濒危鱼类稀有白甲鱼沅江种群与西江种群形态度量学性状的差异性

分别以采自沅江水系142例和西江水系92例稀有白甲鱼标本为材料,采用差异系数法、方差分析法、判别分析法和主成分分析法,研究了稀有白甲鱼沅江种群、西江种群包括10个可数性状和31个比例性状等形态度量学性状的差异性.方差分析表明,2个种群之间共有6个可数性状和27个比例性状存在着显著性差异(P＜0.05).判别分析筛选出了9个对区分2个种群贡献较大的比例性状,并建立了2个种群的判别函数式.主成分分析显示,稀有白甲鱼种群鱼体沿背腹轴、头尾轴分别有16和6个比例性状表现出了明显的变化,在尾部有2个比例性状差异明显.可见2个种群之间形态度量学性状已显示了明显的分化.这可能是两个种群长期隔离,在不同水系生态环境中产生了适应性进化的结果.然而,差异系数的计算结果表明,两个种群之间形态度量学性状的差异尚未达到亚种分化的水平.     

青藏高原东缘常见种长毛风毛菊(Saussurea hieracioides)的繁殖分配

对分布在青藏高原东缘高寒草甸常见种长毛风毛菊的6个海拔梯度(3200～3850m)18个居群的繁殖分配进行了研究,结果表明:长毛风毛菊随海拔的升高个体和营养器官减小,繁殖的投入增加;随着海拔的升高,长毛风毛菊的个体管状小花数目和种子数目减少,管状小花重量和百粒重增大;个体管状小花的数目及重量和个体种子的数目及重量间存在权衡关系;长毛风毛菊的个体大小和繁殖分配存在负相关关系。在资源受限的环境下,长毛风毛菊以减少管状小花数目和种子的数目来增加管状小花重量和百粒重,是保证有性繁殖成功的策略之一。     

太行山猕猴的死婴携带行为初报

于2012年5月2日至5月28日,采用焦点动物取样法和全事件记录法对河南省济源市五龙口风景区的一个太行山猕猴群(WLK-5)内一例成年雌性的死婴携带行为进行了观察和记录。结果表明:死婴携带持续26d,属长期携带;母亲对死婴的照料行为主要包括携带行为、理毛行为和亲吻行为等;在此期间,母亲行为表现异常:情绪低落、胆小怕人、很少与其他个体接触。本文对猕猴的死婴携带行为进行了初步探讨。     

全雌系苦瓜ACC氧化酶基因cDNA克隆及序列分析

为研究1-氨基环丙烷-1-羧酸氧化酶(ACC氧化酶,ACO)基因在苦瓜性别分化中的作用,以全雌系苦瓜‘X-Hei-d-d’花蕾为试材,采用RT-PCR和RACE技术获得了ACC氧化酶基因(Mc-ACO1)的全长cDNA序列。该序列为1 137 bp(GenBank登录号:FJ459813),其完整开放阅读框长1 005 bp,编码334个氨基酸,预测分子量为37.30 kD,肽链N端缺失ACOs家族典型的1个保守区和2个保守二价铁离子/抗坏血酸依赖型双加氧酶氨基酸残基。序列分析表明,植物ACO基因的演化与其来源植物亲缘关系的一致性较高;与其他物种相比,苦瓜Mc-ACO1不同的氨基酸序列主要表现在肽链N端;苦瓜Mc-ACO1应属于黄瓜Cs-ACO2类成员,功能可能与性别分化相关。     

大剂量电离辐射对小鼠肺组织的影响

目的探讨大剂量电离辐射对小鼠肺的影响。方法 60Coγ照射小鼠,HE染色观察小鼠肺组织损伤,免疫组化检测小鼠肺转化生长因子β1(TGFβ1)和细胞间粘附因子1(ICAM1)的表达。结果大剂量照射后3d,小鼠肺发生明显异常病变,TGFβ1和ICAM1表达量明显增加。结论肺内皮细胞损伤和血管内物质外漏可能是急性放射性肺损伤的早期重要事件,早期检测ICAM1有助于预测急性放射性肺损伤的发生程度。     

Grazer exclusion alters plant spatial organization at multiple scales,increasing diversity

Grazing is one of the most important factors influencing community structure and productivity in natural grasslands. Understanding why and how grazing pressure changes species diversity is essential for the preservation and restoration of biodiversity in grasslands. We use heavily grazed subalpine meadows in the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau to test the hypothesis that grazer exclusion alters plant diversity by changing inter‐ and intraspecific species distributions. Using recently developed spatial analyses combined with detailed ramet mapping of entire plant communities (91 species), we show striking differences between grazed and fenced areas that emerged at scales of just one meter. Species richness was similar at very small scales (0.0625 m²), but at larger scales diversity in grazed areas fell below 75% of corresponding fenced areas. These differences were explained by differences in spatial distributions; intra‐ and interspecific associations changed from aggregated at small scales to overdispersed in the fenced plots, but were consistently aggregated in the grazed ones. We conclude that grazing enhanced inter‐ and intraspecific aggregations and maintained high diversity at small scales, but caused decreased turnover in species at larger scales, resulting in lower species richness. Our study provides strong support to the theoretical prediction that inter‐ and intraspecific aggregation produces local spatial patterns that scale‐up to affect species diversity in a community. It also demonstrates that the impacts of grazing can manifest through this mechanism, lowering diversity by reducing spatial turnover in species. Finally, it highlights the ecological and physiological plant processes that are likely responding to grazing and thereby altering aggregation patterns, providing new insights for monitoring, and mediating the impacts of grazing.     

辽宁本溪中三叠统林家瓣轮叶(新种)

在对中国东北辽宁本溪中三叠统林家组的化石研究中, 发现了木贼目瓣轮叶属一个新种——林家瓣轮叶(Lobatannularia linjiaensis sp. nov.)。该种叶轮小, 明显分成两瓣, 每瓣叶数约10–12枚。叶线形至倒披针形, 叶长差别大, 叶联合长度占叶长约1/3–3/4。自1927年Kawasaki建立瓣轮叶属以来, 该属已至少发现了33种, 其中大部分报道于二叠纪, 少数见于三叠纪。瓣轮叶属作为晚古生代华夏植物群孑遗分子之一, 当前该属新种的发现不仅丰富了瓣轮叶属的分类多样性, 而且拓展了对二叠纪-三叠纪之交生物大灭绝及之后复苏过程中瓣轮叶属演化趋势的认识。     

伞裙追寄蝇不同地理种群遗传多样性的ISSＲ分析

为从分子水平探索不同地区伞裙追寄蝇种群间的内在联系,本文利用ISSR分子标记技术对8个不同地区伞裙追寄蝇自然种群进行遗传多样性、种群间分化程度以及聚类分析等研究。结果表明:筛选出11对多态性稳定的ISSR引物,对8个地区伞裙追寄蝇群体的80个个体进行PCR扩增,共获得166个重复性好且清晰可辨的ISSR条带,平均每条引物扩增出15.0909个片段,且均为多态性条带,多态信息含量(PIC)为0.8441-0.8653;香农信息指数(I)为0.1240-0.3455;Nei's遗传多样性指数(H)为0.0841-0.2285;基因分化率(Gst)为28.78%,基因流(Nm)的均值为1.5702,即遗传变异主要存在于个体之间,不同种群间基因交流处于中等水平;8个地区伞裙追寄蝇种群被划分为4个类群,种群间的遗传分化与地理距离呈正相关关系。     

Rare Variants Association Analysis in Large-Scale Sequencing Studies at the Single Locus Level

Genetic association analyses of rare variants in next-generation sequencing (NGS) studies are fundamentally challenging due to the presence of a very large number of candidate variants at extremely low minor allele frequencies. Recent developments often focus on pooling multiple variants to provide association analysis at the gene instead of the locus level. Nonetheless, pinpointing individual variants is a critical goal for genomic researches as such information can facilitate the precise delineation of molecular mechanisms and functions of genetic factors on diseases. Due to the extreme rarity of mutations and high-dimensionality, significances of causal variants cannot easily stand out from those of noncausal ones. Consequently, standard false-positive control procedures, such as the Bonferroni and false discovery rate (FDR), are often impractical to apply, as a majority of the causal variants can only be identified along with a few but unknown number of noncausal variants. To provide informative analysis of individual variants in large-scale sequencing studies, we propose the Adaptive False-Negative Control (AFNC) procedure that can include a large proportion of causal variants with high confidence by introducing a novel statistical inquiry to determine those variants that can be confidently dispatched as noncausal. The AFNC provides a general framework that can accommodate for a variety of models and significance tests. The procedure is computationally efficient and can adapt to the underlying proportion of causal variants and quality of significance rankings. Extensive simulation studies across a plethora of scenarios demonstrate that the AFNC is advantageous for identifying individual rare variants, whereas the Bonferroni and FDR are exceedingly over-conservative for rare variants association studies. In the analyses of the CoLaus dataset, AFNC has identified individual variants most responsible for gene-level significances. Moreover, single-variant results using the AFNC have been successfully applied to infer related genes with annotation information.     

Placenta Growth Factor in Eyes with Neovascular Glaucoma Is Decreased after Intravitreal Ranibizumab Injection

Purpose

To evaluate changes in the concentrations of placental growth factor (PlGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) in aqueous humor of patients with neovascular glaucoma (NVG) before and after an intravitreal injection of ranibizumab (IVR) and to determine the underlying correlation between the levels.

Methods

The prospective interventional comparative study involved 20 eyes of 20 patients with surgery-required advanced NVG and 20 control subjects from January 2013 to November 2013. The NVG eyes received the IVR treatment before glaucoma surgery. Aqueous humor was collected at the time of the IVR injection (pre- IVR) and at the time of antiglaucomatous surgery (post-IVR). Aqueous humor was also collected at the time of cataract surgery in normal control. Aqueous humor and plasma VEGF-A and PlGF levels were measured with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay methods, respectively.

Results

The mean aqueous humor PlGF and VEGF-A concentrations in the pre-IVR eyes were significantly higher than in those of the control subjects (p<0.001), whereas the plasma levels showed no significant difference. There was a statistically significant correlation between the aqueous humor PlGF and the VEGF-A concentration (r = 0.612, p = 0.003). The mean aqueous humor PlGF in the post-IVR eyes dramatically decreased from 1078.36 ± 755.83 to 177.64 ± 151.73 pg/mL (p<0.001). The VEGF-A level showed a similar trend from 3697.64 ± 2104.47 pg/mL to 183.54 ± 130.35 pg/mL (p<0.001).

Conclusions

Aqueous humor concentrations of VEGF-A and PlGF were significantly elevated in the eyes with NVG, and there was a positive correlation between the levels. After an IVR treatment, VEGF-A and PlGF were significantly decreased in NVG eyes.