Biology subjects

MacLeod, R.

Publications and source records attributed to MacLeod, R..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

A Novel Approach for Using Thermal Imaging to Study Behavioural Responses to Environmental Stressors in Passerines

Infrared thermography is a promising tool for assessing proxy for stress response in animals. With the advancement of longer recording capabilities, this technique allows the monitoring of the dynamic nature of the temperature variation which is highly correlated to the stress faced by the animal. The current method of extraction of data from thermal videos involves manual identification of the beginning and end of the activity (feeding bout in our case) and extracting the temperature data into CSV files. In this paper, we aim to identify the beginning and ending of the feeding bout by the Identification of Temperature Change (ITC) that happens when a bird arrives and leaves the frame. By identifying this we can monitor longer IRT videos and extract the thermal imaging data for stress monitoring in a faster manner. The identification of the beginning and end frames, also allows us to get behavioural data such as feeding bout length and feeding frequency which also act as a proxy for perceived stress. This method was developed to simplify the data analysis process of thermal imaging videos and proved to be an effective method with wider applications in behavioural monitoring based on temperature change.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2020

Phosphodiesterase Type 4 anchoring regulates cAMP signaling to Popeye domain-containing proteins.

Cyclic AMP is a ubiquitous second messenger used to transduce intracellular signals from a variety of Gs-coupled receptors. Compartmentalisation of protein intermediates within the cAMP signaling pathway underpins receptor-specific responses. The cAMP effector proteins protein-kinase A and EPAC are found in complexes that also contain phosphodiesterases whose presence ensures a coordinated cellular response to receptor activation events. Popeye proteins are the most recent class of cAMP effectors to be identified and have crucial roles in cardiac pacemaking and conduction. We report the first observation that Popeye proteins exist in complexes with members of the PDE4 family in cardiac myocytes thus restricting cAMP signaling. We show that POPDC1 preferentially binds the PDE4A sub-family via a specificity motif in the PDE4 UCR1 region and that PDE4s bind to the Popeye domain of POPDC1 in a region known to be susceptible to a mutation that causes human disease. Using a cell-permeable disruptor peptide that displaces the POPDC1-PDE4 complex we show that PDE4 activity localized to POPDC1 is essential to maintain action potential duration in beating cardiac myocytes.

biochemistry↗