A method was developed in this study to measure the intracellular pH (pHi) of Dictyostelium discoideum cells with a pH-sensitive fluorescence dye, carboxyfluorescein dibutyrate, and the pHi values of cells on the stalk and spore pathways were compared. The pHi of prestalk cells was lower than that of prespore cells by approximately 0.3 pH unit. In monolayer cultures of sporogenous mutants, whic...

Photoreceptors form during Drosophila pupal development and acquire elaborate membrane structures, including the rhabdomeres and stalk membranes. Here, we show that the development of these cellular structures involves two distinct processes: the establishment of apical-basal polarity that requires Bazooka (Baz), and the regionalization of apical membrane into stalk membranes and rhabdomeres th...

In the mound stage of Dictyostelium discoideum, pre-stalk cells sort and form a tip at the apex. How this pattern forms is as yet unknown. A cellular level model allows us to simulate both differential cell adhesion and chemotaxis, to show that with differential adhesion only, pre-stalk cells move to the surface of the mound but form no tip. With chemotaxis driven by an outgoing circular wave o...

The free energy profile of the stalk model of membrane fusion has been calculated using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. The proposed method guides the lipid configuration using a guiding wall potential to make the transition from two apposed membranes to a stalk and a fusion pore. The free energy profile is obtained with a thermodynamic integration scheme using the mean force wor...

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), which is one of the most abundant crops in the world, is cultivated widely in China, the United States, and Central Asia. The cotton stalk generated with cotton cultivation is an important source of lignocellulosic biomass. In recent years, cotton stalk has received increasing attention from researchers engaged in bioconversion areas, and some high-value products, s...

Manufacturing firms are facing an environment where success depends on quick response to customer demands. Despite important contributions by Blackburn (1991) and Stalk and Hout (1990), we lack large-scale, empirical evidence that time-based manufacturing practices can reduce throughput time. More importantly, we lack an understanding of which practices are vital in achieving throughput time re...

Flexibilities in Lower Mississippian crinoid stalks were inferred from preserved postures and shown not to conform with predictions of a cantilever beam model. Flexibilities were not correlated with hard-part characters such as stalk diameter, stalk length, or columnal height. The lack of correspondence between the predictions of the cantilever model and observed flexibilities implies that the ...

Although biological pretreatment has the advantages of being environmentally friendly and having low-energy consumption, it usually requires a relatively long incubation time. In this study, a novel combined pretreatment with white-rot fungus and alkali at near room-temperature for saccharification of corn stalks was investigated to speed up the biological process. Biological pretreatment with ...

Corn stalk rind (CSR) was treated with Trametes hirsuta lg-9 and then refined into pulp. The biotreatment resulted in loss of paper strength and brightness, but energy consumption during refining (ECR) was reduced. Meanwhile, multiple linear regression was carried out, for which ECR served as the dependent variable, and the yield and infrared relative absorbance intensities at 3414 cm and 1653 ...

Over the past 20 years, it has been widely accepted that membrane fusion proceeds via a hemifusion step before opening of the productive fusion pore. An initial hourglass-shaped lipid structure, the fusion stalk, is formed between the adjacent membrane leaflets (cis leaflets). It remains controversial if and how fusion proteins drive the subsequent transition (expansion) of the stalk into a fus...