Phylogeny of the Drosophila saltans species group based on combined analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences

Nucleotide sequences from two nuclear loci, alcohol dehydrogenase and internal transcribed spacer-1 of the nuclear ribosomal DNA repeats, and two mitochondrial genes, cytochrome oxidase I and cytochrome oxidase II, were determined from nine species in the Drosophila saltans species group. The partition homogeneity test and partitioned Bremer support were used to measure incongruence between phylogenetic hypotheses generated from individual partitions. Individual loci were generally congruent with each other and consistent with the previously proposed morphological hypothesis, although they differed in level of resolution. Since extreme conflict between partitions did not exist, the data were combined and analyzed simultaneously. The total evidence method gave a more resolved and highly supported phylogeny, as indicated by bootstrap proportions and decay indices, than did any of the individual analyses. The cordata and elliptica subgroups, considered to have diverged early in the history of the D. saltans group, were sister taxa to the remainder of the saltans group. The sturtevanti subgroup, represented by D. milleri and D. sturtevanti, occupies an intermediate position in this phylogeny. The saltans and parasaltans subgroups are sister clades and occupy the most recently derived portion of the phylogeny. As with previous morphological studies, phylogenetic relationships within the saltans subgroup were not satisfactorily resolved by the molecular data.      

Effects of CEPA and 1-MCP on Flower Bud Differentiation of Apple cv. ‘Nagafu No.2’ Grafted on Different Rootstocks

Journal of Plant Growth Regulation - The apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) has a relatively long sapling stage which prevents fruit breeding. The understanding of the flowering system is important to...     

Aging effects on DNA methylation modules in human brain and blood tissue

Background

Several recent studies reported aging effects on DNA methylation levels of individual CpG dinucleotides. But it is not yet known whether aging-related consensus modules, in the form of clusters of correlated CpG markers, can be found that are present in multiple human tissues. Such a module could facilitate the understanding of aging effects on multiple tissues.

Results

We therefore employed weighted correlation network analysis of 2,442 Illumina DNA methylation arrays from brain and blood tissues, which enabled the identification of an age-related co-methylation module. Module preservation analysis confirmed that this module can also be found in diverse independent data sets. Biological evaluation showed that module membership is associated with Polycomb group target occupancy counts, CpG island status and autosomal chromosome location. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that the aging-related consensus module comprises genes that are involved in nervous system development, neuron differentiation and neurogenesis, and that it contains promoter CpGs of genes known to be down-regulated in early Alzheimer's disease. A comparison with a standard, non-module based meta-analysis revealed that selecting CpGs based on module membership leads to significantly increased gene ontology enrichment, thus demonstrating that studying aging effects via consensus network analysis enhances the biological insights gained.

Conclusions

Overall, our analysis revealed a robustly defined age-related co-methylation module that is present in multiple human tissues, including blood and brain. We conclude that blood is a promising surrogate for brain tissue when studying the effects of age on DNA methylation profiles.     

Barriers and facilitators to implement shared decision making in multidisciplinary sciatica care: a qualitative study

Background

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common preventable cause of mortality in hospitalized medical patients. Despite rigorous randomized trials generating strong recommendations for anticoagulant use to prevent VTE, nearly 40% of medical patients receive inappropriate thromboprophylaxis. Knowledge-translation strategies are needed to bridge this gap.

Methods

We conducted a 16-week pilot cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine the proportion of medical patients that were appropriately managed for thromboprophylaxis (according to the American College of Chest Physician guidelines) within 24 hours of admission, through the use of a multicomponent knowledge-translation intervention. Our primary goal was to determine the feasibility of conducting this study on a larger scale. The intervention comprised clinician education, a paper-based VTE risk assessment algorithm, printed physicians’ orders, and audit and feedback sessions. Medical wards at six hospitals (representing clusters) in Ontario, Canada were included; three were randomized to the multicomponent intervention and three to usual care (i.e., no active strategies for thromboprophylaxis in place). Blinding was not used.

Results

A total of 2,611 patients (1,154 in the intervention and 1,457 in the control group) were eligible and included in the analysis. This multicomponent intervention did not lead to a significant difference in appropriate VTE prophylaxis rates between intervention and control hospitals (appropriate management rate odds ratio = 0.80; 95% confidence interval: 0.50, 1.28; p = 0.36; intra-class correlation coefficient: 0.022), and thus was not considered feasible. Major barriers to effective knowledge translation were poor attendance by clinical staff at education and feedback sessions, difficulty locating preprinted orders, and lack of involvement by clinical and administrative leaders. We identified several factors that may increase uptake of a VTE prophylaxis strategy, including local champions, support from clinical and administrative leaders, mandatory use, and a simple, clinically relevant risk assessment tool.

Conclusions

Hospitals allocated to our multicomponent intervention did not have a higher rate of medical inpatients appropriately managed for thromboprophylaxis than did hospitals that were not allocated to this strategy.     

Aspects of early arthritis. What determines the evolution of early undifferentiated arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis? An update from the Norfolk Arthritis Register

Over 3500 patients with recent onset inflammatory polyarthritis (IP) have been recruited by the Norfolk Arthritis Register (NOAR) since 1990. Longitudinal data from this cohort have been used to examine the prevalence and predictors of remission, functional disability, radiological outcome, cardiovascular mortality and co-morbidity and the development of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Rheumatoid factor titre, high baseline C-reactive protein and high baseline HAQ score are all predictors of a poor outcome. There is a strong association between possession of the shared epitope and the development of erosions. Patients who satisfy the American College of Rheumatology criteria for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have a worse prognosis than those who do not. However, it appears that these patients are a poorly defined subset of all those with IP rather than having an entirely separate disease entity. New statistical techniques offer exciting possibilities for using longitudinal datasets such as NOAR to explore the long-term effects of treatment in IP and RA.     

Increased variation in sex organ positions can increase reciprocity and pollination success in heterostylous plant populations

The reciprocal position of sexual organs in complementary floral morphs is central to our understanding of heterostyly. Reciprocity indices are used to quantify the spatial match between complementary sex organs, but previous indices fail to appropriately account for intra-population variation in sex organ positions. In this study, we examine how an increase in intra-population variation in sex organ heights affects reciprocity and consequently reproductive success. We formulated a reciprocity index that incorporates this variation and asked if estimates of reciprocity can predict reproductive success in naturally occurring heterostylous populations. We developed a reciprocity index that assumed pollen transfer success equalled one for a perfectly matched stigma–anther pair, and decreased to zero with increasing mismatch. We examined the relationship between intra-population variation in organ position and reciprocity, compared previously proposed indices using simulated populations and empirical data from natural populations, and tested the ability of the indices to predict reproductive success. We observed that when differences between mean complementary sex-organ heights are small, increasing intra-population variation in heights resulted in a decrease in reciprocity. However, when this difference is larger, reciprocity increased, reached a peak, and then decreased with increasing variation. Previous indices failed to capture this behavior. Seed set was positively related to reciprocity for our index. These results challenge the current understanding that increasing variation in sex-organ heights will always decrease reciprocity in heterostylous populations. This may help explain why heterostylous systems exhibit and tolerate high amounts of intra-population variation in sex organ heights.     

Modeling human arthritic diseases in nonhuman primates

Models of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in laboratory animals are important tools for research into pathogenic mechanisms and the development of effective, safe therapies. Rodent models (rats and mice) have provided important information about the pathogenic mechanisms. However, the evolutionary distance between rodents and humans hampers the translation of scientific principles into effective therapies. The impact of the genetic distance between the species is especially seen with treatments based on biological molecules, which are usually species-specific. The outbred nature and the closer anatomical, genetic, microbiological, physiological, and immunological similarity of nonhuman primates to humans may help to bridge the wide gap between inbred rodent strain models and the heterogeneous RA patient population. Here we review clinical, immunological and pathological aspects of the rhesus monkey model of collagen-induced arthritis, which has emerged as a reproducible model of human RA in nonhuman primates.     

Angiostrongylus cantonensis infection in molluscs in the municipality of S?o Gon?alo,a metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro,Brazil: role of the invasive species Achatina fulica in parasite transmission dynamics

The aim of this study was to analyse the infection dynamics ofAngiostrongylus cantonensis in its possible intermediate hosts over two years in an urban area in the state of Rio de Janeiro where the presence ofA. cantonensis had been previously recorded in molluscs. Four of the seven mollusc species found in the study were exotic.Bradybaena similaris was the most abundant, followed byAchatina fulica, Streptaxis sp., Subulina octona, Bulimulus tenuissimus, Sarasinula linguaeformis and Leptinaria unilamellata. Only A. fulica and B. similaris were parasitised by A. cantonensis and both presented co-infection with other helminths. The prevalence of A. cantonensisin A. fulica was more than 50% throughout the study. There was an inverse correlation between the population size ofA. fulica and the prevalence of A. cantonensis and abundance of the latter was negatively related to rainfall. The overall prevalence of A. cantonensis in B. similariswas 24.6%. A. fulica was the most important intermediary host of A. cantonensis in the studied area andB. similaris was secondary in importance for A. cantonensis transmission dynamics.