Genetic control of insect pests: growth industry or lead balloon?

Genetic control is a form of biological control of pest species which exploits the insect's mate-seeking expertise to introduce genetic abnormalities (typically, but not necessarily, dominant lethal mutations) into the eggs of the wild population. The effectiveness of radiation-sterilized males depends on the mating competitiveness of released males being adequate in relation to the recovery potential of and rate of immigration into the target population. This technique is now being applied on a very large scale against agricultural pests especially in Mexico, Egypt and Japan. Variants on this technique, which may have advantages, include novel means of generating genetic loads in populations of Lepidioptera and sheep blowflies and the introduction into mosquito populations of genes making them unable to transmit malaria.     

Changes in fiber composition of soleus muscle during rat hindlimb suspension

Chronic reduction of gravitational load in the rear limbs of rats to simulate the influence of near-zero gravity in skeletal muscles has been shown previously to elicit atrophy in the soleus muscle. Use of this model by the present investigation indicates that soleus atrophy was characterized by a decline in the number of fibers in groups that contained the slow isoenzyme of myosin and which were classified as type I from intensity of staining to myofibrillar actomyosin adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) and to NADH tetrazolium reductase. Furthermore total fiber number was not changed, whereas fibers containing the intermediate isoenzyme and those classified as type IIa increased. There results could be explained by either a change in the composition within existing fibers or a simultaneous loss of slow fibers and de novo synthesis of intermediate and fast fibers. Evidence for transformation included an absence of embryonic or neonatal myosin in muscles from suspended rats and the constant fiber number that was unchanged by 4 wk of suspension. Furthermore although fiber areas of both groups of type I and IIa fibers declined during suspension, variability of the fiber areas within each group did not increase.     

Escherichia coli RecBC pseudorevertants lacking chi recombinational hotspot activity

Pseudorevertants of an Escherichia coli exonuclease V (RecBC enzyme)-negative mutant have been isolated after ethyl methane sulfonate mutagenesis of a recC73 (presumed missense) mutant. The remedial mutations in each of the four pseudorevertants studied in detail map and complement as recC mutations. By several criteria, such as recombination proficiency, support of phage growth, RecBC nuclease activity, and cell viability, the pseudorevertants appear to have regained partially or completely various aspects of RecBC activity. However, chi recombinational hotspots, which stimulate exclusively the RecBC pathway of recombination, have no detectable activity in lambda vegetative crosses in the pseudorevertants. The properties of these mutants, in which the RecBC pathway of recombination is active yet in which chi is not active, are consistent with the hypothesis that wild-type RecBC enzyme directly interacts with chi sites; alternatively, the mutants may block or bypass the productive interaction of another recombinational enzyme with chi.     

Experimental investigations in prolonged myocardial ischaemia. Note I. Biology of the myocardial fiber after transient myocardial fiber after transient myocardial ischaemia

The first ten days' evolution of post-ischaemic lesions of the premonitory or angina pectoris syndrome type was experimentally studied by the challenge of a short-term (10 and 15 min) ischaemia, of an adaptation to ischaemia and an adaptation followed by prolonged ischaemia (20 and 35 min). Worthy of note was the persistence of reversible lesions after short-term ischaemia and adaptation, and the progressive evolution towards cytolysis and cicatrization of some pancicellular foci after adaptation followed by prolonged ischaemia. The role of mitochondrial lesions, of lysosomal hydrolases, the inefficiency of renewed circulation, as well as problems of diagnosis are discussed.     

Selective diapedesis of Th1 cells induced by endothelial cell RANTES.

Differentiated CD4 T cells can be divided into Th1 and Th2 types based on the cytokines they produce. Differential expression of chemokine receptors on either the Th1-type or the Th2-type cell suggests that Th1-type and Th2-type cells differ not only in cytokine production but also in their migratory capacity. Stimulation of endothelial cells with IFN-gamma selectively enhanced transmigration of Th1-type cells, but not Th2-type cells, in a transendothelial migration assay. Enhanced transmigration of Th1-type cells was dependent on the chemokine RANTES produced by endothelial cells, as indicated by the findings that Ab neutralizing RANTES, or Ab to its receptor CCR5, inhibited transmigration. Neutralizing Ab to chemokines macrophage-inflammatory protein-1alpha or monocyte chemotactic protein-1 did not inhibit Th1 selective migration. Whereas anti-CD18 and anti-CD54 blocked basal levels of Th1-type cell adherence to endothelial cells and also inhibited transmigration, anti-RANTES blocked only transmigration, indicating that RANTES appeared to induce transmigration of adherent T cells. RANTES seemed to promote diapedesis of adherent Th1-type cells by augmenting pseudopod formation in conjunction with actin rearrangement by a pathway that was sensitive to the phosphoinositol 3-kinase inhibitor wortmannin and to the Rho GTP-binding protein inhibitor, epidermal cell differentiation inhibitor. Thus, enhancement of Th1-type selective migration appeared to be responsible for the diapedesis induced by interaction between CCR5 on Th1-type cells and RANTES produced by endothelial cells. Further evidence that CCR5 and RANTES play a modulatory role in Th1-type selective migration derives from the abrogation of this migration by anti-RANTES and anti-CCR5 Abs.     

Ellesmeris sphenopteroides,gen. ET SP. NOV., a new zygopterid fern from the Upper Devonian (Frasnian) of Ellesmere,N.W.T., Arctic Canada

A new fern-like fossil plant is described from the lower Upper Devonian of southern Ellesmere Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The plant occurs in an Archaeopteris-dominated flora preserved in the Nordstrand Point Formation (Mid-Late Frasnian) near Bird Fiord. The plant has a pinnate vegetative system with three branch orders and laminate sphenopteroid pinnules. Primary pinnae usually diverge from the main axis in distichous pairs (quadriseriate), but can depart singly (biseriate). Each primary pinna bears a basal catadromic aphlebia. Anatomically, the plant exhibits a mesarch, bipolar protostele that is ribbon- to clepsydropsoid-shaped in the main axis. Primary pinna traces are also initially bipolar and crescent-shaped, but may become four-ribbed before dividing into a pair of bipolar traces. The morphology and anatomy of this plant are nongymnospermous and are most similar to Zygopteridales (particularly Rhacophytaceae and Zygopteridaceae). The Frasnian age of Ellesmeris shows that laminated foliage had evolved in some zygopterid ferns much earlier than previously recognized. The Sphenopteris-like pinnules of Ellesmeris indicate the need for caution when attributing such a convergent foliar design to other plant groups, such as the Devonian gymnosperms.