In: PLoS ONE, 2011, vol. 6, no. 12, p. e27947
In insects and crustaceans, the Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule (Dscam) occurs in many different isoforms. These are produced by mutually exclusive alternative splicing of dozens of tandem duplicated exons coding for parts or whole immunoglobulin (Ig) domains of the Dscam protein. This diversity plays a role in the development of the nervous system and also in the immune system. Structural...
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In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011, vol. 108, no. 51, p. 20790-20795
Alternative splicing is critical for diversifying eukaryotic proteomes, but the rules governing and coordinating splicing events among multiple alternate splice sites within individual genes are not well understood. We developed a quantitative PCR-based strategy to quantify the expression of the 12 transcripts encoded by the Caenorhabditis elegans slo-1 gene, containing three alternate splice...
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In: Disease Models & Mechanisms, 2011, vol. 4, p. 733-745
The close correspondence between energy intake and expenditure over prolonged time periods, coupled with an apparent protection of the level of body adiposity in the face of perturbations of energy balance, has led to the idea that body fatness is regulated via mechanisms that control intake and energy expenditure. Two models have dominated the discussion of how this regulation might take place....
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In: Neuropsychopharmacology, 2011, vol. 36, p. 1149-1164
Molecular adaptations underlying drug seeking and relapse remain largely unknown. Studies highlight post-transcriptional modifications mediated by microRNAs (miRNAs) in addiction and other neurological disorders. We have previously shown that chronic cocaine suppresses miR-124 and let-7d and induces the expression of miR-181a in mesolimbic pathway. To further address the role and target gene...
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In: Psychopharmacology, 2012, p. -
Rationale: Dopamine D1 receptor (D1R) signaling has been associated to ethanol consumption and reward in laboratory animals.Objectives: Here, we hypothesize that this receptor, which is located within the nucleus accumbens (NAc) neurons, modulates alcohol reward mechanisms.Methods: To test this hypothesis, we measured alcohol consumption and ethanol-induced psychomotor sensitization and...
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In: Insect Conservation and Diversity, 2011, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 60-80
1. Sown wildflower strips are increasingly being established in European countries within agri-environmental schemes to enhance biodiversity, especially in intensively used agricultural areas.2. The regulations vary between countries regarding the seed mixture, intensity of management and period of time over which subsidies are given. Insects in particular are intended to benefit from these...
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In: Ecology, 2011, vol. 92, no. 12, p. 2183–2189
Body mass is a fundamental characteristic that affects metabolism, life history, and population abundance and frequently sets bounds on who eats whom in food webs. Based on a collection of topological food webs, Ulrich Brose and colleagues presented a general relationship between the body mass of predators and their prey and analyzed how mean predator–prey body-mass ratios differed among...
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In: Europhysics Letters, 2011, vol. 96, no. 4, p. 48007
The common-neighbor–based method is simple yet effective to predict missing links, which assume that two nodes are more likely to be connected if they have more common neighbors. In the traditional method, each common neighbor of two nodes contributes equally to the connection likelihood. In this letter, we argue that different common neighbors may play different roles and thus contributes...
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In: Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2011, vol. 391, no. 4, p. 1777–1787
Identifying influential nodes that lead to faster and wider spreading in complex networks is of theoretical and practical significance. The degree centrality method is very simple but of little relevance. Global metrics such as betweenness centrality and closeness centrality can better identify influential nodes, but are incapable to be applied in large-scale networks due to the computational...
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In: Europhysics Letters, 2011, vol. 96, no. 1, p. 18004
We introduce a framework for network analysis based on random walks on directed acyclic graphs where the probability of passing through a given node is the key ingredient. We illustrate its use in evaluating the mutual influence of nodes and discovering seminal papers in a citation network. We further introduce a new similarity metric and test it in a simple personalized recommendation process....
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