In a pig model for AMI, we observed that selective CRP-apheresis significantly reduces CRP levels and the volume of the infarction zone after AMI. Additionally, it changes the morphology of the scars and preserves cardiac output (LVEF).
Plants have evolved a variety of mechanisms for dealing with insect herbivory among which chemical defense through secondary metabolites plays a prominent role. Physiological, behavioural and sensorical adaptations to these chemicals provide herbivores with selective advantages allowing them to diversify within the newly occupied ecological niche. In turn, this may influence the evolution of plant metabolism giving rise to e.g. new chemical defenses. The association of Pierid butterflies and plants of the Brassicales has been cited as an illustrative example of this adaptive process known as ‘coevolutionary armsrace’. All plants of the Brassicales are defended by the glucosinolate-myrosinase system to which larvae of cabbage white butterflies and related species are biochemically adapted through a gut nitrile-specifier protein. Here, we provide evidence by metabolite profiling and enzyme assays that metabolism of benzylglucosinolate in Pieris rapae results in release of equimolar amounts of cyanide, a potent inhibitor of cellular respiration. We further demonstrate that P. rapae larvae develop on transgenic Arabidopsis plants with ectopic production of the cyanogenic glucoside dhurrin without ill effects. Metabolite analyses and fumigation experiments indicate that cyanide is detoxified by β-cyanoalanine synthase and rhodanese in the larvae. Based on these results as well as on the facts that benzylglucosinolate was one of the predominant glucosinolates in ancient Brassicales and that ancient Brassicales lack nitrilases involved in alternative pathways, we propose that the ability of Pierid species to safely handle cyanide contributed to the primary host shift from Fabales to Brassicales that occured about 75 million years ago and was followed by Pierid species diversification.
Specific heat measurements on single crystals of RMn 1−x Ga x O 3 ͑R =Ho,Y͒ have revealed that Ga doping raises the Mn-spin reorientation temperature T SR while lowering the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature, T N , of the Mn spins and the Ho magnetic ordering temperature T 2 . The variations of the calculated magnetic entropy with Ga doping show the existence of spin fluctuations above T N in the geometrically frustrated Mn-spin system and a coupling between the Mn 3+ -ion and Ho 3+ -ion spins both at T SR and T 2 . The data also support Schottky anomalies in the specific heat of HoMn 1−x Ga x O 3 , which is dominated by crystalline electric fields but also affected by Mn 3+ -ion spin orderings. The large electronic contribution to specific heat of HoMnO 3 , ␥, is suggested to be due to Ho 3+ spin disorder.
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