Immune Reactivity following Poly I·Poly C Treatment in Mice

POLYINOSINIC-polycytidylic acid (poly I·poly C) and other synthetic double stranded RNAs are known to be potent inducers of interferon¹, to enhance humoral^2,3 and cellular^3,4 immune responses and to exert a protective action against viral¹ and bacterial infections⁵ and tumours⁶. In addition to these protective effects, however, deleterious characteristics such as pyrogenicity in rabbits⁷ and toxicity in other species⁸ have been described. We show here that poly I·poly C can also produce either enhancement or depression of the immune response to sheep red blood cells (SRBC) depending on the time of injection of the polyribonucleotides in relation to antigenic stimulation.     

Interaction du photopériodisme et des effets de la zéatine, du saccharose et de ľeau dans la floraison du Chenopodium polyspermum

Interaction of photoperiodism and zeatin, sucrose and water effects on the flowering of Chenopodium polyspermum Root removal in Chenopodium polyspermum, a quatitative short-day plant, enhances flowering under non-inductive conditions. Presence of roots may be mimicked by zeatin applications on buds. Induction of flowering by short days may be counteracted by applications of zeatin, and appearance of flowers depends on the balance between number of inductive short days and zeatin quantity applied. Sucrose added in the culture medium or applied on buds acts as zeatin. Applications of water on buds may also delay flowering. These results show the plurifactorial regulation of the floral development of this plant. The relations between the non-specificity of the induction and the specificity of the morphogenetic response are discussed.     

Microsatellite markers in coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens)

Five polymorphic microsatellite markers are described for coast redwood, a hexaploid conifer. Dinucleotide (three), trinucleotide (one) and tetranucleotide (one) repeat loci were isolated from a genomic plasmid library and amplified in a test population of 25 second‐growth redwoods. There were three to 11 alleles per locus and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.00 to 0.80. The nonheterozygous locus (a CTTA repeat) is probably of chloroplast origin and may have potential as a marker for paternal inheritance.     

A taxonomic revision of western Eupholidoptera bush crickets (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae): testing the discrimination power of DNA barcode

The genus Eupholidoptera includes 46 Mediterranean species distributed from Turkey to Greece, Italy and southern France. In the eastern part of its range, Eupholidoptera has been considered to consist of several distinct species, while in the Balkans and Italian peninsula only E. chabrieri has been recognized. However, the status of some Italian populations, confined to particular geographic areas, remains uncertain. To investigate the delimitation of the Italian taxa of Eupholidoptera, we performed both morphological and molecular analyses. Morphological analysis was carried out by considering diagnostic characters usually used to distinguish different taxa, such as the shape of titillators in males and the subgenital plate in females. Molecular analysis was performed by sequencing three mitochondrial genes: 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, partially sequenced and the entire gene of cox1. Molecular markers were used to infer phylogenetic relationships among the Italian Eupholidoptera species and to reconstruct the historical processes that shaped their current geographic distribution. Results from both morphological and molecular analyses were used to revise the taxonomic arrangement of species. On the whole we were able to distinguish nine lineages of Italian Eupholidoptera, of which E. tyrrhenica sp.n. from Corsica is described as a new species. This published work has been registered in ZooBank, http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:EBD181A0-5263-4880-AC80-66F624506E3A .     

Variation in multiple paternity and sperm utilization patterns in natural populations of a simultaneous hermaphrodite land snail

Mating frequency has important implications for patterns of sexual selection and sexual conflict, and hence for issues such as the maintenance of genetic diversity and speciation. We assessed the level of multiple paternity and sperm utilization patterns in four natural populations of the simultaneous hermaphrodite land snail Arianta arbustorum using four polymorphic microsatellite loci. A total of 1088 offspring from 26 wild‐caught snails were genotyped to determine the number of fathers siring each brood and paternity skew in succeeding clutches. Multiple paternity was detected in the offspring of all 26 mother snails examined with the contribution of two to six fathers. The four populations examined differed in the level of multiple paternity. Snails in the population with the highest density of adults showed the highest level of multiple paternity, whereas snails in the population with the lowest density exhibited the lowest value of multiple paternity. Highly skewed paternity patterns were found in the progeny of 15 (57.7%) of the 26 mother snails. The number and identity of fathers siring the offspring of single mothers also varied among successive clutches. Furthermore, genetic analyses indicate a low level of self‐fertilization in one of the four populations. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 99 , 350–361.