotypes observed in these families, we demonstrated expression of PCDH15 in the retina and cochlea by RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry This report shows that protocadherins are essential for maintenance of normal retinal and cochlear function

Controlled lateral anisotropy in correlated manganite heterostructures by interface-engineered oxygen octahedral coupling

Abstract: Controlled in-plane rotation of the magnetic easy axis in manganite heterostructures by tailoring the interface oxygen network could allow the development of correlated oxide-based magnetic tunnelling junctions with non-collinear magnetization, with possible practical applications as miniaturized high-switching-speed magnetic random access memory (MRAM) devices. Here, we demonstrate how to manipulate magnetic and electronic anisotropic properties in manganite heterostructures by engineering the oxygen network on the unit-cell level. The strong oxygen octahedral coupling is found to transfer the octahedral rotation, present in the NdGaO3 (NGO) substrate, to the La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 (LSMO) film in the interface region. This causes an unexpected realignment of the magnetic easy axis along the short axis of the LSMO unit cell as well as the presence of a giant anisotropic transport in these ultrathin LSMO films. As a result we possess control of the lateral magnetic and electronic anisotropies by atomic-scale design of the oxygen octahedral rotation