The evolution of perennially enlarged breasts in women: a critical review and a novel hypothesis

The possession of permanent, adipose breasts in women is a uniquely human trait that develops during puberty, well in advance of the first pregnancy. The adaptive role and developmental pattern of this breast morphology, unusual among primates, remains an unresolved conundrum. The evolutionary origins of this trait have been the focus of many hypotheses, which variously suggest that breasts are a product of sexual selection or of natural selection due to their putative role in assisting in nursing or as a thermoregulatory organ. Alternative hypotheses assume that permanent breasts are a by-product of other evolutionary changes. We review and evaluate these hypotheses in the light of recent literature on breast morphology, physiology, phylogeny, ontogeny, sex differences, and genetics in order to highlight their strengths and flaws and to propose a coherent perspective and a new hypothesis on the evolutionary origins of perennially enlarged breasts in women. We propose that breasts appeared as early as Homo ergaster, originally as a by-product of other coincident evolutionary processes of adaptive significance. These included an increase in subcutaneous fat tissue (SFT) in response to the demands of thermoregulatory and energy storage, and of the ontogenetic development of the evolving brain. An increase in SFT triggered an increase in oestradiol levels (E2). An increase in meat in the diet of early Homo allowed for further hormonal changes, such as greater dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA/S) synthesis, which were crucial for brain evolution. DHEA/S is also easily converted to E2 in E2-sensitive body parts, such as breasts and gluteofemoral regions, causing fat accumulation in these regions, enabling the evolution of perennially enlarged breasts. Furthermore, it is also plausible that after enlarged breasts appeared, they were co-opted for other functions, such as attracting mates and indicating biological condition. Finally, we argue that the multifold adaptive benefits of SFT increase and hormonal changes outweighed the possible costs of perennially enlarged breasts, enabling their further development.     

Chitosan gelation induced by the in situ formation of gold nanoparticles and its processing into macroporous scaffolds

This work describes a simple synthetic route to induce chitosan (CHI) gelation by the in situ formation of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). AuNPs were obtained by thermal treatment (e.g., 40 and 80 °C) of CHI aqueous solutions containing HAuCl(4) and in the absence of further reducing agents. The CHI hydrogels resulting after AuNP formation were submitted to unidirectional freezing and subsequent freeze-drying via ISISA (ice-segregation-induced self-assembly) process for the preparation of CHI scaffolds. The study of AuNP-CHI scaffolds by SEM and confocal fluorescence microscopy revealed a morphological structure characteristic of the hydrogel nature of the samples subjected to the ISISA process. Interestingly, not only the morphology but also the dissolution and swelling degree of the resulting CHI scaffolds were strongly influenced by the strength of the hydrogels obtained by the in situ formation of AuNP. We have also studied the catalytic activity AuNP-CHI scaffolds in the reduction of p-nitrophenol. The negligible dissolution and low swelling degree obtained in certain AuNP-CHI scaffolds allowed them to be used for more than four cycles with full preservation of the reaction kinetics.     

Comparative Studies of Bacillus Cereus Strains Isolated From Various Foods and Food Poisoning Outbreaks

Certain properties of 22 Bacillus cereus strains isolated from different foods and food poisoning episodes were investigated in order to evaluate possible différences between strains isolated from diarrhoeal and vomiting type food poisoning outbreaks. None of the strains isolated from vomiting type episodes produced acid from salicin and mannose, whereas 80 and 40 % of the strains from diarrhoeal type outbreaks were positive, respectively. No association between the antibiotic sensitivity pattern or the fatty acid composition and the source of a strain could be found, although some strains differed from the general pattern of B. cereus in some instances. No significant differences in the production of the skin factor between strains isolated from the two types of outbreaks were found either. The findings of this study support the observation that the food environment itself essentially affects the enterotoxin formation of B. cereus.     

Parameter inference for stochastic biochemical models from perturbation experiments parallelised at the single cell level

Understanding and characterising biochemical processes inside single cells requires experimental platforms that allow one to perturb and observe the dynamics of such processes as well as computational methods to build and parameterise models from the collected data. Recent progress with experimental platforms and optogenetics has made it possible to expose each cell in an experiment to an individualised input and automatically record cellular responses over days with fine time resolution. However, methods to infer parameters of stochastic kinetic models from single-cell longitudinal data have generally been developed under the assumption that experimental data is sparse and that responses of cells to at most a few different input perturbations can be observed. Here, we investigate and compare different approaches for calculating parameter likelihoods of single-cell longitudinal data based on approximations of the chemical master equation (CME) with a particular focus on coupling the linear noise approximation (LNA) or moment closure methods to a Kalman filter. We show that, as long as cells are measured sufficiently frequently, coupling the LNA to a Kalman filter allows one to accurately approximate likelihoods and to infer model parameters from data even in cases where the LNA provides poor approximations of the CME. Furthermore, the computational cost of filtering-based iterative likelihood evaluation scales advantageously in the number of measurement times and different input perturbations and is thus ideally suited for data obtained from modern experimental platforms. To demonstrate the practical usefulness of these results, we perform an experiment in which single cells, equipped with an optogenetic gene expression system, are exposed to various different light-input sequences and measured at several hundred time points and use parameter inference based on iterative likelihood evaluation to parameterise a stochastic model of the system.     

Response of mitochondrial ATPase activity to uncouplers in isolated organelles and whole cells of Zajdela hepatoma

ATPase activity of coupled Zajdela hepatoma mitochondria was rendered uncoupler-sensitive by decreasing free fatty acids content in mitochondria or by preincubation of mitochondria with ATP prior to the addition of an uncoupler. The latter treatment resulted in an accelerated transport of ATP into the organelles. The effect of carbonylcyanide-m-chlorophenylhydrazone and oligomycin on the decrease of the ATP content in whole Zajdela hepatoma cells indicated that the hepatoma mitochondrial ATPase is stimulated by uncouplers $\text{in}\text{vivo}$. The conclusion is that the uncoupler-insensitive ATPase activity of coupled Zajdela hepatoma mitochondria is exhibited only by isolated organelles and results from a reduced $\text{ATP}\text{ADP}$ translocase activity.     

Studies on the assembly of cytochrome oxidase in isolated rat hepatocytes.

1. The assembly of rat liver cytochrome oxidase was studied in isolated hepatocytes and isolated liver mitochondria labelled with L-[35S]methionine. 2. Labelled subunits II and III appeared in the immunoabsorbed holoenzyme within minutes after the initiation of a pulse label. In contrast, labelled subunit I appeared in immunoabsorbed holoenzyme only after a subsequent 2 h chase or after an additional 2 h of labelling. Subunit I was heavily labelled, however, in intact mitochondria after 10 min. 3. A similar pattern of labelling was observed in holo-cytochrome oxidase which was chemically isolated by a small scale procedure adapted for this purpose. The appearance of subunit I in the holoenzyme was delayed for 1.5-2 h after a 60 min pulse with labelled methionine. 4. Incubation of hepatocytes for 4 h in the presence of cycloheximide had no effect on the labelling pattern described above. 5. Methods were developed in which newly translated, presumably unassembled, subunits of cytochrome oxidase could be separated from the holoenzyme by fractionation in Triton X-114. Short-term pulse experiments indicate that subunits II and III are associated with the holoenzyme fraction immediately after their completion, whereas subunit I is not. 6. The data are consistent with a model in which cytochrome oxidase assembly is viewed as an ordered and sequential event.