Cross-disciplinarity in the advance of Antarctic ecosystem research.

The biodiversity, ecosystem services and climate variability of the Antarctic continent and the Southern Ocean are major components of the whole Earth system. Antarctic ecosystems are driven more strongly by the physical environment than many other marine and terrestrial ecosystems. As a consequence, to understand ecological functioning, cross-disciplinary studies are especially important in Antarctic research. The conceptual study presented here is based on a workshop initiated by the Research Programme Antarctic Thresholds - Ecosystem Resilience and Adaptation of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, which focussed on challenges in identifying and applying cross-disciplinary approaches in the Antarctic. Novel ideas and first steps in their implementation were clustered into eight themes. These ranged from scale problems, through risk maps, and organism/ecosystem responses to multiple environmental changes and evolutionary processes. Scaling models and data across different spatial and temporal scales were identified as an overarching challenge. Approaches to bridge gaps in Antarctic research programmes included multi-disciplinary monitoring, linking biomolecular findings and simulated physical environments, as well as integrative ecological modelling. The results of advanced cross-disciplinary approaches can contribute significantly to our knowledge of Antarctic and global ecosystem functioning, the consequences of climate change, and to global assessments that ultimately benefit humankind.

Henoch-Schönlein purpura and stroke: antiphosphatidylethanolamine antibody in CSF and serum.

A 15-year-old girl with features of Henoch-Schönlein purpura and brain infarct had a transient IgA antiphosphatidylethanolamine antibody (aPE) in her serum and CSF that disappeared 5 months after presentation. Serum aPE is known to be associated with thrombotic events. The authors found no aPE in the CSF of two control individuals or in the serum of two patients with active Henoch-Schönlein purpura without neurologic involvement. The patient may represent a variant of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome.

Galactose-containing carbohydrates are preferentially absorbed in the neonatal pig colon.

Previous studies on the piglet colon in newborns cleared of bacterial metabolic activity showed a capacity for lactose absorption. Colonic absorption occurred at a flux rate equal to the assimilation of lactose by the small intestine but by a process that did not involve either glucose-galactose sodium cotransport or simple diffusion. Surprisingly, colonic lactose transport did not require either fermentation or cleavage of the disaccharide for uptake. Experiments were designed to test the selectivity of the colonic transport process for a variety of carbohydrates. Colonic tissues from 4-7-d-old piglets were mounted in Ussing chambers and the mucosal-to-serosal flux of radiolabeled carbohydrates was compared with that of lactose. The results showed a 3-4-fold greater flux of galactose-containing sugars as compared with glucose-containing carbohydrates at concentrations up to 40 mM. Even lactulose, a synthetic disaccharide assumed to require bacterial digestion before assimilation, was transported readily. N-Acetylgalactosamine, a component of colonic mucus, inhibited the flux of lactose, whereas N-acetylglucosamine did not. Similarly, lactosylated BSA inhibited lactose flux, whereas nonlactosylated BSA did not. The capacity of the colon of the newborn to differentiate moieties as similar as glucose and galactose suggests an absorptive process for carbohydrates with a high degree of discrimination.