How house officers cope with their mistakes.

We examined how house officers coped with serious medical mistakes to gain insight into how medical educators should handle these situations. An anonymous questionnaire was mailed to 254 house officers in internal medicine asking them to describe their most important mistake and their response to it; 45% (N = 114) reported a mistake and completed the questionnaire. House officers experienced considerable emotional distress in response to their mistakes and used a variety of strategies to cope. In multivariate analysis, those who coped by accepting responsibility were more likely to make constructive changes in practice, but to experience more emotional distress. House officers who coped by escape-avoidance were more likely to report defensive changes in practice. For house officers who have made a mistake, we suggest that medical educators provide specific advice about preventing a recurrence of the mistake, provide emotional support, and help them understand that distress is an expected concomitant of learning from the experience.     

Polymorphic microsatellites and Wilson disease (WD)

Wilson disease (WD), an autosomal recessive disorder of copper metabolism, has been previously mapped to chromosome 13q. Highly informative PCR-based polymorphic microsatellites closely linked to the WD locus (WND) at 13q14.3, as well as sequence-tagged sites for closely linked loci, are described. Two polymorphic microsatellite markers at D13S118 and D13S119 lie within 3 cM of WND. Two others (D13S227 and D13S228) were derived from a yeast artificial chromosome containing D13S31. These were placed on a genetic linkage map of chromosome 13 and were typed in 74 multiplex WD families from a variety of geographic origins (166 affected members). Multipoint analysis provides very high odds that the location of WND is between D13S31/D13S227/D13S228 and D13S59. Previous odds with RFLP-based markers were only 7:1 more likely than any other location. Current odds are 5,000:1. Preclinical testing of three cases of WD by using the highly informative polymorphic microsatellite markers is described. The markers described here ensure that 95% of predictive tests using DNA from both parents and from at least one affected sib will have an accuracy >99%.     

Recolonization following past persecution questions the importance of persistent snow cover as a range limiting factor for wolverines

Globally, climate is changing rapidly, which causes shifts in many species' distributions, stressing the need to understand their response to changing environmental conditions to inform conservation and management. Northern latitudes are expected to experience strongest changes in climate, with milder winters and decreasing snow cover. The wolverine (Gulo gulo) is a circumpolar, threatened carnivore distributed in northern tundra, boreal, and subboreal habitats. Previous studies have suggested that wolverine distribution and reproduction are constrained by a strong association with persistent spring snow cover. We assess this hypothesis by relating spatial distribution of 1589 reproductive events, a fitness-related proxy for female reproduction and survival, to snow cover over two decades. Wolverine distribution has increased and number of reproductive events increased 20 times in areas lacking spring snow cover during our study period, despite low monitoring effort where snow is sparse. Thus, the relationship between reproductive events and persistent spring snow cover weakened during this period. These findings show that wolverine reproductive success and hence distribution are less dependent on spring snow cover than expected. This has important implications for projections of future habitat availability, and thus distribution, of this threatened species. Our study also illustrates how past persecution, or other factors, that have restricted species distribution to remote areas can mask actual effects of environmental parameters, whose importance reveals when populations expand beyond previously restricted ranges. Overwhelming evidence shows that climate change is affecting many species and ecological processes, but forecasting potential consequences on a given species requires longitudinal data to revisit hypotheses and reassess the direction and magnitude of climate effects with new data. This is especially important for conservation-oriented management of species inhabiting dynamic systems where environmental factors and human activities interact, a common scenario for many species in different ecosystems around the globe.     

The distribution of coastal fish eDNA sequences in the Anthropocene

Aim

Coastal fishes have a fundamental role in marine ecosystem functioning and contributions to people, but face increasing threats due to climate change, habitat degradation and overexploitation. The extent to which human pressures are impacting coastal fish biodiversity in comparison with geographic and environmental factors at large spatial scale is still under scrutiny. Here, we took advantage of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to investigate the relationship between fish biodiversity, including taxonomic and genetic components, and environmental but also socio-economic factors.

Location

Tropical, temperate and polar coastal areas.

Time period

Present day.

Major taxa studied

Marine fishes.

Methods

We analysed fish eDNA in 263 stations (samples) in 68 sites distributed across polar, temperate and tropical regions. We modelled the effect of environmental, geographic and socio-economic factors on α- and β-diversity. We then computed the partial effect of each factor on several fish biodiversity components using taxonomic molecular units (MOTU) and genetic sequences. We also investigated the relationship between fish genetic α- and β-diversity measured from our barcodes, and phylogenetic but also functional diversity.

Results

We show that fish eDNA MOTU and sequence α- and β-diversity have the strongest correlation with environmental factors on coastal ecosystems worldwide. However, our models also reveal a negative correlation between biodiversity and human dependence on marine ecosystems. In areas with high dependence, diversity of all fish, cryptobenthic fish and large fish MOTUs declined steeply. Finally, we show that a sequence diversity index, accounting for genetic distance between pairs of MOTUs, within and between communities, is a reliable proxy of phylogenetic and functional diversity.

Main conclusions

Together, our results demonstrate that short eDNA sequences can be used to assess climate and direct human impacts on marine biodiversity at large scale in the Anthropocene and can further be extended to investigate biodiversity in its phylogenetic and functional dimensions.     

An improved chemical fixation method suitable for immunogold localization of green fluorescent protein in the Golgi apparatus of tobacco Bright Yellow (BY-2) cells.

In plant systems, the green fluorescent protein (GFP) is increasingly used as a marker to study dynamics of the secretory apparatus using fluorescence microscopy. The purpose of this study was to immunogold localize the GFP, at the electron microscopic level, in a line of tobacco BY-2-cultured cells, expressing a GFP-tagged Golgi glycosyltransferase. To this end we have developed a simple, one-step chemical fixation method that allow good structural preservation and specific labeling with anti-GFP antibodies. Using this method, we have been able to show that an N-glycan GFP-tagged xylosyltransferase is specifically associated with Golgi stacks of BY-2 transformed cells and is preferentially located in medial cisternae. As an alternative to cryofixation methods, such as high-pressure freezing, which requires specialized and expensive equipment not available in most laboratories, this method offers researchers the opportunity to investigate GFP-tagged proteins of the endomembrane system in tobacco BY-2 cells.     

Purification, characterization, cDNA cloning and nucleotide sequencing of a cellulase from the yellow-spotted longicorn beetle, Psacothea hilaris.

A cellulase (endo-beta-1,4-glucanase, EC 3.2.1.4) was purified from the gut of larvae of the yellow-spotted longicorn beetle Psacothea hilaris by acetone precipitation and elution from gels after native PAGE and SDS/PAGE with activity staining. The purified protein formed a single band, and the molecular mass was estimated to be 47 kDa. The purified cellulase degraded carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), insoluble cello-oligosaccharide (average degree of polymerization 34) and soluble cello-oligosaccharides longer than cellotriose, but not crystalline cellulose or cellobiose. The specific activity of the cellulase against CMC was 150 micro mol.min-1.(mg protein)-1. TLC analysis showed that the cellulase produces cellotriose and cellobiose from insoluble cello-oligosaccharides. However, a glucose assay linked with glucose oxidase detected a small amount of glucose, with a productivity of 0.072 micro mol.min-1.(mg protein)-1. The optimal pH of P. hilaris cellulase was 5.5, close to the pH in the midgut of P. hilaris larvae. The N-terminal amino-acid sequence of the purified P. hilaris cellulase was determined and a degenerate primer designed, which enabled a 975-bp cDNA clone containing a typical polyadenylation signal to be obtained by PCR and sequencing. The deduced amino-acid sequence of P. hilaris cellulase showed high homology to members of glycosyl hydrolase family 5 subfamily 2, and, in addition, a signature sequence for family 5 was found. Thus, this is the first report of a family 5 cellulase from arthropods.