The effect of population structure on the adaptive radiation of microbial populations evolving in spatially structured environments

Spatial structure is thought to be an important factor influencing the emergence and maintenance of genetic diversity. Previous studies have demonstrated that environmental heterogeneity, provided by spatial structure, leads to adaptive radiation of populations. In the present study, we investigate not only the impact of environmental heterogeneity on adaptive radiation, but also of population fragmentation and niche construction. Replicate populations founded by a single genotype of Escherichia coli were allowed to evolve for 900 generations by serial transfer in either a homogeneous environment, or a spatially structured environment that was either kept intact or destroyed with each daily transfer. Only populations evolving in the structured environment with intact population structure diversified: clones are significantly divergent in sugar catabolism, and show frequency-dependent fitness interactions indicative of stable coexistence. These findings demonstrate an important role for population fragmentation, a consequence of population structure in spatially structured environments, on the diversification of populations.     

Comparison of Post‐mining Rehabilitation with Reference Ecosystems in Monsoonal Eucalypt Woodlands,Northern Australia

Rehabilitation of post‐mining lands frequently aims to create “self‐sustaining” systems. Where native vegetation is the designated post‐mining land use, it is generally assumed that rehabilitation that is similar to local native ecosystems is more likely to be sustainable. I compared landscape functionality, plant community composition, and vegetation structure in (1) reference sites representing pre‐mining native forest; (2) reference sites representing potential landscape analogues for the post‐mining landscape; and (3) a 23‐year chronosequence of post‐mining rehabilitation on the Weipa bauxite plateau, Cape York Peninsula, Australia. The trends across the post‐mining chronosequence indicate that vegetation growth is rapid in the first 5–8 years, and then slows with mean height approaching an asymptote after approximately 15 years. Landscape function indices showed a response that coincided with vegetation growth. Vegetation composition was significantly different from reference native forest. Most importantly, from the perspective of creating self‐sustaining ecosystems, the contribution of local framework species to vegetation in rehabilitation was significantly lower than in reference native forest. I discuss the results in relation to theoretical models of succession and conclude that without management intervention, differences between post‐mining rehabilitation and native forest are likely to be persistent.     

贵州省城镇建设用地扩展的时空演变特征

选择贵州省的85个城镇为研究区,运用1973年1∶5万地形图,1986、1995、2000和2007年4期高分辨率遥感影像,选取城镇扩展动态度指数、城镇扩展贡献率指数和城镇扩展强度指数3个指标,构建城镇综合扩展程度指数模型,定量分析了1973—2007年4个时期贵州省城镇建设用地扩展的总体特征和时空分异特征。结果表明:从1973—2007年,贵州省城镇建设用地呈持续增长态势,城镇建设用地面积共增加17550.8915hm2,其中2000—2007年贵州省城镇建设用地扩展面积最大,动态度、贡献率和强度指数均最大;研究区建设用地扩展具有明显的空间分异特征,1973—1986年,城镇建设用地扩展主要集中在省会城市贵阳市,1986—1995年,地级城市所在城镇扩展面积和强度快速提高,1995—2000年,交通沿线城镇扩展速度加快,2000—2007年,贵州省城镇扩展强度和综合扩展程度不仅在贵阳市和地级城市较快,而且在区位和自然条件良好的县级城镇也迅速提高。     

Cadmium toxicity: Effects on cytoskeleton,vesicular trafficking and cell wall construction

Cadmium is a well-known environmental pollutant with distinctly toxic effects on plants. It can displace certain essential metals from a wealth of metalloproteins, and thus disturb many normal physiological processes and cause severe developmental aberrant. The harmful effects of cadmium stress include, but are not limited to: reactive oxygen species overproduction, higher lipid hydroperoxide contents, and chloroplast structure change, which may lead to cell death. Plants have developed diverse mechanisms to alleviate environmental cadmium stress, e.g., cadmium pump and transporting cadmium into the leaf vacuoles. This mini-review focuses on the current research into understanding the cellular mechanisms of cadmium toxicity on cytoskeleton, vesicular trafficking and cell wall formation in plants.     

葡萄种质资源初级核心群的构建

以国家果树种质郑州葡萄圃保存的867份栽培种质为材料,对47项表型性状进行了主成分分析。采用欧氏遗传距离、离差平方和法进行种质初选。采用分组和逐步聚类法,分别以15%、20%、25%和30%的比例抽样,依次获得124、170、205和252份种质。通过对初选种质的遗传多样性指数、表型保留比例的分析,检验初级核心群的构建效果。结果表明,按种质类型分组,组内采用平方根策略、15%抽样比例获得的124份初选种质的表型保留比例和遗传多样性代表性均达到96%,表明构建的初级核心群对原始种质具有很好的代表性。     

基于网络环境下植物学实验课程的设计与构建

植物学实验网络课程是植物学实验教与学的网络平台。探讨网络环境下植物学实验课程体系的结构和网络教学系统组成,通过建立植物学实验网络辅助教学系统并予以应用,优化整合资源,探索提高植物学实验教学质量的途径。     

白细胞介素-21与乙型肝炎病毒前S2S抗原融合蛋白在293T细胞中的表达

目的:构建白细胞介素-21(interleukin-21,IL-21)和乙型肝炎病毒前S2S抗原(S2S)的融合表达质粒,并研究其在293T细胞中的表达。方法:采用PCR方法扩增IL-21和HBV前S2S基因片段,分别克隆入pcDNA3真核表达质粒,用分子克隆方法构建融合表达质粒,并以脂质体2000转染293T细胞,分别应用ELISA法和Western Blot法检测细胞上清及细胞中IL-21和HBsAg的表达水平。结果:经酶切鉴定及DNA序列证实重组质粒内插入片段序列正确,三种重组质粒分别命名为pcDNA-IL-21、pcDNA-S2S和pcDNA-IL-21-S2S,并且重组质粒能在293T细胞内表达并分泌相关蛋白。结论:成功构建IL-21和乙型肝炎病毒前S2S抗原的融合表达质粒,重组质粒能在真核细胞内表达。     

Molecular basis of recognition of human osteopontin by 23C3, a potential therapeutic antibody for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

Osteopontin plays an important role in the development and perpetuation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Antibodies targeting osteopontin have shown promising therapeutic benefits against this disease. We have previously reported a novel anti-RA monoclonal antibody, namely, 23C3, and shown it capable of alleviating the symptoms of RA in a murine collagen-induced arthritis model, restoring the cytokine production profile in joint tissues, and reducing T-cell recall responses to collagen type II. We describe here the crystal structure of 23C3 in complex with its epitope peptide. Analyses of the complex structure reveal the molecular mechanism of osteopontin recognition by 23C3. The peptide folds into two tandem β-turns, and two key residues of the peptide are identified to be critical for the recognition by 23C3: TrpP43 is deeply embedded into a hydrophobic pocket formed by AlaL34, TyrL36, LeuL46, TyrL49, PheL91, and MetH102 and therefore has extensive hydrophobic interactions with 23C3, while AspP47 has a network of hydrophilic interactions with residues ArgH50, ArgH52, SerH53, and AsnH56 of the antibody. Besides the complementarity-determining region loops, the framework region L2 of 23C3 is also shown to interact with the epitope peptide, which is not common in the antibody-antigen interactions and thus could be exploited in the engineering of 23C3. These results not only provide valuable information for further improvement of 23C3 such as chimerization or humanization for its therapeutic application, but also reveal the features of this specific epitope of osteopontin that may be useful for the development of new antibody drugs against RA.     

Construction of a large phage-displayed human antibody domain library with a scaffold based on a newly identified highly soluble, stable heavy chain variable domain

Currently, almost all U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved therapeutic antibodies and the vast majority of those in clinical trials are full-size antibodies mostly in an immunoglobulin G1 format of about 150 kDa in size. Two fundamental problems for such large molecules are their poor penetration into tissues (e.g., solid tumors) and poor or absent binding to regions on the surface of some molecules [e.g., on the human immunodeficiency virus envelope glycoprotein (Env)] that are accessible by molecules of smaller size. We have identified a phage-displayed heavy chain-only antibody by panning of a large (size, ∼ 1.5 × 10¹⁰) human naive Fab (antigen-binding fragment) library against an Env and found that the heavy chain variable domain (V_H) of this antibody, designated as m0, was independently folded, stable, highly soluble, monomeric, and expressed at high levels in bacteria. m0 was used as a scaffold to construct a large (size, ∼ 2.5 × 10¹⁰), highly diversified phage-displayed human V_H library by grafting naturally occurring complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) 2 and 3 of heavy chains from five human antibody Fab libraries and by randomly mutating four putative solvent-accessible residues in CDR1 to A, D, S, or Y. The sequence diversity of all CDRs was determined from 143 randomly selected clones. Most of these V_Hs were with different CDR2 origins (six of seven groups of V_H germlines) or CDR3 lengths (ranging from 7 to 24 residues) and could be purified directly from the soluble fraction of the Escherichia coli periplasm. The quality of the library was also validated by successful selection of high-affinity V_Hs against viral and cancer-related antigens; all selected V_Hs were monomeric, easily expressed, and purified with high solubility and yield. This library could be a valuable source of antibodies targeting size-restricted epitopes and antigens in obstructed locations where efficient penetration could be critical for successful treatment.     

Environmental regulation can arise under minimal assumptions

Models that demonstrate environmental regulation as a consequence of organism and environment coupling all require a number of core assumptions. Many previous models, such as Daisyworld, require that certain environment-altering traits have a selective advantage when those traits also contribute towards global regulation. We present a model that results in the regulation of a global environmental resource through niche construction without employing this and other common assumptions. There is no predetermined environmental optimum towards which regulation should proceed assumed or coded into the model. Nevertheless, polymorphic stable states that resist perturbation emerge from the simulated co-evolution of organisms and environment. In any single simulation a series of different stable states are realised, punctuated by rapid transitions. Regulation is achieved through two main subpopulations that are adapted to slightly different resource values, which force the environmental resource in opposing directions. This maintains the resource within a comparatively narrow band over a wide range of external perturbations. Population driven oscillations in the resource appear to be instrumental in protecting the regulation against mutations that would otherwise destroy it. Sensitivity analysis shows that the regulation is robust to mutation and to a wide range of parameter settings. Given the minimal assumptions employed, the results could reveal a mechanism capable of environmental regulation through the by-products of organisms.