Description: The interrelationship between brown adipose tissue (BAT) and white adipose tissue (WAT) is emerging as an important factor in obesity, but the effect of impairing non-shivering thermogenesis in BAT on lipid storage in WAT remains unclear. To address this, we have characterized the metabolic phenotype of a mouse model for Costeff syndrome, in which a point mutation in the mitochondrial membrane protein Opa3 impairs mitochondrial activity. Opa3 L122P mice displayed an 80% reduction in insulin-like growth factor 1, postnatal growth retardation and hepatic steatosis. A 90% reduction in uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) expression in interscapular BAT was accompanied by a marked reduction in surface body temperature, with a 2.5-fold elevation in interscapular BAT mass and lipid storage. The sequestration of circulating lipid into BAT resulted in profound reductions in epididymal and retroperitoneal WAT mass, without affecting subcutaneous WAT. The histological appearance and intense mitochondrial staining in intra-abdominal WAT suggest significant ‘browning’, but with UCP1 expression in WAT of Opa3 L122P mice only 62% of that in wild-type littermates, any precursor differentiation does not appear to result in thermogenically active beige adipocytes. Thus, we have identified Opa3 as a novel regulator of lipid metabolism, coupling lipid uptake with lipid processing in liver and with thermogenesis in BAT. These findings indicate that skeletal and metabolic impairment in Costeff syndrome may be more significant than previously thought and that uncoupling lipid uptake from lipid metabolism in BAT may represent a novel approach to controlling WAT mass in obesity.

Description: To use lymphocytes as surrogate cells to investigate their in vitro sensitivities to ultraviolet (UV) treatment in different cancers and precancerous states by comparison with lymphocytes from healthy control individuals was the main aim of this research. UV light induces precise cellular and genomic mutations. In this study, the effect of ultraviolet A (UVA) (320–400 nm) was used as a generic mutagen to evaluate in vitro different sensitivities from lymphocytes of patients with suspected melanoma (SM), malignant melanoma (MM), polyposis coli (PC) and colorectal cancer (CRC). DNA damage was evaluated by two different methods: the micronucleus (MN) assay and the Comet assay. The baseline frequency of MNs was significantly increased in lymphocytes from all patients (SM, MM, PC and CRC) when compared to healthy individuals. After UV irradiation, MN frequencies were significantly increased in lymphocytes of all groups, both patients and healthy individuals. However, the MN frequency in all patient groups was significantly higher than in the healthy individual group. Similar results for the induction of genomic DNA damage were obtained for the Comet assay. Also for the Comet assay, UVA-induced DNA damage for all four patient groups was significantly increased when compared to healthy individuals (SM, MM, PC and CRC groups: P 〈 0.001). Conclusively, peripheral lymphocytes from patients with cancers MM and CRC or precancerous states SM and PC are more sensitive to a generic mutagen such as UVA than lymphocytes from healthy individuals. This feature may be used as an essential biomarker to screen and diagnose precancerous states and cancers in early stages.

Description: We use the published photometry and spectroscopy of 22 galaxies in the Herschel Reference Survey to determine that the value of the dust mass absorption coefficient d at a wavelength of 500 μm is $\kappa _{500} = 0.051^{+0.070}_{-0.026}\,{\rm m^{2}\,kg^{-1}}$ . We do so by taking advantage of the fact that the dust-to-metals ratio in the interstellar medium of galaxies appears to be constant. We argue that our value for d supersedes that of James et al. – who pioneered this approach for determining d – because we take advantage of superior data, and account for a number of significant systematic effects that they did not consider. We comprehensively incorporate all methodological and observational contributions to establish the uncertainty on our value, which represents a marked improvement on the oft-quoted ‘order-of-magnitude’ uncertainty on d . We find no evidence that the value of d differs significantly between galaxies, or that it correlates with any other measured or derived galaxy properties. We note, however, that the availability of data limits our sample to relatively massive (10 9.7  〈  M *  〈 10 11.0 M ), high metallicity (8.61 〈  $[ 12 + {\rm log}_{10} \frac{\rm O}{\rm H} ]$  〈 8.86) galaxies; future work will allow us to investigate a wider range of systems.

Description: We describe a far-infrared survey of the Coma cluster and the galaxy filament it resides within. Our survey covers an area of ~150 deg 2 observed by Herschel H-ATLAS ( Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey) in five bands at 100, 160, 250, 350 and 500 μm. The SDSS spectroscopic survey ( m r ≤ 17.8) is used to define an area (within the virial radius) and redshift selected (4268 〈 v 〈 9700 km s –1 ) sample of 744 Coma cluster galaxies – the Coma Cluster Catalogue. For comparison, we also define a sample of 951 galaxies in the connecting filament – the Coma Filament Catalogue. The optical positions and parameters are used to define appropriate apertures to measure each galaxy's far-infrared emission. We have detected 99 of 744 (13 per cent) and 422 of 951 (44 per cent) of the cluster and filament galaxies in the SPIRE 250 μm band. We consider the relative detection rates of galaxies of different morphological types finding that it is only the S0/Sa population that shows clear differences between the cluster and filament. We find no differences between the dust masses and temperatures of cluster and filament galaxies with the exception of early-type galaxy dust temperatures, which are significantly hotter in the cluster than in the filament (X-ray heating?). From a chemical evolution model, we find no evidence for different evolutionary processes (gas loss or infall) between galaxies in the cluster and filament.

Description: In most studies of dust in galaxies, dust is only detected from its emission to approximately the optical radius of the galaxy. By combining the signal of 110 spiral galaxies observed as part of the Herschel Reference Survey, we are able to improve our sensitivity by an order of magnitude over that for a single object. Here we report the direct detection of dust from its emission that extends out to at least twice the optical radius. We find that the distribution of dust is consistent with an exponential at all radii with a gradient of ~–1.7 dex  $R_{25}^{-1}$ . Our dust temperature declines linearly from ~25 K in the centre to 15 K at R 25 from where it remains constant out to ~2.0  R 25 . The surface density of dust declines with radius at a similar rate to the surface density of stars but more slowly than the surface density of the star-formation rate. Studies based on dust extinction and reddening of high-redshift quasars have concluded that there are substantial amounts of dust in intergalactic space. By combining our results with the number counts and angular correlation function from the SDSS, we show that with Milky Way-type dust we can explain the reddening of the quasars by the dust within galactic discs alone. Given the uncertainties in the properties of any intergalactic dust, we cannot rule out its existence, but our results show that statistical investigations of the dust in galactic haloes that use the reddening of high-redshift objects must take account of the dust in galactic discs.

Description: The existence of long (〉100 kpc) H i streams and small (〈20 kpc) free-floating H i clouds is well known. While the formation of the streams has been investigated extensively, and the isolated clouds are often purported to be interaction debris, little research has been done on the formation of optically dark H i clouds that are not part of a larger stream. One possibility is that such features result from the fragmentation of more extended streams, while another idea is that they are primordial, optically dark galaxies. We test the validity of the fragmentation scenario (via harassment) using numerical simulations. In order to compare our numerical models with observations, we present catalogues of both the known long H i streams (42 objects) and free-floating H i clouds suggested as dark galaxy candidates (51 objects). In particular, we investigate whether it is possible to form compact features with high velocity widths (〉100 km s –1 ), similar to observed clouds which are otherwise intriguing dark galaxy candidates. We find that producing such features is possible but extremely unlikely, occurring no more than 0.2% of the time in our simulations. In contrast, we find that genuine dark galaxies could be extremely stable to harassment and remain detectable even after 5 Gyr in the cluster environment (with the important caveat that our simulations only explore harassment and do not yet include the intracluster medium, heating and cooling, or star formation). We also discuss the possibility that such objects could be the progenitors of recently discovered ultra diffuse galaxies.

Description: We present Herschel /PACS 100 and 160 μm integrated photometry for the 323 galaxies in the Herschel Reference Survey (HRS), a K -band, volume-limited sample of galaxies in the local Universe. Once combined with the Herschel /SPIRE observations already available, these data make the HRS the largest representative sample of nearby galaxies with homogeneous coverage across the 100–500 μm wavelength range. In this paper, we take advantage of this unique data set to investigate the properties and shape of the far-infrared/submillimetre spectral energy distribution in nearby galaxies. We show that, in the stellar mass range covered by the HRS (8  log ( M * /M )  12), the far-infrared/submillimetre colours are inconsistent with a single modified blackbody having the same dust emissivity index β for all galaxies. In particular, either β decreases or multiple temperature components are needed, when moving from metal-rich/gas-poor to metal-poor/gas-rich galaxies. We thus investigate how the dust temperature and mass obtained from a single modified blackbody depend on the assumptions made on β. We show that, while the correlations between dust temperature, galaxy structure and star formation rate are strongly model dependent, the dust mass scaling relations are much more reliable, and variations of β only change the strength of the observed trends.

Description: We use dust scaling relations to investigate the hypothesis that Virgo cluster transition-type dwarfs are infalling star-forming field galaxies, which is argued based on their optical features (e.g. discs, spiral arms and bars) and kinematic properties similar to late-type galaxies. After their infall, environmental effects gradually transform them into early-type galaxies through the removal of their interstellar medium and quenching of all star formation activity. In this paper, we aim to verify whether this hypothesis holds using far-infrared diagnostics based on Herschel observations of the Virgo cluster taken as part of the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. We select transition-type objects in the nearest cluster, Virgo, based on spectral diagnostics indicative for their residual or ongoing star formation. We detect dust ( M d ~ 10 5-6 M ) in 36 per cent of the transition-type dwarfs located on the high end of the stellar mass distribution. This suggests that the dust reservoirs present in non-detections fall just below the Herschel detection limit (1.1 10 5 M ). Dust scaling relations support the hypothesis of a transformation between infalling late-type galaxies to quiescent low-mass spheroids governed by environmental effects, with dust-to-stellar mass fractions for transition-type dwarfs in between values characteristic for late-type objects and the lower dust fractions observed in early-type galaxies. Several transition-type dwarfs demonstrate blue central cores, hinting at the radially outside-in removal of gas and quenching of star formation activity. The fact that dust is also confined to the inner regions suggests that metals are stripped in the outer regions along with the gas. In the scenario of most dust being stripped from the galaxy along with the gas, we argue that the ejected metals by transition-type dwarfs significantly contribute to the enrichment of the intracluster medium over the lifetime of the Virgo cluster. The accretion of gas through tidal interactions and re-ignition of star formation in the centres of transition-type dwarfs could provide an alternative explanation for the observed dust scaling relations and blue central cores.