ABSTRACT
We report the fabrication of the first extruded hollow core optical fiber with a single ring of cladding holes, and its use in a chemical sensing application. These single suspended ring structures show antiresonance reflection optical waveguiding (ARROW) features in the visible part of the spectrum. The impact of preform pressurization on the geometry of these fibers is determined by the size of the different hole types in the preform. The fibers are used to perform Raman sensing of methanol, demonstrating their potential for future fiber sensing applications.
ABSTRACT
The neurodegenerative diseases Huntington disease, dentatorubropallidoluysian atrophy, spinocerebellar atrophy type 3, and spinal bulbar muscular atrophy are caused by expansion of a polyglutamine tract within their respective gene products. There is increasing evidence that generation of truncated proteins containing an expanded polyglutamine tract may be a key step in the pathogenesis of these disorders. We now report that, similar to huntingtin, atrophin-1, ataxin-3, and the androgen receptor are cleaved in apoptotic extracts. Furthermore, each of these proteins is cleaved by one or more purified caspases, cysteine proteases involved in apoptotic death. The CAG length does not modulate susceptibility to cleavage of any of the full-length proteins. Our results suggest that by generation of truncated polyglutamine-containing proteins, caspase cleavage may represent a common step in the pathogenesis of each of these neurodegenerative diseases.
