Biology subjects

Jambor, H.

Publications and source records attributed to Jambor, H..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2020

Creating Clear and Informative Image-based Figures for Scientific Publications

Scientists routinely use images to display data. Readers often examine figures first; therefore, it is important that figures are accessible to a broad audience. Many resources discuss fraudulent image manipulation and technical specifications for image acquisition; however, data on the legibility and interpretability of images are scarce. We systematically examined these factors in non-blot images published in the top 15 journals in three fields; plant sciences, cell biology and physiology (n=580 papers). Common problems included missing scale bars, misplaced or poorly marked insets, images or labels that were not accessible to colorblind readers, and insufficient explanations of colors, labels, annotations, or the species and tissue or object depicted in the image. Papers that met all good practice criteria examined for all image-based figures were uncommon (physiology 16%, cell biology 12%, plant sciences 2%). We present detailed descriptions and visual examples to help scientists avoid common pitfalls when publishing images. Our recommendations address image magnification, scale information, insets, annotation, and color and may encourage discussion about quality standards for bioimage publishing.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2020

Current practices in scientific poster preparation: survey results

Posters are intended to spark scientific dialogue and omnipresent at biological conferences. Guides and how-to articles help life scientists in preparing informative visualizations in poster format. However, those posters shown at conferences are at present often overloaded with data and text and are poorly designed, which in sum hinder, rather than spark communication. Here, we surveyed life scientists themselves to understand why posters are such a struggle and to shed light on poster preparation from their subjective perspectives. We find that biologist spend on average two entire days preparing one poster, with half of the time devoted to visual design aspects. Most respond that they receive no design or software training and also receive little to no feedback when preparing their visualizations. In conclusion, our data suggests that some training, beyond providing literature, of life scientists in visualization principles and tools would likely improve conference poster quality. In addition, this would also improve other common visuals such as figures and slides, and thus overall benefit the science communication of researchers.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2019

Minimal requirements for membrane adaptation of the bacterial model organism M. extorquens

Cells, from microbes to man, adapt their membranes in response to the environment to maintain their properties and functions. To adapt, lipid composition is homeostatically regulated to conserve optimal membrane properties. Global patterns of lipidome remodelling are poorly understood, particularly in model organisms with simple lipid compositions that can provide insight into fundamental principles underlying membrane adaptation. Using shotgun lipidomics, we examined the simple yet adaptive lipidome of the plant-associated Gram-negative bacterium Methylobacterium extorquens over varying temperature, hyperosmotic and detergent stress, carbon sources, and cell density. We observed that as few as ten lipids account for 90% of the total changes, thus constraining the upper limit of variable lipids required for an adaptive living membrane. Across all conditions, the highest degree of lipidomic variability was observed for changing growth temperature. We also revealed that variations in lipid structural features are not monotonic over a given range of conditions and are heterogeneous across lipid classes. Interestingly, phosphotidylcholine showed the most extreme acyl chain remodeling among all lipid classes, suggesting a new link to its importance in bacterial-host interactions and pathogenicity. These patterns in lipidomic remodeling suggest a highly adaptive mechanism with many degrees of freedom and constrain the lipidomic requirements for an adaptive membrane.

biochemistry↗