Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2005-06"
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- Signal Subspace Identification in Hyperspectral Linear MixturesPublication . Nascimento, Jose; Bioucas-Dias, José M.Hyperspectral applications in remote sensing are often focused on determining the so-called spectral signatures, i.e., the reflectances of materials present in the scene (endmembers) and the corresponding abundance fractions at each pixel in a spatial area of interest. The determination of the number of endmembers in a scene without any prior knowledge is crucial to the success of hyperspectral image analysis. This paper proposes a new mean squared error approach to determine the signal subspace in hyperspectral imagery. The method first estimates the signal and noise correlations matrices, then it selects the subset of eigenvalues that best represents the signal subspace in the least square sense.
- The evolution of a conjugative plasmid and its ability to increase bacterial fitnessPublication . Gordo, I.; Fernandes, Lisete; Marques, A. C. R.; Conceição, I. C.; Dionisio, F.Conjugative plasmids are extra-chromosomal DNA elements that are capable of horizontal transmission and are found in many natural isolated bacteria. Although plasmids may carry beneficial genes to their bacterial host, they may also cause a fitness cost. In this work, we studied the evolution of the R1 plasmid and we found that, in spite of the R1 plasmid conferring an initial cost to its host, after 420 generations the cost disappeared in all five independent evolution experiments. In fact, in two of these five experiments evolved conjugative plasmids actually conferred a fitness advantage to their hosts. Furthermore, the relative fitness of the ancestral clone bearing one of the evolved plasmids is significantly higher than both the plasmid-free ancestral cells and the evolved cells carrying the evolved plasmid. Given that the R1 plasmid may spread among different species of enterobacteria, we wondered what the effect of the evolved plasmid would be inside Salmonella enterica cells. We found that the evolved plasmid is also able to dramatically increase the relative fitness of these cells. Our results suggest that even if general usage of antibiotics is halted, conjugative plasmids that have been selected with antibiotics in previous years can still persist among bacterial populations or even invade new strains.
- Tchekov em PortugalPublication . Coelho, Rui PinaEste artigo trata da presença da dramaturgia de Anton Tchekov no teatro em Portugal (de 1936 a 2005).
- Differential expression of the eukaryotic release factor 3 (eRF3/GSPT1) according to gastric cancer histological typesPublication . Malta-Vacas, Joana; Aires, C.; Costa, P.; Conde, A. R.; Ramos, S.; Martins, A. P.; Monteiro, C.; Brito, MiguelBackground: There are now several lines of evidence to suggest that protein synthesis and translation factors are involved in the regulation of cell proliferation and cancer development. Aims: To investigate gene expression patterns of eukaryotic releasing factor 3 (eRF3) in gastric cancer. Methods: RNA was prepared from 25 gastric tumour biopsies and adjacent non-neoplastic mucosa. Real time TaqMan reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed to measure the relative gene expression levels. DNA was isolated from tumour and normal tissues and gene dosage was determined by a quantitative real time PCR using SYBR Green dye. Results: Different histological types of gastric tumours were analysed and nine of the 25 tumours revealed eRF3/GSPT1 overexpression; moreover, eight of the 12 intestinal type carcinomas analysed overexpressed the gene, whereas eRF3/GSPT1 was overexpressed in only one of the 10 diffuse type carcinomas (Kruskal-Wallis Test; p , 0.05). No correlation was found between ploidy and transcript expression levels of eRF3/GSPT1. Overexpression of eRF3/GSPT1 was not associated with increased translation rates because the upregulation of eRF3/GSPT1 did not correlate with increased eRF1 levels. Conclusions: Overexpression of eRF3/GSPT1 in intestinal type gastric tumours may lead to an increase in the translation efficiency of specific oncogenic transcripts. Alternatively, eRF3/GSPT1 may be involved in tumorigenesis as a result of its non-translational roles, namely (dis)regulating the cell cycle, apoptosis, or transcription.
- Modulation of translation factor's gene expression by histone deacetylase inhibitors in breast cancer cellsPublication . Gonçalves, João; Malta-Vacas, Joana; Louis, Monette; Brault, Laurent; Bagrel, Denyse; Monteiro, Carolino; Brito, MiguelThe histone deacetylase inhibitors sodium butyrate (NaBu) and trichostatin A (TSA) exhibit anti-proliferative activity by causing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. The mechanisms by which NaBu and TSA cause apoptosis and cell cycle arrest are not yet completely clarified, although these agents are known to modulate the expression of several genes including cell-cycle- and apoptosis-related genes. The enzymes involved in the process of translation have important roles in controlling cell growth and apoptosis, and several of these translation factors have been described as having a causal role in the development of cancer. The expression patterns of the translation mechanism, namely of the elongation factors eEF1A1 and eEF1A2, and of the termination factors eRF1 and eRF3, were studied in the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 by real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction after a 24-h treatment with NaBu and TSA. NaBu induced inhibition of translation factors' transcription, whereas TSA caused an increase in mRNA levels. Thus, these two agents may modulate the expression of translation factors through different pathways. We propose that the inhibition caused by NaBu may, in part, be responsible for the cell cycle arrest and apoptosis induced by this agent in MCF-7 cells.