Author: admin123TerRe

African clawed frogs are known for their flat bodies, vocal organs and claws on the first three toes of the hind feet. Credit: Adam Bewick Researchers at McMaster University have uncovered unexpected diversity in the genetic processes that determine the sex of the African clawed frog, a significant discovery in what was already one of the most widely studied amphibians in the world. A genomic analysis has uncovered a total of eight different sex chromosomes in just 11 species of the frog, many or all of which may contain unique and newly evolved genes that trigger male or female sexual…

AbstractMycobacterial species in nature are found in abundance in sphagnum peat bogs where they compete for nutrients with a variety of microorganisms including fungi. We screened a collection of fungi isolated from sphagnum bogs by co-culture with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) to look for inducible expression of antitubercular agents and identified 5 fungi that produced cidal antitubercular agents upon exposure to live Mtb. Whole genome sequencing of these fungi followed by fungal RNAseq after Mtb exposure allowed us to identify biosynthetic gene clusters induced by co-culture. Three of these fungi induced expression of patulin, one induced citrinin expression and one induced…

Last year, my lab published an article in Bioessays about the evolution of the Tapetum Lucidum, the structure in nocturnal animals that causes reflective “eye shine.” This is a theoretical paper, outlining our argument that this structure evolved in vertebrates to compensate for the backwards orientation of our retinas. Implicit in this argument is the claim that the vertebrate retina is a sub-optimal design compared to the front-facing design of the retina of Cephalopods (octopuses, squids, and nautiloids). Below is a short and non-technical summary of our argument, but I also wrote a longer version for Skeptical Inquirer if you…

AbstractDuring neuronal activity, the extracellular concentration of potassium ions ([K+]o) increases substantially above resting levels, yet it remains unclear what role these [K+]o changes play in the dendritic integration of synaptic inputs. We here used mathematical formulations and biophysical modeling to explore the role of synaptic activity-dependent K+ changes in dendritic segments of a visual cortex pyramidal neuron, receiving inputs tuned to stimulus orientation. We found that the spatial arrangement of inputs dictates the magnitude of [K+]o changes in the dendrites: Dendritic segments receiving similarly tuned inputs can attain substantially higher [K+]o increases than segments receiving diversely tuned inputs. These…

Post provided by Chris Barratt Chris is a Researcher in the Animal Breeding and Genomics group (Centre for Genetic Resources Netherlands) at Wageningen University and Research, and a guest researcher at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. Caught somewhere between being a quantitative geneticist, a spatial modeller and a conservationist, he is committed to finding new and interesting ways to integrate genomic data and predictive modelling to predict and reduce biodiversity loss. Our recently published toolbox in MEE called ‘Life on the edge’ (LotE) can be used to predict population vulnerability by integrating genomic, spatial and environmental data. LotE is a…

Newsletter Signup – Under Article / In Page”*” indicates required fields Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a rare condition where the lungs become scarred, making it hard to breathe. The cause of the disease is unknown, which is why it is called ‘idiopathic.’ So far, U.S. regulators have only approved two drugs for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and patients have unmet needs. There is a lot of research going on in the field at present, in the hope that more therapies reach patients sooner. Refoxy Pharma bags $9.58 million to develop preclinical idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis drug candidateOne promising candidate…

AbstractTo keep ahead of the evolution of resistance to insecticides in mosquitoes, national malaria control programmes must make use of a range of insecticides, both old and new, while monitoring resistance mechanisms. The outdoor-biting malaria vector Anopheles arabiensis is of increasing concern for malaria transmission because it is apparently less susceptible to many indoor control interventions, yet knowledge of its mechanisms of resistance remains limited. Furthermore, comparatively little is known in general about resistance to non-pyrethroid insecticides such as pirimiphos-methyl (PM), which are crucial for effective control in the context of globally high resistance to pyrethroids. We performed a genome-wide…

Image credit: Carlo Crivelli, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. We are delighted to offer an excerpt from Father Martin Hilbert’s new book for Discovery Institute Press, A Catholic Case for Intelligent Design. This article is adapted from Chapter 4. If this were a book of Catholic philosophy, space would be given to make a full-throated defense of Aquinas’ first four philosophical arguments for the existence of God. But it is clear that every one of these ways requires a fair bit of philosophical sophistication to plumb, and in any case, this is not primarily a book of philosophy. It’s a book…

Newsletter Signup – Under Article / In Page”*” indicates required fields As big pharma faces a looming patent cliff that could put more than $200 billion in annual revenue at risk through 2030, it opens up a major opportunity for biosimilar developers. This is because, unlike the patent cliff at the start of the last decade, which primarily involved chemical pills that previously dominated the market for big pharma, this one includes a fair number of biologics, making the transition to biosimilars highly significant. In this article, we take a look at five biosimilar companies hoping to capitalize on this…

AbstractQuality control of translation is crucial for maintaining cellular and organismal homeostasis. Obstacles in translation elongation induce ribosome collision, which is monitored by multiple sensor mechanisms in eukaryotes. The E3 ubiquitin ligase Znf598 recognizes collided ribosomes, triggering ribosome-associated quality control (RQC) to rescue stalled ribosomes and no-go decay (NGD) to degrade stall-prone mRNAs. However, the impact of RQC and NGD on maintaining the translational homeostasis of endogenous mRNAs has remained unclear. In this study, we investigated the endogenous substrate mRNAs of NGD during the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT) of zebrafish development. RNA-Seq analysis of zebrafish znf598 mutant embryos revealed that Znf598…