Variation in age at first reproduction of male Japanese fluvial sculpin induced by the timing of parental reproduction

The relationships between age and size at reproduction and lifetime reproductive output of male Japanese fluvial sculpin Cottus pollux were estimated by a mark-recapture study. Although all males were physiologically capable of breeding at age 2 years, age at first successful reproduction varied amongst individuals. Males with delayed reproduction had lower net reproductive rate than males that bred at age 2 years on average suggesting that age at first reproduction was a conditional strategy. Males that delayed reproduction were significantly smaller at age 1 and 2 years than males that bred at age 2 years. Despite no significant difference in body size of hatched yolk-sac larvae between the early and late phase of the breeding season, by May of the first year of life, progeny from nests in the early phase had hatched earlier and were larger than those from the nests in the late phase. The results suggested an important effect of timing of reproduction of parents on the growth and subsequent age at first reproduction of their progeny.     

零背景转座技术高效构建重组家蚕杆状病毒表达系统

摘要：【目的】获得零转座背景的基于家蚕核型多角体病毒(Bombyx mori Nucleopolyhedrovirus, BmNPV) Bac-to-Bac 系统,为高效经济构建重组BmNPV在家蚕体内表达目标蛋白提供新系统。【方法】利用R6Kγ作为复制子构建新的条件复制型杆状病毒转移载体pRADM,同时封闭BmNPV-Bacmid（BmBacmid）宿主菌（Escherichia coli BmDH10Bac）的Tn7转座受体位点attTn7,获得新的封闭型宿主菌E.coli BmDH10Bac△Tn7。【结果】由于pRADM无法在宿主菌E.coli BmDH10Bac中复制,封闭了attTn7位点的宿主菌也不能再和BmBacmid竞争与转移载体的重组,显著提高了转座效率。封闭宿主菌的attTn7位点,能使转座效率提高近4倍,使用条件复制型转座载体pRADM时,转座效率提高近10倍。而用pRADM转座E.coli BmDH10Bac△Tn7时,转座阳性率为100％。避免了获得重组病毒DNA的鉴定程序,缩短了获得重组蛋白所需时间。用携带红色荧光蛋白基因DsRed的重组质粒pRADM-Red转座E.coli BmDH10Bac△Tn7,获得重组BmBacmid转染BmN细胞,红色荧光蛋白在细胞中得到高效表达。【结论】结果表明pRADM和E.coli BmDH10Bac△Tn7是一种零背景高效构建重组BmNPV的新系统。     

Extremely rapid and reversible optogenetic perturbation of nuclear proteins in living embryos

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An alternative approach to asymptotic results on genetic composition when the population size is varying

This paper is concerned with methodology for studying the long-term genetic composition of a population of haploid individuals in the case where the population size is varying. A general approach requiring a minimum of assumptions is described based on constructing martingales out of expressions for the means of the numbers of allelic types, conditional on the past. Earlier investigations were based on studying the asymptotic behaviour of the proportion of alleles of a certain type in the population. Several applications demonstrate that the approach suggested in the paper provides results which usefully complement ones obtained previously.     

Bi-FoRe:an efficient bidirectional knockin strategy to generate pairwise conditional alleles with fluorescent indicators

Gene expression labeling and conditional manipulation of gene function are important for elaborate dissection of gene function.However,contemporary generation of pairwise dual-function knockin alleles to achieve both conditional and geno-tagging effects with a single donor has not been reported.Here we first developed a strategy based on a flipping donor named FoRe to generate conditional knockout alleles coupled with fluorescent allele-labeling through NHEJ-mediated unidirectional targeted insertion in zebrafish facilitated by the CRISPR/Cas system.We demonstrated the feasibility of this strategy at sox10 and isl1 loci,and successfully achieved Cre-induced conditional knockout of target gene function and simultaneous switch of the fluorescent reporter,allowing generation of genetic mosaics for lineage tracing.We then improved the donor design enabling efficient one-step bidirectional knockin to generate paired positive and negative conditional alleles,both tagged with two different fluorescent reporters.By introducing Cre recombinase,these alleles could be used to achieve both conditional knockout and conditional gene restoration in parallel;furthermore,differential fluorescent labeling of the positive and negative alleles enables simple,early and efficient realtime discrimination of individual live embryos bearing different genotypes prior to the emergence of morphologically visible phenotypes.We named our improved donor as Bi-FoRe and demonstrated its feasibility at the sox10 locus.Furthermore,we eliminated the undesirable bacterial backbone in the donor using minicircle DNA technology.Our system could easily be expanded for other applications or to other organisms,and coupling fluorescent labeling of gene expression and conditional manipulation of gene function will provide unique opportunities to fully reveal the power of emerging single-cell sequencing technologies.     

Phosphatonins: From Discovery to Therapeutics

ObjectivePhosphate is crucial for cell signaling, energy metabolism, nucleotide synthesis, and bone mineralization. The gut-bone-parathyroid-kidney axis is influenced by parathyroid hormone, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, and phosphatonins, especially fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23). These hormones facilitate maintenance of phosphate homeostasis. This review summarizes current knowledge regarding the phosphate homeostasis, phosphatonin pathophysiology, and clinical implications of FGF23-related hypophosphatemic disorders, with specific focus on burosumab treatment.MethodA focused literature search of PubMed was conducted.ResultsPhosphatonins including FGF23, secreted frizzled-related protein 4, matrix extracellular phosphoglycoprotein, and fibroblast growth factor 7 play a pathogenic role in several hypophosphatemic disorders. Excess FGF23 inhibits sodium-dependent phosphate cotransporters (NaPi-2a and NaPi-2c), resulting in hyperphosphaturia and hypophosphatemia. Additionally, FGF23 suppresses 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D synthesis in the proximal renal tubule, and thus, it indirectly inhibits intestinal phosphate absorption. Disorders of FGF23-related hypophosphatemia include X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH), autosomal dominant hypophosphatemic rickets, autosomal recessive hypophosphatemic rickets, fibrous dysplasia/McCune-Albright syndrome, and tumor-induced osteomalacia (TIO). Complications of conventional therapy with oral phosphate and vitamin D analogs comprise gastrointestinal distress, hypercalcemia, nephrocalcinosis, and secondary/tertiary hyperparathyroidism. In both children and adults with XLH and TIO, the anti-FGF23 antibody burosumab exhibits a favorable safety profile and is associated with healing of rickets in affected children and improvement of osteomalacia in both children and adults.ConclusionThe treatment paradigm for XLH and TIO is changing based on data from recent clinical trials. Research suggest that burosumab is effective and safe for pediatric and adult patients with XLH or TIO.     

Optimal sampling design and the accuracy of occupancy models

We present general theoretical limits on the possible accuracy (mean squared error or MSE) of occupancy estimates for a large range of occupancy study designs with imperfect detection and confirm our theoretical results via a simulation study. In particular, we show that for a given total survey effort, the best possible MSE is driven by two design-related factors: the fraction of visits made at occupied sites (regardless of whether that occupancy status is known or not) and the number of visits made to each site with unknown occupancy status (ie, sites with no detections). The limits reveal that there is very little room for improvement over optimal implementations of the three existing occupancy design paradigms: standard design (visit S sites K times each), removal design (visit S sites up to K times each, halting visits to each site following a positive detection), and conditional design (visit S sites once, then resurvey sites with a positive detection an additional $K-1$ times). For the small portion of the occupancy-detection parameter space where improvement can be achieved, we introduce a new hybrid survey design with accuracy closer to the theoretical limit, which we illustrate by reanalyzing an existing coyote (Canis latrans) camera trap dataset. Our results provide new clarity and intuition regarding key factors of occupancy study design.     

Ovulation is triggered by a cyclical modulation of gonadotropes into a hyperexcitable state

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FOXK1 promotes nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by mediating mTORC1-dependent inhibition of hepatic fatty acid oxidation

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Comparing two independent binomial proportions by a modified chi square test

When using the chi square test to compare the proportions of successes in two independent binomial samples, a new continuity correction is proposed, which equals half the size of the smaller sample. Exact computations of unconditional tail-probabilities, together with a theoretical argument, show that this correction is more appropriate than the YATES correction. This version of the chi square test is still conservative, but less so, and as a consequence more powerful, than the YATES corrected test.