(C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012″
“Infertility is a common problem that affects approximately 15% of the population. Although many advances have been made in the treatment of infertility, the molecular and genetic causes of male infertility remain largely elusive. This review will present a summary of our current knowledge on the genetic origin of male infertility and the key events of male meiosis. It focuses on chromosome synapsis and meiotic recombination and the problems that arise when errors in these processes occur, specifically meiotic arrest and chromosome aneuploidy, the leading

cause of pregnancy loss in humans. In addition, meiosis-specific candidate genes will be discussed, including a discussion on why we have BEZ235 nmr been largely unsuccessful

at identifying disease-causing mutations in infertile men. Finally clinical applications of sperm aneuploidy screening will be touched upon along with future prospective clinical tests to better characterize see more male infertility in a move towards personalized medicine. Asian Journal of Andrology (2011) 13, 212-218; doi:10.1038/aja.2011.1; published online 7 February 2011″
“Ferroelectric domains were written in lithium niobate (LiNbO3) single crystals by applying voltage pulses to the tip of a scanning force microscope. The generated domains are subsequently imaged by piezoresponse force microscopy. As it has been previously observed not only full domains but also doughnut-shaped ones arise from tip-based domain formation. In this contribution, we present our experiments which were carried out with 10-20 mu m thin LiNbO3 single crystals.

We show that by choosing appropriate writing parameters, domains of predetermined shape (full or doughnut) can be reliably generated. In addition to the duration and the amplitude of the voltage pulse the moment of the retraction of the tip from the sample surface was found to be a crucial parameter for reproducible domain formation. Blebbistatin (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3623775]“
“Twenty-eight Angus steers (289 kg) were finished on a high-concentrate diet (85% concentrate: 15% roughage; CONC), or endophyte-free tall fescue pastures with corn grain supplement (0.52% of BW; PC), corn oil plus soybean hull supplement (0.10% of BW corn oil plus 0.45% of BW soybean hulls; PO), or no supplement (pasture only; PA). Subcutaneous adipose tissues were processed for total cellular RNA extraction and fatty acid composition by GLC. Relative expression of genes involved in lipogenesis [fatty acid synthase (FASN), acetyl-CoA carboxylase, lipoprotein lipase, stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD)] and activators of transcription [(peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma),C/EBP alpha, sterol regulatory binding protein-1, signal transducer and activator of transcription-5, and Spot-14] was determined by real-time quantitative PCR.