Metabarcoding for the parallel identification of several hundred predators and their prey: Application to bat species diet analysis

Assessing diet variability is of main importance to better understand the biology of bats and design conservation strategies. Although the advent of metabarcoding has facilitated such analyses, this approach does not come without challenges. Biases may occur throughout the whole experiment, from fieldwork to biostatistics, resulting in the detection of false negatives, false positives or low taxonomic resolution. We detail a rigorous metabarcoding approach based on a short COI minibarcode and two‐step PCR protocol enabling the “all at once” taxonomic identification of bats and their arthropod prey for several hundreds of samples. Our study includes faecal pellets collected in France from 357 bats representing 16 species, as well as insect mock communities that mimic bat meals of known composition, negative and positive controls. All samples were analysed using three replicates. We compare the efficiency of DNA extraction methods, and we evaluate the effectiveness of our protocol using identification success, taxonomic resolution, sensitivity and amplification biases. Our parallel identification strategy of predators and prey reduces the risk of mis‐assigning prey to wrong predators and decreases the number of molecular steps. Controls and replicates enable to filter the data and limit the risk of false positives, hence guaranteeing high confidence results for both prey occurrence and bat species identification. We validate 551 COI variants from arthropod including 18 orders, 117 family, 282 genus and 290 species. Our method therefore provides a rapid, resolutive and cost‐effective screening tool for addressing evolutionary ecological issues or developing “chirosurveillance” and conservation strategies.     

Screening and Identification of Marburg Virus Entry Inhibitors Using Approved Drugs

正Dear Editor,Marburg virus(MARV) belongs to the Filoviridae family,along with the related Ebola virus(EBOV). Although MARV is less renowned than EBOV, it causes an equally devastating disease, with clinical symptoms similar to EBOV infection and a remarkably high mortality rate. To     

High Rates of Obesity and Chronic Disease Among United Methodist Clergy

We used self‐reported data from United Methodist clergy to assess the prevalence of obesity and having ever been told certain chronic disease diagnoses. Of all actively serving United Methodist clergy in North Carolina (NC) 95% (n = 1726) completed self‐report height and weight items and diagnosis questions from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS). We calculated BMI categories and diagnosis prevalence rates for the clergy and compared them to the NC population using BRFSS data. The obesity rate among clergy aged 35–64 years was 39.7%, 10.3% (95% CI = 8.5%, 12.1%) higher than their NC counterparts. Clergy also reported significantly higher rates of having ever been given diagnoses of diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, angina, and asthma compared to their NC peers. Health interventions that address obesity and chronic disease among clergy are urgently needed.     

Cables1 protects p63 from proteasomal degradation to ensure deletion of cells after genotoxic stress

The p63 gene product regulates epithelial morphogenesis and female germline integrity. In this study, we show that cyclin‐dependent kinase 5 and Abl enzyme substrate 1 (Cables1) interacts with the trans‐activating (TA) p63α isoform to protect it from proteasomal degradation. Using the female germline of Cables1‐null mice as an in vivo model, we demonstrate further that oocytes lacking Cables1 exhibit lower basal levels of TAp63α and reduced accumulation of phosphorylated TAp63α in response to genotoxic stress. This in turn enhances the survival of these cells after ionizing radiation exposure. Thus, Cables1 modulates p63 protein stability and function during genotoxic stress.     

Temporal species richness‐biomass relationships along successional gradients

Abstract. Diversity‐biomass relationships are frequently reported to be hump‐shaped over space at a given time. However, it is not yet clear how diversity and biomass change simultaneously and how they are related to each other over time (e.g. in succession) at one locality. This study develops a temporal model based on the projected changes of various community variables in a generalized terrestrial environment after fire and uses post‐fire succession data on Santa Monica Mountains of southern California and other published succession data to examine the temporal diversity‐biomass relationships. The results indicate that in the early stages of succession, both diversity and biomass increase and a positive relationship appears, while in the late stages of succession, biomass continued to increase but diversity usually declines; thus a negative relationship may be observed. When the scales of measurement become sufficiently large so that the measured diversity and biomass cross various stages of succession, a ‘hump‐shaped’ relationship can emerge. The diversity‐biomass relationship appears to be concordant in space and time when appropriate scales are used. Formerly proposed explanations for spatial patterns may well apply to the temporal patterns (particularly colonization, facilitation and competitive exclusion).     

Hydrolysis of fish oil by hyperactivated rhizomucor miehei lipase immobilized by multipoint anion exchange

Rhizomucor miehei lipase (RML) is greatly hyperactivated (around 20‐ to 25‐fold toward small substrates) in the presence of sucrose laurate. Hyperactivation appears to be an intramolecular process because it is very similar for soluble enzymes and covalently immobilized derivatives. The hyperactivated enzyme was immobilized (in the presence of sucrose laurate) on cyanogen bromide‐activated Sepharose (very mild covalent immobilization through the amino terminal residue), on glyoxyl Sepharose (intense multipoint covalent immobilization through the region with the highest amount of Lys residues), and on different anion exchangers (by multipoint anionic exchange through the region with the highest density of negative charges). Covalent immobilization does not promote the fixation of the hyperactivated enzyme, but immobilization on Sepharose Q retains the hyperactivated enzyme even in the absence of a detergent. The hydrolysis of fish oils by these hyperactivated enzyme derivatives was sevenfold faster than by covalently immobilized derivatives and three and a half times faster than by the enzyme hyperactivated on octyl‐Sepharose. The open structure of the hyperactivated lipase is fairly exposed to the medium, and no steric hindrance should interfere with the hydrolysis of large substrates. These new hyperactivated derivatives seem to be more suitable for hydrolysis of oils by RML immobilized inside porous supports. In addition, the hyperactivated derivatives are fairly stable against heat and organic cosolvents. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 2011