Integrity of developing spinal motor columns is regulated by neural crest derivatives at motor exit points

Spinal motor neurons must extend their axons into the periphery through motor exit points (MEPs), but their cell bodies remain within spinal motor columns. It is not known how this partitioning is established in development. We show here that motor neuron somata are confined to the CNS by interactions with a neural crest subpopulation, boundary cap (BC) cells that prefigure the sites of spinal MEPs. Elimination of BC cells by surgical or targeted genetic ablation does not perturb motor axon outgrowth but results in motor neuron somata migrating out of the spinal cord by translocating along their axons. Heterologous neural crest grafts in crest-ablated embryos stop motor neuron emigration. Thus, before the formation of a mature transitional zone at the MEP, BC cells maintain a cell-tight boundary that allows motor axons to cross but blocks neuron migration.     

The Impact of Escaped Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar L.) on Catch Statistics in Scotland

In Scotland and elsewhere, there are concerns that escaped farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) may impact on wild salmon stocks. Potential detrimental effects could arise through disease spread, competition, or inter-breeding. We investigated whether there is evidence of a direct effect of recorded salmon escape events on wild stocks in Scotland using anglers' counts of caught salmon (classified as wild or farmed) and sea trout (Salmo trutta L.). This tests specifically whether documented escape events can be associated with reduced or elevated escapes detected in the catch over a five-year time window, after accounting for overall variation between areas and years. Alternate model frameworks were somewhat inconsistent, however no robust association was found between documented escape events and higher proportion of farm-origin salmon in anglers' catch, nor with overall catch size. A weak positive correlation was found between local escapes and subsequent sea trout catch. This is in the opposite direction to what would be expected if salmon escapes negatively affected wild fish numbers. Our approach specifically investigated documented escape events, contrasting with earlier studies examining potentially wider effects of salmon farming on wild catch size. This approach is more conservative, but alleviates some potential sources of confounding, which are always of concern in observational studies. Successful analysis of anglers' reports of escaped farmed salmon requires high data quality, particularly since reports of farmed salmon are a relatively rare event in the Scottish data. Therefore, as part of our analysis, we reviewed studies of potential sensitivity and specificity of determination of farmed origin. Specificity estimates are generally high in the literature, making an analysis of the form we have performed feasible.     

Lactobacillus plantarum possesses the capability for wall teichoic acid backbone alditol switching

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Specific strains of Lactobacillus plantarum are marketed as health-promoting probiotics. The role and interplay of cell-wall compounds like wall- and lipo-teichoic acids (WTA and LTA) in bacterial physiology and probiotic-host interactions remain obscure. L. plantarum WCFS1 harbors the genetic potential to switch WTA backbone alditol, providing an opportunity to study the impact of WTA backbone modifications in an isogenic background. RESULTS: Through genome mining and mutagenesis we constructed derivatives that synthesize alternative WTA variants. The mutants were shown to completely lack WTA, or produce WTA and LTA that lack D-Ala substitution, or ribitol-backbone WTA instead of the wild-type glycerol-containing backbone. DNA micro-array experiments established that the tarIJKL gene cluster is required for the biosynthesis of this alternative WTA backbone, and suggest ribose and arabinose are precursors thereof. Increased tarIJKL expression was not observed in any of our previously performed DNA microarray experiments, nor in qRT-PCR analyses of L. plantarum grown on various carbon sources, leaving the natural conditions leading to WTA backbone alditol switching, if any, to be identified. Human embryonic kidney NF-kappaB reporter cells expressing Toll like receptor (TLR)-2/6 were exposed to purified WTAs and/or the TA mutants, indicating that WTA is not directly involved in TLR-2/6 signaling, but attenuates this signaling in a backbone independent manner, likely by affecting the release and exposure of immunomodulatory compounds such as LTA. Moreover, human dendritic cells did not secrete any cytokines when purified WTAs were applied, whereas they secreted drastically decreased levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-12p70 and TNF-alpha after stimulation with the WTA mutants as compared to the wild-type. CONCLUSIONS: The study presented here correlates structural differences in WTA to their functional characteristics, thereby providing important information aiding to improve our understanding of molecular host-microbe interactions and probiotic functionality.     

Molecular cloning and characterisation of a novel P-glycoprotein in the salmon louse Lepeophtheirus salmonis

The salmon louse, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, is a crustacean ectoparasite of salmonid fish. At present, sea louse control on salmon farms relies heavily upon chemical treatments. Drug efflux transport, mediated by ABC transporters such as P-glycoprotein (Pgp), represents a major mechanism for drug resistance in parasites. We report here the molecular cloning of a new Pgp from the salmon louse, called SL-PGY1. A partial Pgp sequence was obtained by searching sea louse ESTs, and extended by rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE). The open reading frame of SL-PGY1 encodes a protein of 1438 amino acids that possesses typical structural traits of P-glycoproteins, and shows a high degree of sequence homology to invertebrate and vertebrate P-glycoproteins. In the absence of drug exposure, SL-PGY1 mRNA expression levels did not differ between a drug-susceptible strain of L. salmonis and a strain showing a ~7-fold decrease in sensitivity against emamectin benzoate, the active component of the in-feed sea louse treatment SLICE (Merck Animal Health). Aqueous exposure of the hyposensitive salmon louse strain to emamectin benzoate (24h, 410 μg/L) provoked a 2.9-fold upregulation of SL-PGY1. Adult male lice of both strains showed a greater abundance of SL-PGY1 mRNA than adult females.     

AtMND1 is required for homologous pairing during meiosis in Arabidopsis

Background  

Pairing of homologous chromosomes at meiosis is an important requirement for recombination and balanced chromosome segregation among the products of meiotic division. Recombination is initiated by double strand breaks (DSBs) made by Spo11 followed by interaction of DSB sites with a homologous chromosome. This interaction requires the strand exchange proteins Rad51 and Dmc1 that bind to single stranded regions created by resection of ends at the site of DSBs and promote interactions with uncut DNA on the homologous partner. Recombination is also considered to be dependent on factors that stabilize interactions between homologous chromosomes. In budding yeast Hop2 and Mnd1 act as a complex to promote homologous pairing and recombination in conjunction with Rad51 and Dmc1.     

Characterization of signal-sequence-coding regions selected from the Bacillus subtilis chromosome

Signal-sequence-coding regions for protein export were selected from chromosomal Bacillus subtilis DNA. The number of different signals obtained was higher than expected on the basis of known exported proteins in B. subtilis.

Most of the selected regions showed the characteristics of typical signal sequences, including a basic N-terminal region followed by a hydrophobic core and a potential signal-peptidase cleavage site.

The signal-coding regions were functionally interchangeable between the β. licheniformis -amylase and Escherichia coli TEM β-lactamase genes. In addition to the signal-sequence-coding regions, the nature of the host cells, and the mature parts of the reporter proteins contributed to the amounts of protein secreted.     

No glycolipid anchors are added to Thy-1 glycoprotein in Thy-1-negative mutant thymoma cells of four different complementation classes.

Recent evidence shows that the mature Thy-1 surface glycoprotein lacks the C-terminal amino acids 113 to 143 predicted from the cDNA sequence and is anchored in the plasma membrane by a complex, phosphatidylinositol-containing glycolipid attached to the alpha-carboxyl group of amino acid 112. Here we studied the biosynthesis of Thy-1 in two previously described and two newly isolated Thy-1-deficient mutant cell lines. Somatic cell hybridization indicated that their mutations affected some processing step rather than the Thy-1 structural gene. The Thy-1 made by mutants of classes C, F, and H bound detergent but, in contrast to wild-type Thy-1, their detergent-binding moieties could not be removed by phospholipase C. In addition, tryptophan, which only occurs in position 124, was incorporated into Thy-1 of these mutants but not of wild-type cells. Last, the Thy-1 of wild-type but not mutant cells could be radiolabeled with [3H]palmitic acid. Together, these findings strongly suggest that mutants of classes C, F, and H accumulate a biosynthetic intermediate of Thy-1 which retains at least part of the hydrophobic C-terminal peptide. The Thy-1 of these mutants remained endoglycosidase H sensitive, suggesting that it accumulated in the rough endoplasmic reticulum or the Cis-Golgi. A different Thy-1 intermediate was found in a class B mutant cell line: the Thy-1 of this mutant was 2 kilodaltons smaller than the Thy-1 of other cell lines, did not bind detergent, and was rapidly secreted via a normal secretory pathway.