Widespread acceptance of a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) will be the next major step in fighting the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, but ...achieving high uptake will be a challenge and may be impeded by online misinformation. To inform successful vaccination campaigns, we conducted a randomized controlled trial in the UK and the USA to quantify how exposure to online misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines affects intent to vaccinate to protect oneself or others. Here we show that in both countries-as of September 2020-fewer people would 'definitely' take a vaccine than is likely required for herd immunity, and that, relative to factual information, recent misinformation induced a decline in intent of 6.2 percentage points (95th percentile interval 3.9 to 8.5) in the UK and 6.4 percentage points (95th percentile interval 4.0 to 8.8) in the USA among those who stated that they would definitely accept a vaccine. We also find that some sociodemographic groups are differentially impacted by exposure to misinformation. Finally, we show that scientific-sounding misinformation is more strongly associated with declines in vaccination intent.
Background
Monitoring public confidence and hesitancy is crucial for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Social media listening (infoveillance) can not only monitor public attitudes on COVID-19 vaccines ...but also assess the dissemination of and public engagement with these opinions.
Objective
This study aims to assess global hesitancy, confidence, and public engagement toward COVID-19 vaccination.
Methods
We collected posts mentioning the COVID-19 vaccine between June and July 2020 on Twitter from New York (United States), London (United Kingdom), Mumbai (India), and Sao Paulo (Brazil), and Sina Weibo posts from Beijing (China). In total, we manually coded 12,886 posts from the five global metropolises with high COVID-19 burdens, and after assessment, 7032 posts were included in the analysis. We manually double-coded these posts using a coding framework developed according to the World Health Organization’s Confidence, Complacency, and Convenience model of vaccine hesitancy, and conducted engagement analysis to investigate public communication about COVID-19 vaccines on social media.
Results
Among social media users, 36.4% (571/1568) in New York, 51.3% (738/1440) in London, 67.3% (144/214) in Sao Paulo, 69.8% (726/1040) in Mumbai, and 76.8% (2128/2770) in Beijing indicated that they intended to accept a COVID-19 vaccination. With a high perceived risk of getting COVID-19, more tweeters in New York and London expressed a lack of confidence in vaccine safety, distrust in governments and experts, and widespread misinformation or rumors. Tweeters from Mumbai, Sao Paulo, and Beijing worried more about vaccine production and supply, whereas tweeters from New York and London had more concerns about vaccine distribution and inequity. Negative tweets expressing lack of vaccine confidence and misinformation or rumors had more followers and attracted more public engagement online.
Conclusions
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is prevalent worldwide, and negative tweets attract higher engagement on social media. It is urgent to develop an effective vaccine campaign that boosts public confidence and addresses hesitancy for COVID-19 vaccine rollouts.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Endo-siRNAs (endogenous small-interfering RNAs) have recently emerged as versatile regulators of gene expression. They derive from double-stranded intrinsic transcripts and are processed by Dicer and ...associate with Argonaute proteins. In Caenorhabditis elegans, endo-siRNAs are known as 22G and 26G RNAs and are involved in genome protection and gene regulation. Drosophila melanogaster endo-siRNAs are produced with the help of specific Dicer and Argonaute isoforms and play an essential role in transposon control and the protection from viral infections. Biological functions of endo-siRNAs in vertebrates include repression of transposable elements and chromatin organization, as well as gene regulation at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels.
Russulaceae Looney, Brian P.; Meidl, Peter; Piatek, Marek J. ...
New phytologist,
April 2018, Letnik:
218, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The family Russulaceae is considered an iconic lineage of mostly mushroom-forming basidiomycetes due to their importance as edible mushrooms in many parts of the world, and their ubiquity as ...ectomycorrhizal symbionts in both temperate and tropical forested biomes. Although much research has been focused on this group, a comprehensive or cohesive synthesis by which to understand the functional diversity of the group has yet to develop. Interest in ectomycorrhizal fungi, of which Russulaceae is a key lineage, is prodigious due to the important roles they play as plant root mutualists in ecosystem functioning, global carbon sequestration, and a potential role in technology development toward environmental sustainability. As one of the most species-diverse ectomycorrhizal lineages, the Russulaceae has recently been the focus of a dense sampling and genome sequencing initiative with the Joint Genome Institute aimed at untangling their functional roles and testing whether functional niche specialization exists for independent lineages of ectomycorrhizal fungi. Herewepresent a review of important studies on this group to contextualize what we know about its members’ evolutionary history and ecosystem functions, as well as to generate hypotheses establishing the Russulaceae as a valuable experimental system.
Natural antisense transcripts (NATs) are complementary to protein coding genes and potentially regulate their expression. Despite widespread occurrence of NATs in the genomes of higher eukaryotes, ...their biological role and mechanism of action is poorly understood. Zebrafish embryos offer a unique model system to study sense-antisense transcript interplay at whole organism level. Here, we investigate putative antisense transcript-mediated mechanisms by ectopically co-expressing the complementary transcripts during early zebrafish development. In zebrafish the gene Slc34a2a (Na-phosphate transporter) is bi-directionally transcribed, the NAT predominantly during early development up to 48 hours after fertilization. Declining levels of the NAT, Slc34a2a(as), coincide with an increase of the sense transcript. At that time, sense and antisense transcripts co-localize in the endoderm at near equal amounts. Ectopic expression of the sense transcript during embryogenesis leads to specific failure to develop a cerebellum. The defect is RNA-mediated and dependent on sense-antisense complementarity. Overexpression of a Slc34a2a paralogue (Slc34a2b) or the NAT itself had no phenotypic consequences. Knockdown of Dicer rescued the brain defect suggesting that RNA interference is required to mediate the phenotype. Our results corroborate previous reports of Slc34a2a-related endo-siRNAs in two days old zebrafish embryos and emphasize the importance of coordinated expression of sense-antisense transcripts. Our findings suggest that RNAi is involved in gene regulation by certain natural antisense RNAs.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs) can be used as DNA-targeting modules by engineering their repeat domains to dictate user-selected sequence specificity. TALEs have been shown to ...function as site-specific transcriptional activators in a variety of cell types and organisms. TALE nucleases (TALENs), generated by fusing the
Fok
I cleavage domain to TALE, have been used to create genomic double-strand breaks. The identity of the TALE repeat variable di-residues, their number, and their order dictate the DNA sequence specificity. Because TALE repeats are nearly identical, their assembly by cloning or even by synthesis is challenging and time consuming. Here, we report the development and use of a rapid and straightforward approach for the construction of designer TALE (dTALE) activators and nucleases with user-selected DNA target specificity. Using our plasmid set of 100 repeat modules, researchers can assemble repeat domains for any 14-nucleotide target sequence in one sequential restriction-ligation cloning step and in only 24 h. We generated several custom dTALEs and dTALENs with new target sequence specificities and validated their function by transient expression in tobacco leaves and in vitro DNA cleavage assays, respectively. Moreover, we developed a web tool, called idTALE, to facilitate the design of dTALENs and the identification of their genomic targets and potential off-targets in the genomes of several model species. Our dTALE repeat assembly approach along with the web tool idTALE will expedite genome-engineering applications in a variety of cell types and organisms including plants.
Understanding the processes that shape patterns of genetic structure across space is a central aim of landscape genetics. However, it remains unclear how geographical features and environmental ...variables shape gene flow, particularly for marine species in large complex seascapes. Here, we evaluated the genomic composition of the two‐band anemonefish Amphiprion bicinctus across its entire geographical range in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as well as its close relative, Amphiprion omanensis endemic to the southern coast of Oman. Both the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea are complex and environmentally heterogeneous marine systems that provide an ideal scenario to address these questions. Our findings confirm the presence of two genetic clusters previously reported for A. bicinctus in the Red Sea. Genetic structure analyses suggest a complex seascape configuration, with evidence of both isolation by distance (IBD) and isolation by environment (IBE). In addition to IBD and IBE, genetic structure among sites was best explained when two barriers to gene flow were also accounted for. One of these coincides with a strong oligotrophic–eutrophic gradient at around 16–20˚N in the Red Sea. The other agrees with a historical bathymetric barrier at the straight of Bab al Mandab. Finally, these data support the presence of interspecific hybrids at an intermediate suture zone at Socotra and indicate complex patterns of genomic admixture in the Gulf of Aden with evidence of introgression between species. Our findings highlight the power of recent genomic approaches to resolve subtle patterns of gene flow in marine seascapes.
Neutron spectroscopy and diffuse neutron scattering on herbertsmithite ZnCu(3)(OH)(6)Cl(2), a near-ideal realization of the s=1/2 kagome antiferromagnet, reveal the hallmark property of a quantum ...spin liquid: instantaneous short-ranged antiferromagnetic correlations in the absence of a time-averaged ordered moment. These dynamic antiferromagnetic correlations are weakly dependent of neutron-energy transfer and temperature, and persist up to 25 meV and 120 K. At low energy transfers a shift of the magnetic scattering to low Q is observed with increasing temperature, providing evidence of gapless spinons. It is argued that these observations provide important evidence in favor of resonating-valence-bond theories of (doped) Mott insulators.
Traditional DNA sequencing methods are inefficient, lack the ability to discern the least abundant viral sequences, and ineffective for determining the extent of variability in viral populations. ...Here, populations of single-stranded DNA plant begomoviral genomes and their associated beta- and alpha-satellite molecules (virus-satellite complexes) (genus, Begomovirus; family, Geminiviridae) were enriched from total nucleic acids isolated from symptomatic, field-infected plants, using rolling circle amplification (RCA). Enriched virus-satellite complexes were subjected to Illumina-Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). CASAVA and SeqMan NGen programs were implemented, respectively, for quality control and for de novo and reference-guided contig assembly of viral-satellite sequences. The authenticity of the begomoviral sequences, and the reproducibility of the Illumina-NGS approach for begomoviral deep sequencing projects, were validated by comparing NGS results with those obtained using traditional molecular cloning and Sanger sequencing of viral components and satellite DNAs, also enriched by RCA or amplified by polymerase chain reaction. As the use of NGS approaches, together with advances in software development, make possible deep sequence coverage at a lower cost; the approach described herein will streamline the exploration of begomovirus diversity and population structure from naturally infected plants, irrespective of viral abundance. This is the first report of the implementation of Illumina-NGS to explore the diversity and identify begomoviral-satellite SNPs directly from plants naturally-infected with begomoviruses under field conditions.
The development of highly efficient genome engineering reagents is of paramount importance to launch the next wave of biotechnology. TAL effectors have been developed as an adaptable DNA binding ...scaffold that can be engineered to bind to any user-defined sequence. Thus, TAL-based DNA binding modules have been used to generate chimeric proteins for a variety of targeted genome modifications across eukaryotic species. For example, TAL effectors fused to the catalytic domain of FokI endonuclease (TALENs) were used to generate site-specific double strand breaks (DSBs), the repair of which can be harnessed to dictate user-desired, genome-editing outcomes. To cleave DNA, FokI endonuclease must dimerize which can be achieved using a pair of TALENs that bind to the DNA targeted in a tail-to-tail orientation with proper spacing allowing the dimer formation. Because TALENs binding to DNA are dependent on their repeat sequences and nucleotides binding specificities, homodimers and heterodimers binding can be formed. In the present study, we used several TALEN monomers with increased repeats binding degeneracy to allow homodimer formation at increased number of genomic loci. We assessed their binding specificities and genome modification activities. Our results indicate that homodimeric TALENs could be used to modify the yeast genome in a site-specific manner and their binding to the promoter regions might modulate the expression of target genes. Taken together, our data indicate that homodimeric TALENs could be used to achieve different engineering possibilities of biotechnological applications and that their transcriptional modulations need to be considered when analyzing their phenotypic effects.
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