A Candidate Subspecies Discrimination System Involving a Vomeronasal Receptor Gene with Different Alleles Fixed in M. m. domesticus and M. m. musculus

Assortative mating, a potentially efficient prezygotic reproductive barrier, may prevent loss of genetic potential by avoiding the production of unfit hybrids (i.e., because of hybrid infertility or hybrid breakdown) that occur at regions of secondary contact between incipient species. In the case of the mouse hybrid zone, where two subspecies of Mus musculus (M. m. domesticus and M. m. musculus) meet and exchange genes to a limited extent, assortative mating requires a means of subspecies recognition. We based the work reported here on the hypothesis that, if there is a pheromone sufficiently diverged between M. m. domesticus and M. m. musculus to mediate subspecies recognition, then that process must also require a specific receptor(s), also sufficiently diverged between the subspecies, to receive the signal and elicit an assortative mating response. We studied the mouse V1R genes, which encode a large family of receptors in the vomeronasal organ (VNO), by screening Perlegen SNP data and identified one, Vmn1r67, with 24 fixed SNP differences most of which (15/24) are nonsynonymous nucleotide substitutions between M. m. domesticus and M. m. musculus. We observed substantial linkage disequilibrium (LD) between Vmn1r67 and Abpa27, a mouse salivary androgen-binding protein gene that encodes a proteinaceous pheromone (ABP) capable of mediating assortative mating, perhaps in conjunction with its bound small lipophilic ligand. The LD we observed is likely a case of association rather than residual physical linkage from a very recent selective sweep, because an intervening gene, Vmn1r71, shows significant intra(sub)specific polymorphism but no inter(sub)specific divergence in its nucleotide sequence. We discuss alternative explanations of these observations, for example that Abpa27 and Vmn1r67 are coevolving as signal and receptor to reinforce subspecies hybridization barriers or that the unusually divergent Vmn1r67 allele was not a product of fast positive selection, but was derived from an introgressed allele, possibly from Mus spretus.     

Impact of vaginal microbiome communities on HIV antiretroviral-based pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drug metabolism

Despite the efficacy of antiretroviral-based pre-exposure prophylactics (PrEP) in men who have sex with men, studies in women have produced widely varying outcomes. Recent evidence demonstrates that vaginal microbial communities are associated with increased HIV acquisition risk and may impact PrEP efficacy. Here, we investigate the mechanisms underlying how vaginal bacteria alter PrEP drug levels and impact HIV infection rates ex vivo. Using cervicovaginal lavages (CVLs) from women with or without bacterial vaginosis (BV), we identified microbial metabolism of PrEP drugs in BV samples through LC-MS/MS analysis of soluble drug levels and metabolite formation in dual T-cell cultures. CVL samples were assessed for microbiome analysis using sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA genes. We also observed non-Lactobacillus bacteria that are associated with BV may potentially impact PrEP efficacy through increased HIV infection rates in co-cultures containing Lactobacillus or BV bacteria, PrEP drugs, CEM-GFP cells, and HIV-1_LAI virus. Finally, we used these data to develop a novel predictive mathematical simulation modeling system to predict these drug interactions for future trials. These studies demonstrate how dysbiotic vaginal microbiota may impact PrEP drugs and provides evidence linking vaginal bacteria to PrEP efficacy in women.     

Plasmid transformation of Streptomyces tendae after heat attenuation of restriction

Streptomyces tendae ATCC 31160 produces nikkomycin, a fungicide and insecticide that inhibits chitin synthases. Exposure of S. tendae protoplasts to 50 degrees C for 30 min is required for transformation (10(2) thiostrepton-resistant transformants micrograms of DNA-1) with plasmid pIJ702 or pIJ680 from Streptomyces lividans. pIJ702 and pIJ680 DNA isolated from the S. tendae transformants is efficient (10(6) to 10(7) transformants micrograms of DNA-1) in subsequent transformations of S. tendae protoplasts generated at 30 degrees C. PstI fails to cut the single PstI site in pIJ702 and cuts only one of the two PstI sites in pIJ680 DNA isolated from S. tendae transformants. Digests of plasmid DNA mixtures showed that plasmid DNA from S. tendae does not inhibit PstI activity. pIJ702 and pIJ680 DNA from S. tendae transformants was used to transform S. lividans to show that plasmid DNA remains unchanged, except for modification at some PstI sites in S. tendae, as a consequence of passage through S. tendae. The DNA modification is lost when S. lividans is transformed with plasmid DNA from S. tendae transformants. Since S. tendae modifies only some PstI sites, it appears the modification (presumably restriction activity also) activity in S. tendae recognizes a sequence that includes or overlaps the PstI hexanucleotide recognition sequence.     

Accumulation of CK-MM is impaired in innervated and contracting cultured muscle fibers of Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients

No specific abnormalities have been reproducibly manifested in aneurally cultured muscle of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients. We now report that the accumulation of the muscle-"specific" isozyme of creatine kinase (CK-MM) was significantly and preferentially impaired in long-term innervated contracting muscle fibers cultured from 4 DMD patients (DMD-InnCMFs) compared to: i) their noninnervated sister-cultured muscle fibers, and ii) innervated contracting control cultured human muscle fibers (Control-InnCHMFs). Accumulation of other muscle-"specific" isozymes (MSIs), viz. glycogen phosphorylase, phosphoglycerate mutase, and lactic dehydrogenase, was not significantly impaired. We have not observed preferentially-impaired CK-MM accumulation in any Control-InnCHMFs from 22 patients (children and adults) with a variety of neuromuscular diseases. There was no apparent difference between DMD-InnCMFs and Control InnCHMFs regarding: acceptance of innervation; neuronally-driven, virtually continuous muscle-fiber contractions; characteristic myofiber organization by phase-contrast microscopy, and increased longevity of the innervated fibers.     

Water Binding in Legume Seeds

The physical status of water in seeds has a pivotal role in determining the physiological reactions that can take place in the dry state. Using water sorption isotherms from cotyledon and axis tissue of five leguminous seeds, the strength of water binding and the numbers of binding sites have been estimated using van't Hoff analyses and the D'Arcy/Watt equation. These parameters of water sorption are calculated for each of the three regions of water binding and for a range of temperatures. Water sorption characteristics are reflective of the chemical composition of the biological materials as well as the temperature at which hydration takes place. Changes in the sorption characteristics with temperature and hydration level may suggest hydration-induced structural changes in cellular components.