NR4A is a nuclear receptor protein family whose members act as sensors of cellular environment and regulate multiple processes such as metabolism, proliferation, migration, apoptosis, and autophagy. ...Since the ligand binding domains of these receptors have no cavity for ligand interaction, their function is most likely regulated by protein abundance and post-translational modifications. In particular, NR4A1 is regulated by protein abundance, phosphorylation, and subcellular distribution (nuclear-cytoplasmic translocation), and acts both as a transcription factor and as a regulator of other interacting proteins. SUMOylation is a post-translational modification that can affect protein stability, transcriptional activity, alter protein-protein interactions and modify intracellular localization of target proteins. In the present study we evaluated the role of SUMOylation as a posttranslational modification that can regulate the activity of NR4A1 to induce autophagy-dependent cell death. We focused on a model potentially relevant for neuronal cell death and demonstrated that NR4A1 needs to be SUMOylated to induce autophagic cell death. We observed that a triple mutant in SUMOylation sites has reduced SUMOylation, increased transcriptional activity, altered intracellular distribution, and more importantly, its ability to induce autophagic cell death is impaired.
•High variability in space and time of tree-growth response to climate in Spain.•Negative impact of low summer rainfall on growth increases at low elevations and high latitudes.•Growth at low ...elevations is more dependent on spring climate than at high elevations.•Negative impact of summer heat and drought has increased during the past decades.•Local adaptation to climate change is a key factor for future Mediterranean forests.
Scots pine forests subjected to continental Mediterranean climates undergo cold winter temperatures and drought stress. Recent climatic trends towards warmer and drier conditions across the Mediterranean Basin might render some of these pine populations more vulnerable to drought-induced growth decline at the Southernmost limit of the species distribution. We investigated how cold winters and dry growing seasons drive the radial growth of Scots pine subject to continental Mediterranean climates by relating growth to climate variables at local (elevational gradient) and regional (latitudinal gradient) scales. Local climate-growth relationships were quantified on different time scales (5-, 10- and 15-days) to evaluate the relative role of elevation and specific site characteristics. A negative water balance driven by high maximum temperatures in June (low-elevation sites) and July (high-elevation sites) was the major constraint on growth, particularly on a 5- to 10-day time scale. Warm nocturnal conditions in January were associated with wider rings at the high-elevation sites. At the regional scale, Scots pine growth mainly responded positively to July precipitation, with a stronger association at lower elevations and higher latitudes. January minimum temperatures showed similar patterns but played a secondary role as a driver of tree growth. The balance between positive and negative effects of summer precipitation and winter temperature on radial growth depends on elevation and latitude, with low-elevation populations being more prone to suffer drought and heat stress; whereas, high-elevation populations may be favoured by warmer winter conditions. This negative impact of summer heat and drought has increased during the past decades. This interaction between climate and site conditions and local adaptations is therefore decisive for the future performance and persistence of Scots pine populations in continental Mediterranean climates. Forecasting changes in the Scots pine range due to climate change should include this site-related information to obtain more realistic predictions, particularly in Mediterranean rear-edge areas.
The domestication of the fowl resulted in a large diversity of integumental structures in chicken breeds. Several integumental traits have been investigated from a developmental genetics perspective. ...However, their distribution among breeds and their developmental morphology remain unexplored. We constructed a discrete trait‐breed matrix and conducted a disparity analysis to investigate the variation of these structures in chicken breeds; 20 integumental traits of 72 chicken breeds and the red junglefowl were assessed. The analyses resulted in slight groupings of breed types comparable to standard breed classification based on artificial selection and chicken type use. The red junglefowl groups together with bantams and European breeds. We provide new data on the red junglefowl and four chicken breeds, demonstrating where and when variation arises during embryonic development. We document variation in developmental timing of the egg tooth and feather formation, as well as other kinds of developmental patterning as in the anlagen of different type of combs. Changes in epithelial‐mesenchymal signaling interactions may drive the highly diverse integument in chickens. Experimental and comparative work has revealed that the cranial neural crest mesenchyme mediates its interactions with the overlying epithelium and is the likely source of patterning that generates diversity in integumental structures.
Key Findings
The disparity analysis based on integumental traits resulted in slight groupings of breed types comparable to standard breed classification based on artificial selection and chicken type utility. The red junglefowl groups with bantams and the European cluster.
Comparing red junglefowl and chicken embryos, we show where and when variation arises during embryonic development in egg tooth, feathers and combs development. Changes in epithelial‐mesenchymal signalling interactions may drive the highly diverse integument in chickens.
Importance
Altough disease-modifying factors such as malnutrition and diet have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), little is known about the effects of pharmacological therapies on the ...nutritional status of AD patients.
Objective
To evaluate the nutritional status, prealbumin, and albumin serum levels and several anthropometric measurements in patients with probable moderate-stage AD, with and without rivastigmine drug treatment.
Study design
A cross-sectional study.
Setting and participants
34 patients were included, 17 with rivastigmine treatment and 17 without pharmacological treatment, over 60 years of both sexes.
Measurements
The nutritional status was evaluated using the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). Albumin and prealbumin (transthyretin) levels and anthropometric evaluation were assessed using standard methods.
Results
A polarity of malnutrition was detected in the untreated group. According to the MNA survey, the risk of malnutrition is higher without rivastigmine treatment (p = 0.0001). There are a less loss of appetite, less psychological stress, greater mobility and independence in those patients receiving rivastigmine (p = 0.003, 0.008, 0.016 and 0.018, respectively). The body mass index does not show a statistical difference, however, categorizing it for older adults, this index was improved in those receiving rivastigmine (p = 0.016). The serum levels of albumin and prealbumin showed no significant statistical difference between the groups.
Conclusions
Rivastigmine treatment shows a protective effect on malnutrition in patients with moderate-stage AD.
The dense Miocene record of cetaceans is known from localities along the coasts of all continents, mostly in the northern Atlantic or the eastern Pacific regions, but Antarctica. Fossils from the ...Caribbean region are few and include of a couple of findings from Panama and Venezuela. Here, we report a partly complete skull from the Caujarao Formation (middle Miocene), Falcon State, Caribbean region of Venezuela. Our phylogenetic analyses indicate that the Caujarao specimen is a ‘stem delphinidan’, a group that includes several taxa of early diverging odontocetes whose phylogenetic affinities remain a matter of debate. The fossil record has shown that this group of stem delphinidans was taxonomically diverse, but displayed a somewhat homogeneous cranial patterning, with most of the variations being found within the mandible or tympanoperiotic characters. As other stem delphinidans the Caujarao odontocete displays an enlarged temporal fossa and a fairly symmetrical cranium. Because the skull is missing several key diagnostic characters due to the preservation state of the specimen, a more precise taxonomic identification is not possible. Despite this, the finding of this specimen highlights the importance of the fossil record from the Neogene of Venezuela, and the importance of the area to understand cetacean evolution in the proto-Caribbean.
Acoustic communication, broadly distributed along the vertebrate phylogeny, plays a fundamental role in parental care, mate attraction and various other behaviours. Despite its importance, ...comparatively less is known about the evolutionary roots of acoustic communication. Phylogenetic comparative analyses can provide insights into the deep time evolutionary origin of acoustic communication, but they are often plagued by missing data from key species. Here we present evidence for 53 species of four major clades (turtles, tuatara, caecilian and lungfish) in the form of vocal recordings and contextual behavioural information accompanying sound production. This and a broad literature-based dataset evidence acoustic abilities in several groups previously considered non-vocal. Critically, phylogenetic analyses encompassing 1800 species of choanate vertebrates reconstructs acoustic communication as a homologous trait, and suggests that it is at least as old as the last common ancestor of all choanate vertebrates, that lived approx. 407 million years before present.
Abstract
Musical instruments provide material evidence to study the diversity and technical innovation of music in space and time. We employed a cultural evolutionary perspective to analyse ...organological data and their relation to language groups and population history in South America, a unique and complex geographic area for human evolution. The ethnological and archaeological native musical instrument record, documented in three newly assembled continental databases, reveals exceptionally high diversity of wind instruments. We explored similarities in the collection of instruments for each population, considering geographic patterns and focusing on groupings associated with language families. A network analysis of panpipe organological features illustrates four regional/cultural clusters: two in the Tropical Forest and two in the Andes. Twenty-five percent of the instruments in the standard organological classification are present in the archaeological, but not in the ethnographic record, suggesting extinction events. Most recent extinctions can be traced back to European contact, causing a reduction in indigenous cultural diversity.
American bison (Bison bison) is listed as near-threatened and in danger of extinction in Mexico. Recent studies have demonstrated the presence of several emerging pathogens at the Janos Biosphere ...Reserve (JBR), inhabited by one wild herd of American bison. Blood samples were collected from 26 American bison in the JBR. We tested for the presence of Anaplasma marginale, Babesia bigemina, B. bovis, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, and Rickettsia rickettsii DNA using nested and semi-nested PCR protocols performing duplicates in two different laboratories. Results showed three animals (11.5%) positive for B. burgdorferi s. l., three more (11.5%) for Rickettsia rickettsii, and four (19.2%) for B. bovis. Two individuals were co-infected with B. burgdorferi s. l. and B. bovis. We found no animals positive for A. marginale and B. bigemina. This is the first report in America of R. rickettsii in American bison. American bison has been described as an important reservoir for pathogens of zoonotic and veterinary importance; thus, the presence of tick-borne pathogen DNA in the JBR American bison indicates the importance of continuous wildlife health surveys.
Summary
Background: Melon allergy is commonly associated with oral allergy syndrome (OAS) and with hypersensitivity to pollens and other plant foods. No melon allergen responsible for these clinical ...characteristics has yet been isolated, although profilin has been proposed as a potential target.
Objective: To isolate natural and recombinant melon profilin, to evaluate its in vivo and in vitro reactivity, and to analyse its behaviour in simulated gastric fluid (SGF) and heat treatments.
Methods: A pool or individual sera from 23 patients, and an additional group of 10 patients, all of them with melon allergy, were analysed by in vitro and in vivo tests, respectively. Natural melon profilin (nCuc m 2) and its recombinant counterpart (rCuc m 2) were isolated by poly‐l‐proline affinity chromatography, and characterized by N‐terminal amino acid sequencing, matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization analysis, DNA sequencing of cDNAs encoding rCuc m 2, and immunodetection with anti‐profilin antibodies. In vitro analysis included IgE immunodetection, specific IgE determination, ELISA‐inhibition assays, and histamine release (HR) tests. In vivo activity of nCuc m 2 was established by skin prick testing (SPT). The effect of SGF and heat treatment on rCuc m 2 was followed by immunodetection, ELISA inhibition, and HR assays.
Results: Both purified forms of melon profilin were recognized by rabbit anti‐profilin antibodies and IgE of sera from allergic patients, and showed molecular sizes typical of the profilin family. nCuc m 2 had a blocked N‐terminus, whereas rCuc m 2 rendered the expected N‐terminal amino acid sequence, its full protein sequence being highly similar (98–71% identity) to those of profilins from plant foods and pollens. The natural allergen displayed a slightly higher IgE‐binding capacity than its recombinant counterpart. Specific IgE to nCuc m 2 and rCuc m 2 was found in 100% and 78% of the 23 individual sera analysed, respectively. nCuc m 2 evoked positive SPT responses in all (10/10) patients tested, and rCuc m 2 induced HR in two out of three sera assayed. SGF treatment readily inactivated rCuc m 2, as shown by its loss of recognition by anti‐profilin antibodies, lack of IgE binding, and inability to induce HR. In contrast, heat treatment did not affect the IgE‐binding capacity of rCuc m 2.
Conclusions: Profilin is highly prevalent in melon‐allergic patients, and promptly inactivated by SGF, as expected for an allergen mainly linked to OAS.
Morphological convergence triggered by trophic adaptations is a common pattern in adaptive radiations. The study of shape variation in an evolutionary context is usually restricted to well-studied ...fish models. We take advantage of the recently revised systematics of New World Ariidae and investigate skull shape evolution in six genera of northern Neotropical Ariidae. They constitute a lineage that diversified in the marine habitat but repeatedly adapted to freshwater habitats. 3D geometric morphometrics was applied for the first time in catfish skulls and phylogenetically informed statistical analyses were performed to test for the impact of habitat on skull diversification after habitat transition in this lineage.
We found that skull shape is conserved throughout phylogeny. A morphospace analysis revealed that freshwater and marine species occupy extreme ends of the first principal component axis and that they exhibit similar Procrustes variances. Yet freshwater species occupy the smallest shape space compared to marine and brackish species (based on partial disparity), and marine and freshwater species have the largest Procrustes distance to each other. We observed a single case of shape convergence as derived from 'C-metrics', which cannot be explained by the occupation of the same habitat.
Although Ariidae occupy such a broad spectrum of different habitats from sea to freshwater, the morphospace analysis and analyses of shape and co-variation with habitat in a phylogenetic context shows that conservatism dominates skull shape evolution among ariid genera.
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