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Background: Bark beetles are major pests of conifer forests, and their behavior is primarily mediated via olfaction. Targeting the odorant receptors (ORs) may thus provide avenues towards improved pest control. Such an approach requires information on the function of ORs and their interactions with ligands, which is also essential for understanding the functional evolution of these receptors. Henc

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has recently classified occupational exposure as a firefighter as carcinogenic (group 1A). Even though the occupation of firefighter is associated with high exposure to pollutants, it is challenging to carry out exposure studies to assess health risks due to the extreme conditions associated with firefighting. Routine monitoring of occupational expos

By growth of Si on substrates that have been pre-patterned by electron-beam induced carbon nano-growth masks, nano-holes form at the Si surface. We have grown self-assembled Ge quantum dots in these holes by ultra high vacuum chemical vapour phase deposition (UHV-CVD). We usually find four dots in each hole. By varying the amount of deposited Ge, we can obtain either four dome-shaped or four pyram

Nitric oxide (NO) can modulate both tumor growth and antitumor immune responses. In order to elucidate the mechanism of curative therapeutic immunization with IFNgamma-producing glioma cells, we examined the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in tissue sections from immunized animals. There was a significantly enhanced iNOS expression both intratumorally and at the immunization s

Haemophilus influenzae protein F (PF) is an important virulence factor interacting with laminin, an extracellular matrix protein ubiquitously expressed in the respiratory tract. Here we defined PF orthologs in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Moraxella catarrhalis, and Staphylococcus aureus, bacteria that occasionally colonize and infect the human airways. Despite low sequence homology (48.2%-77.3% similar

Argon clusters have been doped with krypton atoms in a pick-up setup and investigated by means of ultraviolet and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS and XPS). The width of the krypton surface feature in the XPS spectra from mixed krypton/argon clusters has been studied and found to be narrower than in the case of homogeneous krypton clusters. By considering known spectral broadening mechanisms

Only 40% of the total CO2 emitted by human activities and natural sources remain in the atmosphere, since the rest is taken up by plants and oceans. In particular temperate and boreal forests are usually significant sinks of carbon, even if they are very susceptible ecosystems and they might turn into sources in consequence of the predicted temperature increase. That is one of the reasons why a ne

Apolipoprotein RI (apoM) is a novel apolipoprotein that is predominantly present in high-density lipoprotein, Sensitive sequence starches, threading and comparative model building experiments revealed apoM to be structurally related to the lipocalin protein family. In a 3D model, characterized by an eight-stranded anti-parallel beta -barrel, a segment including Asn135 could adopt a closed or open