Introduction
Although the role of pituitary gland in schizophrenia and psychotic disorders has been studied for decades, evidence on anterior pituitary hormones in the early phases of psychoses – ...without the influence of chronicity, comorbidities, and pharmacological treatment – is mostly unclear and inconsistent.
Objectives
Our systematic review and meta-analysis was aimed at comparing the blood concentrations of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), follicle stimulating and luteinizing hormones (FSH and LH), growth hormone (GH), prolactin (PRL), and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) between people with drug-naïve first-episode psychosis (FEP) and healthy controls.
Methods
We searched main electronic databases for articles indexed up to September 2022. We appraised the quality of data. We carried out random-effects meta-analyses, generating pooled standardized mean differences (SMDs) and estimating between-study heterogeneity. Moreover, we performed sensitivity and meta-regression analyses.
Results
Twenty-six studies were included. People with drug-naïve FEP had higher ACTH (p<0.001; moderate-to-high heterogeneity) and PRL (p<0.001; high heterogeneity) concentrations, as well as lower TSH concentrations (p=0.001; low heterogeneity), than healthy subjects. Sensitivity analyses confirmed these findings. Data were not sufficient to perform meta-analyses on other hormones (FSH, LH, and GH).
Conclusions
People with drug-naïve FEP have abnormal ACTH, PRL, and TSH blood concentrations, supporting the hypothesis that anterior pituitary hormone secretion is altered in the first stages of schizophrenia and psychoses. Additional research is needed to clarify the complex interconnections between vulnerability, environmental factors, and pituitary hormones in FEP.
Disclosure of Interest
None Declared
The genus Silene, studied by Darwin, Mendel and other early scientists, is re-emerging as a system for studying interrelated questions in ecology, evolution and developmental biology. These questions ...include sex chromosome evolution, epigenetic control of sex expression, genomic conflict and speciation. Its well-studied interactions with the pathogen Microbotryum has made Silene a model for the evolution and dynamics of disease in natural systems, and its interactions with herbivores have increased our understanding of multi-trophic ecological processes and the evolution of invasiveness. Molecular tools are now providing new approaches to many of these classical yet unresolved problems, and new progress is being made through combining phylogenetic, genomic and molecular evolutionary studies with ecological and phenotypic data.
Divergence at reproductive traits can generate barriers among populations, and may result from several mechanisms, including drift, local selection and co-adaptation between the sexes. Intersexual ...co-adaptation can arise through sexually antagonistic co-evolution, a timely hypothesis addressed in animals but, to our knowledge, not yet in flowering plants. We investigated whether male and female population of origin affected pollen competition success, offspring fitness and sex ratio in crosses within/between six genetically differentiated populations of the white campion, Silene latifolia. Each female was crossed with pollen from one focus male from the same population, and pollen from two focus males from two distinct populations, both as single-donor and two-donor crosses against a fixed tester male with a 2-h interpollination interval (n = 288 crosses). We analysed paternity with microsatellite DNA. Male populations of origin significantly differed for siring success and in vitro pollen germination rates. In vitro pollen germination rate was heritable. Siring success also depended on sex ratio in the female family of origin, but only in between-population crosses. In some female populations, two-donor crosses produced less female-biased sex ratios compared with single-donor crosses, yet in other female populations the reverse was true. Offspring sex ratio varied with donor number, depending on the female population. Within/between population crosses did not differ significantly in seed set or offspring fitness, nor were siring success and offspring fitness significantly correlated. Altogether this suggests reproductive divergence for traits affecting pollen competition in S. latifolia.
BACKGROUND: The model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) shows a wide range of genetic and trait variation among wild accessions. Because of its unparalleled biological and genomic resources, ...the potential of Arabidopsis for molecular genetic analysis of this natural variation has increased dramatically in recent years. SCOPE: Advanced genomics has accelerated molecular phylogenetic analysis and gene identification by quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and/or association mapping in Arabidopsis. In particular, QTL mapping utilizing natural accessions is now becoming a major strategy of gene isolation, offering an alternative to artificial mutant lines. Furthermore, the genomic information is used by researchers to uncover the signature of natural selection acting on the genes that contribute to phenotypic variation. The evolutionary significance of such genes has been evaluated in traits such as disease resistance and flowering time. However, although molecular hallmarks of selection have been found for the genes in question, a corresponding ecological scenario of adaptive evolution has been difficult to prove. Ecological strategies, including reciprocal transplant experiments and competition experiments, and utilizing near-isogenic lines of alleles of interest will be a powerful tool to measure the relative fitness of phenotypic and/or allelic variants. CONCLUSIONS: As the plant model organism, Arabidopsis provides a wealth of molecular background information for evolutionary genetics. Because genetic diversity between and within Arabidopsis populations is much higher than anticipated, combining this background information with ecological approaches might well establish Arabidopsis as a model organism for plant evolutionary ecology.
Plants are sessile organisms, often characterized by limited dispersal. Seeds and pollen are the critical stages for gene flow. Here we investigate spatial genetic structure, gene dispersal and the ...relative contribution of pollen vs seed in the movement of genes in a stable metapopulation of the white campion Silene latifolia within its native range. This short-lived perennial plant is dioecious, has gravity-dispersed seeds and moth-mediated pollination. Direct measures of pollen dispersal suggested that large populations receive more pollen than small isolated populations and that most gene flow occurs within tens of meters. However, these studies were performed in the newly colonized range (North America) where the specialist pollinator is absent. In the native range (Europe), gene dispersal could fall on a different spatial scale. We genotyped 258 individuals from large and small (15) subpopulations along a 60 km, elongated metapopulation in Europe using six highly variable microsatellite markers, two X-linked and four autosomal. We found substantial genetic differentiation among subpopulations (global F(ST)=0.11) and a general pattern of isolation by distance over the whole sampled area. Spatial autocorrelation revealed high relatedness among neighboring individuals over hundreds of meters. Estimates of gene dispersal revealed gene flow at the scale of tens of meters (5-30 m), similar to the newly colonized range. Contrary to expectations, estimates of dispersal based on X and autosomal markers showed very similar ranges, suggesting similar levels of pollen and seed dispersal. This may be explained by stochastic events of extensive seed dispersal in this area and limited pollen dispersal.
In many species, inbred individuals have reduced fitness. In plants with limited pollen and seed dispersal, post-pollination selection may reduce biparental inbreeding, but knowledge on the ...prevalence and importance of pollen competition or post-pollination selection after non-self pollination is scarce. We tested whether post-pollination selection favours less related pollen donors and reduces inbreeding in the dioecious plant Silene latifolia. We crossed 20 plants with pollen from a sibling and an unrelated male, and with a mix of both. We found significant inbreeding depression on vegetative growth, age at first flowering and total fitness (22% in males and 14% in females). In mixed pollinations, the unrelated male sired on average 57% of the offspring. The greater the paternity share of the unrelated sire, the larger the difference in relatedness of the two males to the female. The effect of genetic similarity on paternity is consistent with predictions for post-pollination selection, although paternity, at least in some crosses, may be affected by additional factors. Our data show that in plant systems with inbreeding depression, such as S. latifolia, pollen or embryo selection after multiple-donor pollination may indeed reduce inbreeding.
A simple, sensitive and specific liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) method for the quantification of memantine (
I) in human plasma is presented. Sample preparation consisted ...of the addition of amantadine (
II) as internal standard (IS), liquid–liquid extraction in basic conditions using a mixture of diethyl ether–chloroform (7:3, v/v) as extracting solvent, followed by centrifugation, solvent evaporation and sample reconstitution in methanol. Both
I and
II (internal standard) were analyzed using a C18 column and a mobile phase composed of methanol–water–formic acid (80:20:0.1, v/v/v). Eluted compounds were monitored using positive mode electrospray (ES) tandem mass spectrometry. The analyses were carried out by selected reaction monitoring (SRM) using the parent to daughter combinations of
m/
z 180
>
163 (memantine) and
m/
z 152
>
135 (amantadine). The peak areas from the analyte and IS were used for quantification of
I. The achieved limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.1
ng/mL; the assay exhibited a linear dynamic range of 0.1–50.0
ng/mL with a determination coefficient (
r
2) of at least 0.98. Validation results on linearity, specificity, accuracy, precision and stability, as well as on application to the analysis of samples taken up to 320
h after oral administration of 20
mg (two 10
mg capsules) of
I in healthy volunteers demonstrated the applicability to bioequivalence studies.
Rapidly increasing network traffic is posing a challenge to the construction of future routers. While high-capacity transport has kept pace with rising traffic demands through the use of dense ...wavelength-division multiplexing, the scaling of core routers is slowed by power density limits and complexity and interconnectivity issues. Optical switching has the potential to overcome these scaling restrictions, and as a result, has generated great scientific and commercial interest. In this paper, we present an overview of some optical packet-switching architectures and describe components and subsystems that are required to enable this technology.
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