Submergence of black ash logs to control emerald ash borer and preserve wood for American Indian basketmaking

相似文献   

Association of 25-Hydroxyvitamin D status and genetic variation in the vitamin D metabolic pathway with FEV1 in the Framingham Heart Study

Background

Vitamin D is associated with lung function in cross-sectional studies, and vitamin D inadequacy is hypothesized to play a role in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Further data are needed to clarify the relation between vitamin D status, genetic variation in vitamin D metabolic genes, and cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in lung function in healthy adults.

Methods

We estimated the association between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and cross-sectional forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV₁) in Framingham Heart Study (FHS) Offspring and Third Generation participants and the association between serum 25(OH)D and longitudinal change in FEV₁ in Third Generation participants using linear mixed-effects models. Using a gene-based approach, we investigated the association between 241 SNPs in 6 select vitamin D metabolic genes in relation to longitudinal change in FEV₁ in Offspring participants and pursued replication of these findings in a meta-analyzed set of 4 independent cohorts.

Results

We found a positive cross-sectional association between 25(OH)D and FEV₁ in FHS Offspring and Third Generation participants (P = 0.004). There was little or no association between 25(OH)D and longitudinal change in FEV₁ in Third Generation participants (P = 0.97). In Offspring participants, the CYP2R1 gene, hypothesized to influence usual serum 25(OH)D status, was associated with longitudinal change in FEV₁ (gene-based P < 0.05). The most significantly associated SNP from CYP2R1 had a consistent direction of association with FEV₁ in the meta-analyzed set of replication cohorts, but the association did not reach statistical significance thresholds (P = 0.09).

Conclusions

Serum 25(OH)D status was associated with cross-sectional FEV₁, but not longitudinal change in FEV₁. The inconsistent associations may be driven by differences in the groups studied. CYP2R1 demonstrated a gene-based association with longitudinal change in FEV₁ and is a promising candidate gene for further studies.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12931-015-0238-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

miR-503 represses human cell proliferation and directly targets the oncogene DDHD2 by non-canonical target pairing

Background

The pathways regulating the transition of mammalian cells from quiescence to proliferation are mediated by multiple miRNAs. Despite significant improvements in our understanding of miRNA targeting, the majority of miRNA regulatory networks are still largely unknown and require experimental validation.

Results

Here we identified miR-503, miR-103, and miR-494 as negative regulators of proliferation in primary human cells. We experimentally determined their genome wide target profiles using RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) immunoprecipitations and gene expression profiling. Analysis of the genome wide target profiles revealed evidence of extensive regulation of gene expression through non-canonical target pairing by miR-503. We identified the proto-oncogene DDHD2 as a target of miR-503 that requires pairing outside of the canonical 5′ seed region of miR-503, representing a novel mode of miRNA-target pairing. Further bioinformatics analysis implicated miR-503 and DDHD2 in breast cancer tumorigenesis.

Conclusions

Our results provide an extensive genome wide set of targets for miR-503, miR-103, and miR-494, and suggest that miR-503 may act as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer by its direct non-canonical targeting of DDHD2.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1279-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

SecA interacts with ribosomes in order to facilitate posttranslational translocation in bacteria

In Escherichia coli, translocation of exported proteins across the cytoplasmic membrane is dependent on the motor protein SecA and typically begins only after synthesis of the substrate has already been completed (i.e., posttranslationally). Thus, it has generally been assumed that the translocation machinery also recognizes its protein substrates posttranslationally. Here we report a specific interaction between SecA and the ribosome at a site near the polypeptide exit channel. This interaction is mediated by conserved motifs in SecA and ribosomal protein L23, and partial disruption of this interaction in?vivo by introducing mutations into the genes encoding SecA or L23 affects the efficiency of translocation by the posttranslational pathway. Based on these findings, we propose that SecA could interact with its nascent substrates during translation in order to efficiently channel them into the "posttranslational" translocation pathway.     

Chasing Jenner's vaccine: revisiting cowpox virus classification

Cowpox virus (CPXV) is described as the source of the first vaccine used to prevent the onset and spread of an infectious disease. It is one of the earliest described members of the genus Orthopoxvirus, which includes the viruses that cause smallpox and monkeypox in humans. Both the historic and current literature describe "cowpox" as a disease with a single etiologic agent. Genotypic data presented herein indicate that CPXV is not a single species, but a composite of several (up to 5) species that can infect cows, humans, and other animals. The practice of naming agents after the host in which the resultant disease manifests obfuscates the true taxonomic relationships of "cowpox" isolates. These data support the elevation of as many as four new species within the traditional "cowpox" group and suggest that both wild and modern vaccine strains of Vaccinia virus are most closely related to CPXV of continental Europe rather than the United Kingdom, the homeland of the vaccine.     

Assessing the effectiveness of a community intervention for monkeypox prevention in the Congo basin

Background

In areas where health resources are limited, community participation in the recognition and reporting of disease hazards is critical for the identification of outbreaks. This is particularly true for zoonotic diseases such as monkeypox that principally affect people living in remote areas with few health services. Here we report the findings of an evaluation measuring the effectiveness of a film-based community outreach program designed to improve the understanding of monkeypox symptoms, transmission and prevention, by residents of the Republic of the Congo (ROC) who are at risk for disease acquisition.

Methodology/Principal Findings

During 90 days, monkeypox outreach was conducted for ∼23,860 people in northern ROC. Two hundred seventy-one attendees (selected via a structured sample) were interviewed before and after participating in a small-group outreach session. The proportion of interviewees demonstrating monkeypox-specific knowledge before and after was compared. Significant gains were measured in areas of disease recognition, transmission, and mitigation of risk. The ability to recognize at least one disease symptom and a willingness to take a family member with monkeypox to the hospital increased from 49 and 45% to 95 and 87%, respectively (p<0.001, both). Willingness to deter behaviors associated with zoonotic risk, such as eating the carcass of a primate found dead in the forest, remained fundamentally unchanged however, suggesting additional messaging may be needed.

Conclusions/Significance

These results suggest that our current program of film-based educational activities is effective in improving disease-specific knowledge and may encourage individuals to seek out the advice of health workers when monkeypox is suspected.     

DNA barcode sequence identification incorporating taxonomic hierarchy and within taxon variability

For DNA barcoding to succeed as a scientific endeavor an accurate and expeditious query sequence identification method is needed. Although a global multiple-sequence alignment can be generated for some barcoding markers (e.g. COI, rbcL), not all barcoding markers are as structurally conserved (e.g. matK). Thus, algorithms that depend on global multiple-sequence alignments are not universally applicable. Some sequence identification methods that use local pairwise alignments (e.g. BLAST) are unable to accurately differentiate between highly similar sequences and are not designed to cope with hierarchic phylogenetic relationships or within taxon variability. Here, I present a novel alignment-free sequence identification algorithm--BRONX--that accounts for observed within taxon variability and hierarchic relationships among taxa. BRONX identifies short variable segments and corresponding invariant flanking regions in reference sequences. These flanking regions are used to score variable regions in the query sequence without the production of a global multiple-sequence alignment. By incorporating observed within taxon variability into the scoring procedure, misidentifications arising from shared alleles/haplotypes are minimized. An explicit treatment of more inclusive terminals allows for separate identifications to be made for each taxonomic level and/or for user-defined terminals. BRONX performs better than all other methods when there is imperfect overlap between query and reference sequences (e.g. mini-barcode queries against a full-length barcode database). BRONX consistently produced better identifications at the genus-level for all query types.