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Poster presentation at 5th German Conference on Cheminformatics: 23. CIC-Workshop Goslar, Germany. 8-10 November 2009 Protein kinases are important targets for drug development. The almost identical protein folding of kinases and the common co-substrate ATP leads to the problem of inhibitor selectivity. Type II inhibitors, targeting the inactive conformation of kinases, occupy a hydrophobic pocket with less conserved surrounding amino acids. Human polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) represents a promising target for approaches to identify new therapeutic agents. Plk1 belongs to a family of highly conserved serine/threonine kinases, and is a key player in mitosis, where it modulates the spindle checkpoint at metaphase/anaphase transition. Plk1 is over-expressed in all today analyzed human tumors of different origin and serves as a negative prognostic marker in cancer patients. The newly identified inhibitor, SBE13, a vanillin derivative, targets Plk1 in its inactive conformation. This leads to selectivity within the Plk family and towards Aurora A. This selectivity can be explained by docking studies of SBE13 into the binding pocket of homology models of Plk1, Plk2 and Plk3 in their inactive conformation. SBE13 showed anti-proliferative effects in cancer cell lines of different origins with EC50 values between 5 microM and 39 microM and induced apoptosis. Increasing concentrations of SBE13 result in increasing amounts of cells in G2/M phase 13 hours after double thymidin block of HeLa cells. The kinase activity of Plk1 was inhibited with an IC50 of 200 pM. Taken together, we could show that carefully designed structure-based virtual screening is well-suited to identify selective type II kinase inhibitors targeting Plk1 as potential anti-cancer therapeutics.
New taxa of Epiphloeinae Kuwert (Cleridae) and Chaetosomatidae Crowson (Coleoptera: Cleroidea)
(2010)
Twenty-one new taxa of Cleridae and one of Chaetosomatidae are described including four new genera: Acanthocollis, Decaphloeus, Megaphloeus, and Stegnoclava. Twenty new species are described: five species of Amboakis Opitz (A. ampla, A. antegalba, A. diffusa, A. demagna, A. waodani, one species of Epiphloeus Spinola (E. erwini), four species of Madoniella Pic (M. aspera, M. darlingtoni, M. divida, M. spilota), two species of Plocamocera Spinola (P. clinata, P. lena), seven species of Pyticeroides Kuwert (P. latisentis, P. moraquesi, P. parvoporis, P. pinnacerinis, P. pullis, P. turbosiris, P. ustulatis), and one species of Chaetosomatidae (Chaetosoma colossa).
The authorship and type species of the genera Acentroptera and Metazycera are reviewed. The correct author of Acentroptera is Guérin-Méneville, 1844; Acentroptera dejeani Guérin-Méneville, 1844, is here designated as the type species. Metazycera is the correct spelling of the genus described by Chevrolat, 1837; the type species is Hispa trimaculata Olivier, 1808, by monotypy; Metaxycera Baly, 1864 is an unjustified emendation.
Specimens of Megacopta cribraria (Fabricius) were collected in northern Georgia in late October 2009, where they were invading homes in large numbers. This is the first known occurrence of this species and the family Plataspidae in the New World. Megacopta cribraria was previously known from Asia and Australia. A key is provided to separate Plataspidae from other families of Pentatomoidea in America North of Mexico. A diagnosis and figures are provided to facilitate recognition of M. cribraria. Reported host plants and other aspects of the biology of this species are reviewed. Megacopta cribraria is considered a pest of numerous legumes in Asia, has the potential to provide biological control of kudzu, Pueraria montana var. lobata (Willd.) Ohwi, (Fabaceae) and likely will continue to be a household pest in the vicinity of kudzu fields as well as become a pest of North American legume crops.
The species of the genus Lathropus Erichson are reviewed for Florida and the West Indies, excluding the Lesser Antilles. Seven species are recorded from this region, three of which are described as new: Lathropus chickcharnie Thomas, new species, Lathropus jamaicensis Thomas, new species, and Lathropus rhabdophloeoides Thomas, new species. A lectotype is designated for Lathropus vernalis Casey, and Lathropus striatus Casey is synonymized under Lathropus vernalis Casey, new synonymy. Illustrations and a key to the species of this geographgic region are provided.
Background: Environmental noise is ubiquitous in population growth processes, with a well acknowledged potential to affect populations regardless of their sizes. It therefore deserves consideration in population dynamics modelling. The usual approach to incorporating noise into population dynamical models is to make some model parameter(s) (typically the growth rate, the carrying capacity, or both) stochastic and responsive to environment fluctuations. It is however still unclear whether including noise in one or/and another parameter makes a difference to the model performance. Here we investigated this issue with a focus on model fit and predictive accuracy. To do this, we developed three population dynamical models of the Ricker type with the noise included in the growth rate (Model 1), in the carrying capacity (Model 2), and in both (Model 3). We generated several population time series under each model, and used a Bayesian approach to fit the three models to the simulated data. We then compared the model performances in fitting to the data and in forecasting future observations. Results: When the mean intrinsic growth rate, r, in the data was low, the three models had roughly comparable performances, irrespective of the true model and the level of noise. As r increased, Models 1 performed best on data generated from it, and Model 3 tended to perform best on data generated from either Models 2 or Model 3. Model 2 was uniformly outcompeted by the other two models, regardless of the true model and the level of noise. The correlation between the deviance information criterion (DIC) and the mean square error (MSE) used respectively as measure of fit and predictive accuracy was broadly positive. Conclusion: Our results suggested that the way environmental noise is incorporated into a population dynamical model may profoundly affect its performance. Overall, we found that including noise in one or/and another parameter does not matter as long as the mean intrinsic growth rate, r, is low. As r increased, however, the three models performed differently. Models 1 and 3 broadly outperformed Model 2, the first having the advantage of being simple and more computationally tractable. A comforting result emerging from our analysis is the broad positive correlation between MSEs and DICs, suggesting that the latter may also be informative about the predictive performance of a model.
The Anthonomus juniperinus group, with descriptions of two new species (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)
(2010)
The Anthonomus juniperinus (Sanborn) species group is defined and two new species, Anthonomus sanborni, new species, and A. rileyi new species, from the United States are described, keyed and illustrated. The three species of the group are associated with the plant genus Juniperus and the larvae of A. juniperinus are known to develop in fungal galls of Gymnosporangium spp. as well as fruits of the Eastern redcedar, Juniperus virginiana L. The biology of the group and its taxonomic relationships to other species of Anthonomus Germar are also discussed.
The fauna of Phanaeini of the northeast of Brazil was investigated through fieldwork in the States of Ceará, Maranhão and Piauí, and through study of preserved material from other states. Seven species of Phanaeini are newly recorded from these three states. Of these, two species are also new records for the northeast region: Phanaeus melibaeus Blanchard and an unidentified Dendropaemon Perty species. A total of 13 new state records are given for eight of the 15 species of Phanaeini recorded from the northeast to date, including three new state genus records. A key is provided for identification of all species. Detailed distributional information is presented together with habitat and bait preferences and other ecological data for each species. The diversity and distribution of the tribe in the northeast is discussed in the context of regional biotopes and wider geographic ranges. The fauna is shown to be more diverse than previously believed, containing both endemic and widespread elements occurring in species assemblages that differ according to habitat type and elevation, leading to substantial complementarity of diversity amongst the main biogeographic provinces and biotopes of the region.
Four new species of Cydistomyia Taylor from New Guinea, C. missimiensis, C. madangiensis, C. waigani, and C. moresbyensis, are described and figured. A revised key to the females of New Guinea Cydistomyia and New Guinea collection records for 57 additional species of Tabanidae are provided. A table with the approximate longitudes and latitudes of all but one locality listed is provided.
Hiltonius carpinus carpinus Chamberlin, 1943 (Spirobolida: Spirobolidae), is authoritatively recorded from the United States for the first time; it is known only from southern/southeastern Arizona but should be expected in adjoining counties of New Mexico. The northernmost locality is the Pinaleno Mountains, Graham County, and its distribution extends to southern Mexico; the other subspecies, H. c. vulcan (Chamberlin, 1953), occurs in Guatemala. The range of H. c. carpinus includes the type locality of the enigmatic H. fossulifer (Pocock, 1908), lending credence to prior suggestions that the names are synonymous. Three new Mexican states – Durango, Jalisco, and Nuevo León – are documented for H. c. carpinus.
New species are described in the tribe Piezocerini: Gorybia rondonia sp. nov. from Brazil (Rondônia) and G. bahiensis sp. nov. from Brazil (Bahia); in the tribe Hexoplonini: Calycibidion rubricolle sp. nov. from Brazil (Bahia); in the tribe Ibidionini, Tropidina: Tropidion argentina sp. nov. from Argentina (La Rioja) and T. boliviensis sp. nov. from Bolivia (Santa Cruz); in the tribe Rhinotragini: Ommata (Ommata) albitarsis sp. nov. from Brazil (Rondônia); and in the tribe Rhopalophorini: Cosmisoma viridescens sp. nov. from Brazil (Bahia). To validate the tribal names, Hexoplon Thomson, 1864 and Tropidion Thomson, 1867, are here designated type genera of Hexoplonini and Tropidiina, respectively.
The transcription factor p63 is expressed as at least six different isoforms, of which two have been assigned critical biological roles within ectodermal development and skin stem cell biology on the one hand and supervision of the genetic stability of oocytes on the other hand. These two isoforms contain a C-terminal inhibitory domain that negatively regulates their transcriptional activity. This inhibitory domain contains two individual components: one that uses an internal binding mechanism to interact with and mask the transactivation domain and one that is based on sumoylation. We have carried out an extensive alanine scanning study to identify critical regions within the inhibitory domain. These experiments show that a stretch of ~13 amino acids is crucial for the binding function. Further, investigation of transcriptional activity and the intracellular level of mutants that cannot be sumoylated suggests that sumoylation reduces the concentration of p63. We therefore propose that the inhibitory function of the C-terminal domain is in part due to direct inhibition of the transcriptional activity of the protein and in part due to indirect inhibition by controlling the concentration of p63. Keywords: p63, transcriptional regulation, auto-inhibition, sumoylation