EVOLUTION OF DRIVING X CHROMOSOMES AND RESISTANCE FACTORS IN EXPERIMENTAL POPULATIONS OF DROSOPHILA SIMULANS

Sex-ratio drive is a particular case of meiotic drive, described in several Drosophila species, that causes males bearing driving X chromosome to produce a large excess of females in their progeny. In Drosophila simulans, driving X chromosomes and resistance factors located on the Y chromosome and on the autosomes have been previously reported. In this paper, we report the study of the dynamics of sex-ratio factors in experimental populations. We followed the evolution in frequency of driving X chromosomes in the absence of resistance factors and the evolution of resistance factors in the presence of driving X chromosomes. The driving X chromosome was lost, contrarily to theoretical expectations that predict its rapid invasion. Autosomal resistances increased in frequency, and resistant Y chromosomes invaded the population very quickly, as predicted by theoretical models. Fitness measurements showed that the loss of the driving X chromosome was due to a strong deleterious effect that was expressed only when distorting males were in competition with standard males. However, the spread of autosomal resistances reduced this deleterious effect. Implications for the maintenance of polymorphism in natural populations are discussed.     

Modeling of DNAPL-Dissolution,Rate-Limited Sorption and Biodegradation Reactions in Groundwater Systems

This article presents an approach for modeling the dissolution process of single component dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPL), such as tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene, in a biologically reactive porous medium. In the proposed approach, the overall transport processes are conceptualized as three distinct reactions. Firstly, the dissolution (or dissolving) process of a residual DNAPL source zone is conceptualized as a mass-transfer limited reaction. Secondly, the contaminants dissolved from the DNAPL source are allowed to partition between sediment and water phases through a rate-limited sorption reaction. Finally, the contaminants in the solid and liquid phases are allowed to degrade by a set of kinetic-limited biological reactions. Although all of these three reaction processes have been researched in the past, little progress has been made towards understanding the combined effects of these processes. This work provides a rigorous mathematical model for describing the coupled effects of these three fundamental reactive transport mechanisms. The model equations are then solved using the general-purpose reactive transport code RT3D (Clement, 1997).     

Sequence data: Magnitude and implications of some ambiguities

Summary Glx and Asx ambiguities introduce errors into evolutionary conclusions drawn from the sequences of incompletely analyzed proteins. These errors are of sufficient magnitude to invalidate some of these conclusions.     

Sex‐specific allelic transmission bias suggests sexual conflict at MC1R

Sexual conflict arises when selection in one sex causes the displacement of the other sex from its phenotypic optimum, leading to an inevitable tension within the genome – called intralocus sexual conflict. Although the autosomal melanocortin‐1‐receptor gene (MC1R) can generate colour variation in sexually dichromatic species, most previous studies have not considered the possibility that MC1R may be subject to sexual conflict. In the barn owl (Tyto alba), the allele MC1R_WHITE is associated with whitish plumage coloration, typical of males, and the allele MC1R_RUFOUS is associated with dark rufous coloration, typical of females, although each sex can express any phenotype. Because each colour variant is adapted to specific environmental conditions, the allele MC1R_WHITE may be more strongly selected in males and the allele MC1R_RUFOUS in females. We therefore investigated whether MC1R genotypes are in excess or deficit in male and female fledglings compared with the expected Hardy–Weinberg proportions. Our results show an overall deficit of 7.5% in the proportion of heterozygotes in males and of 12.9% in females. In males, interannual variation in assortative pairing with respect to MC1R explained the year‐specific deviations from Hardy–Weinberg proportions, whereas in females, the deficit was better explained by the interannual variation in the probability of inheriting the MC1R_WHITE or MC1R_RUFOUS allele. Additionally, we observed that sons inherit the MC1R_RUFOUS allele from their fathers on average slightly less often than expected under the first Mendelian law. Transmission ratio distortion may be adaptive in this sexually dichromatic species if males and females are, respectively, selected to display white and rufous plumages.     

Marcus treatment of endergonic reactions: A commentary

Two forms of the equation for expression of the rate constant for electron transfer through a Marcus-type treatment are discussed. In the first (exergonic) form, the Arrhenius exponential term was replaced by its classical Marcus term; in the second (endergonic) form, the forward rate constant was replaced by the reverse rate constant (the forward rate constant in the exergonic direction), which was expanded to an equivalent Marcus term and multiplied by the equilibrium constant. When the classical Marcus treatment was used, these two forms of the rate equation give identical curves relating the logarithm of the rate constant to the driving force. The Marcus term for the relation between activation free-energy, ΔG^#, reorganization energy, λ, and driving force, ΔG^o, derived from parabolas for the reactant and product states, was identical when starting from exergonic or endergonic parabolas. Moser and colleagues introduced a quantum mechanical correction factor to the Marcus term in order to fit experimental data. When the same correction factor was applied in the treatment for the endergonic direction by Page and colleagues, a different curve was obtained from that found with the exergonic form. We show that the difference resulted from an algebraic error in development of the endergonic equation.     

Morphological and RAPD markers show a highly skewed distribution in a pair of reciprocal crosses between hemisexual dogrose species, Rosa sect. Caninae

 The dogroses, Rosa sect. Caninae, are polyploid and characterized by their unique meiosis with an unequal number of chromosomes in the male and female gametes. The pollen cells have 7 chromosomes and the egg cells 21, 28 or 35 depending on the ploidy level of the species. The resulting matroclinal inheritance was studied with both morphological and molecular markers in a pair of reciprocal crosses between R. dumalis and R. rubiginosa (2n=35). A canonical discriminant analysis based on seven morphological characters showed only a minor overlapping between the two progeny groups. In addition, the R. dumalis×R. rubiginosa offspring were more heterogeneous than the offspring from the reciprocal cross in each of the characters analysed. Eleven RAPD markers specific for the R. dumalis parent and 10 RAPD markers specific for the R. rubiginosa parent were scored in the offspring. Each of the offspring exhibited either all, or all-but-one, of the seed parent markers. The average number of pollen donor markers found in the offspring was 3.2 (R. dumalis×R. rubiginosa) and 2.7 (R. rubiginosa×R. dumalis). About half of the pollen donor markers were never transmitted to the progeny. This is, to our knowledge, the first time the highly skewed chromosome distribution in Rosa sect. Caninae has been demonstrated with statistically evaluated morphological data and with molecular markers. Received: 25 June 1998 / Accepted: 28 July 1998     

因子与巢式交配设计群体近交率的比较研究

探讨了因子和巢式交配设计群体近交率的形成机理,结果表明,这两种交配设计群体结构本身并不导致基近交率累积的差异。在育种选择情况下因子交配设计比巢式设计群体的近交率上升慢,而在完全随机留种和限制随机种情形这两种酱地群体近交率的影响没有差异,但在交配设计情况下,限制随机留种比完全随机留有有交地控制群体近交率的提高。这一结果显示,在动物的家畜遗传留种比完全随机留各 效地控制群体近交率的提高。这一结果显示,     

白鹤冷冻精液人工授精实验

为了探索鹤类精液冷冻保存和使用技术,2003～2005年,进行了白鹤(Grus leucogeranus)的冷冻精液保存及人工授精实验。使用Beltsville家禽精液稀释液作为白鹤精液稀释液,12%的二甲基亚砜(DMSO)为冷冻液。精液样本冷冻经过三个阶段的降温,最后保存在液氮中。成功保存了编号93001雄性白鹤精液36 支（0.2 ml/支）。冷冻精液在0~4℃冰水中解冻3~5 min,解冻后白鹤精液精子活率为29.3%±15.5%（n=16）,2004和2005年分别为92101号雌鹤产的两窝卵进行人工授精实验,2年共产卵5枚,其中1枚卵受精并成功孵化。实验发现在雌鹤产卵前一周和产卵期间每天输精,并增加每次输精量,同时在产完1枚卵后4 h内完成一次输精,效果最佳。     

Weak cell cycle dependency but strong distortive effects of transfection with Lipofectamine 2000 in near‐physiologically synchronized cell culture

Previously, we reported a method to generate and validate cell cycle‐synchronized cultures of multiple mammalian suspension cell lines under near‐physiological conditions. This method was applied to elucidate the putative interdependencies of the cell cycle and recombinant protein expression in the human producer cell line HEK293s using Lipofectamine 2000 and the reporter plasmid pcDNA3.3 enhanced green fluorescent protein, destabilized using PEST sequence. A population‐resolved modeling approach was applied to quantitatively assess putative variations of cell cycle dependent expression rates based on the obtained experimental data. We could not confirm results published earlier by other groups, based on nonphysiological synchronization attempts, reporting transfection efficiency being strongly dependent on the cell cycle phase at transfection time point. On the other hand, it is demonstrated that transfection and protein expression distort the progression of the cell cycle.