This is a pioneering study on the relationship between quality of work life and the employee's perception of their contribution to organizational performance. It unveils the importance of subjective ...and behavioral components of quality of work life and their influence on the formation of the collaborator's individual desire to contribute to strengthening the organization's productivity. The results obtained indicate that for workers: feeling their supervisors' support through listening to their concerns and by sensing they take them on board; being integrated in a good work environment; and feeling respected both as professionals and as people; positively influence their feeling of contributing to organizational performance. The results are particularly relevant given the increased weight of services in the labor market, together with intensified automation and digitalization of collaborators' functions. The findings also contribute to the ongoing debate about the need for more work on the subjective and behavioral components of so-called smart and learning organizations, rather than focusing exclusively on remuneration as the factor stimulating organizational productivity based on the collaborator's contribution.
This study is focused on assessing the effects of burnout as a moderator of the relationship between employees' quality of work life (QWL) and their perceptions of their contribution to the ...organization's productivity by integrating the QWL factors into the trichotomy of (de)motivators of productivity in the workplace. The empirical findings resulting from an OLS multiple regression, with interaction terms, applied to a survey administered at 514 employees in 6 European countries, point out two important insights: (i) QWL hygiene factors (e.g., safe work environment and occupational healthcare) positively and significantly influence the contribution to productivity; and (ii) burnout de-motivator factors (that is, low effectiveness, cynicism, and emotional exhaustion) significantly moderate the relationship between QWL and the contribution to productivity. Combining burnout with other QWL components, such as occupational health, safe work, and appropriate salary, new insights are provided concerning the restricting (i.e., low effectiveness and cynicism) and catalyzing (emotional exhaustion) burnout components of contribution to productivity. These findings are particularly relevant given the increased weight of burnout, mental disorders and absenteeism in the labor market, affecting individuals' quality of life and organizations' performance and costs.
CTCF-binding locations represent regulatory sequences that are highly constrained over the course of evolution. To gain insight into how these DNA elements are conserved and spread through the ...genome, we defined the full spectrum of CTCF-binding sites, including a 33/34-mer motif, and identified over five thousand highly conserved, robust, and tissue-independent CTCF-binding locations by comparing ChIP-seq data from six mammals. Our data indicate that activation of retroelements has produced species-specific expansions of CTCF binding in rodents, dogs, and opossum, which often functionally serve as chromatin and transcriptional insulators. We discovered fossilized repeat elements flanking deeply conserved CTCF-binding regions, indicating that similar retrotransposon expansions occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. Repeat-driven dispersal of CTCF binding is a fundamental, ancient, and still highly active mechanism of genome evolution in mammalian lineages.
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► CTCF-binding locations are highly conserved across mammals ► New locations for CTCF binding are carried by SINE repeats in many mammals ► Ancient and newly born CTCF-binding events similarly demarcate chromatin barriers ► Retroelements can reposition organizing elements throughout the genome
Evolutionary analysis of six divergent mammals uncovers both highly conserved and species-specific binding locations of the chromatin organizer, CTCF. This study reveals that activation of retroelements drives genome evolution by repositioning genome-organizing elements.
A large proportion of functional sequence within mammalian genomes falls outside protein-coding exons and can be transcribed into long RNAs. However, the roles in mammalian biology of long noncoding ...RNA (lncRNA) are not well understood. Few lncRNAs have experimentally determined roles, with some of these being lineage-specific. Determining the extent by which transcription of lncRNA loci is retained or lost across multiple evolutionary lineages is essential if we are to understand their contribution to mammalian biology and to lineage-specific traits. Here, we experimentally investigated the conservation of lncRNA expression among closely related rodent species, allowing the evolution of DNA sequence to be uncoupled from evolution of transcript expression. We generated total RNA (RNAseq) and H3K4me3-bound (ChIPseq) DNA data, and combined both to construct catalogues of transcripts expressed in the adult liver of Mus musculus domesticus (C57BL/6J), Mus musculus castaneus, and Rattus norvegicus. We estimated the rate of transcriptional turnover of lncRNAs and investigated the effects of their lineage-specific birth or death. LncRNA transcription showed considerably greater gain and loss during rodent evolution, compared with protein-coding genes. Nucleotide substitution rates were found to mirror the in vivo transcriptional conservation of intergenic lncRNAs between rodents: only the sequences of noncoding loci with conserved transcription were constrained. Finally, we found that lineage-specific intergenic lncRNAs appear to be associated with modestly elevated expression of genomically neighbouring protein-coding genes. Our findings show that nearly half of intergenic lncRNA loci have been gained or lost since the last common ancestor of mouse and rat, and they predict that such rapid transcriptional turnover contributes to the evolution of tissue- and lineage-specific gene expression.
Gene expression levels are thought to diverge primarily via regulatory mutations in trans within species, and in cis between species. To test this hypothesis in mammals we used RNA-sequencing to ...measure gene expression divergence between C57BL/6J and CAST/EiJ mouse strains and allele-specific expression in their F1 progeny. We identified 535 genes with parent-of-origin specific expression patterns, although few of these showed full allelic silencing. This suggests that the number of imprinted genes in a typical mouse somatic tissue is relatively small. In the set of nonimprinted genes, 32% showed evidence of divergent expression between the two strains. Of these, 2% could be attributed purely to variants acting in trans, while 43% were attributable only to variants acting in cis. The genes with expression divergence driven by changes in trans showed significantly higher sequence constraint than genes where the divergence was explained by variants acting in cis. The remaining genes with divergent patterns of expression (55%) were regulated by a combination of variants acting in cis and variants acting in trans. Intriguingly, the changes in expression induced by the cis and trans variants were in opposite directions more frequently than expected by chance, implying that compensatory regulation to stabilize gene expression levels is widespread. We propose that expression levels of genes regulated by this mechanism are fine-tuned by cis variants that arise following regulatory changes in trans, suggesting that many cis variants are not the primary targets of natural selection.
Do mammals have menopause? Winkler, Ivana; Goncalves, Angela
Cell,
10/2023, Volume:
186, Issue:
22
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Semantics and lack of data have clouded our understanding about menopause in non-human mammals. The traditional definition of menopause based on the last menstrual bleed is limited and hinders ...cross-species comparison. Here, we redefine it as the permanent cessation of ovulation and show menopause to be widespread across mammalian orders.
Semantics and lack of data have clouded our understanding about menopause in non-human mammals. The traditional definition of menopause based on the last menstrual bleed is limited and hinders cross-species comparison. Here, we redefine it as the permanent cessation of ovulation and show menopause to be widespread across mammalian orders.
Cystic fibrosis is a multi-systemic disease related to reduced functional capacity. The distance covered in the 6-min walk test (6MWT) has been known to assess functional capacity, but little is ...known about other indexes that can be derived. We sought to compare the performance during the 6MWT and the estimated indexes of functional capacity from the 6MWT between subjects with cystic fibrosis (CF) and healthy individuals as well as to assess the relationship among these indexes and disease severity, pulmonary function, and nutritional status in CF.
This cross-sectional study was carried out at a university referral center for CF. It included a group of 55 non-oxygen-dependent CF subjects (CF group) with no acute pulmonary exacerbations and a group of 185 healthy controls (control group). All subjects were submitted to 6MWT and anthropometrics measurements.
Regarding performance during the 6MWT, the mean values of work, physiological cost index, average velocity, and 6-min walk distance (6MWD) were significantly lower in the CF group than in the control group (work: 21,690.58 ± 10,427.77 vs 26,057.51 ± 11,228.49 m × kg
= .007; physiological cost index: 0.31 ± 0.19 vs 0.37 ± 0.17; average velocity: 94.71 ± 12.89 vs 104.55 ± 9.13 m/min
< .001; and 6MWD: 568.02 ± 76.31 m versus 627.54 ± 54.81 m
< .001). Subjects with less severe CF had higher 6MWD, work, and average velocity during the 6MWT, compared with subjects with more severe CF (
= .008,
= .01, and
= .007, respectively). There was a correlation between 6MWD, work, average velocity, and disease severity and pulmonary function.
Considering the importance of standard measure (6MWD) the in 6MWT, alternative indexes can be useful as complementary outcomes and to provide a better understanding of limiting factors of exercise response in children and adolescents with CF.
As exome sequencing gives way to genome sequencing, the need to interpret the function of regulatory DNA becomes increasingly important. To test whether evolutionary conservation of cis-regulatory ...modules (CRMs) gives insight into human gene regulation, we determined transcription factor (TF) binding locations of four liver-essential TFs in liver tissue from human, macaque, mouse, rat, and dog. Approximately, two thirds of the TF-bound regions fell into CRMs. Less than half of the human CRMs were found as a CRM in the orthologous region of a second species. Shared CRMs were associated with liver pathways and disease loci identified by genome-wide association studies. Recurrent rare human disease causing mutations at the promoters of several blood coagulation and lipid metabolism genes were also identified within CRMs shared in multiple species. This suggests that multi-species analyses of experimentally determined combinatorial TF binding will help identify genomic regions critical for tissue-specific gene control.
Despite a strong rationale for why cancer cells are susceptible to redox-targeting drugs, such drugs often face tumor resistance or dose-limiting toxicity in preclinical and clinical studies. An ...important reason is the lack of specific biomarkers to better select susceptible cancer entities and stratify patients. Using a large panel of lung cancer cell lines, we identified a set of “antioxidant-capacity” biomarkers (ACB), which were tightly repressed, partly by STAT3 and STAT5A/B in sensitive cells, rendering them susceptible to multiple redox-targeting and ferroptosis-inducing drugs. Contrary to expectation, constitutively low ACB expression was not associated with an increased steady state level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) but a high level of nitric oxide, which is required to sustain high replication rates. Using ACBs, we identified cancer entities with a high percentage of patients with favorable ACB expression pattern, making it likely that more responders to ROS-inducing drugs could be stratified for clinical trials.
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