Abstract
Individual repeatability characterizes many behaviors. Repeatable behavior may result from repeated social interactions among familiar group members, owing to adaptive social niche ...specialization. In the context of aggression, in species like field crickets, social niche specialization should also occur when individuals repeatedly interact with unfamiliar individuals. This would require the outcome of social interactions to have carry-over effects on fighting ability and aggressiveness in subsequent interactions, leading to long-term among-individual differentiation. To test this hypothesis, we randomly assigned freshly emerged adult males of the southern field cricket Gryllus bimaculatus to either a solitary or social treatment. In social treatment, males interacted with a same-sex partner but experienced a new partner every 3 days. After 3 weeks of treatment, we repeatedly subjected treated males to dyadic interactions to measure aggression. During this time, we also continuously measured the 3-daily rate of carbohydrate and protein consumption. Individual differentiation was considerably higher among males reared in the social versus solitary environment for aggressiveness but not for nutrient intake. Simultaneously, social experience led to lower within-individual stability (i.e., increased within-individual variance) in carbohydrate intake. Past social experiences, thus, shaped both behavioral individuality and stability. While previous research has emphasized behavioral individuality resulting from repeated interactions among familiar individuals, our study implies that behavioral individuality, in the context of aggression, may generally result from social interactions, whether with familiar or unfamiliar individuals. Our findings thus imply that social interactions may have a stronger effect on individual differentiation than previously appreciated.
The Vác Mummy Collection comprises 265 well documented mummified individuals from the late 16th to the early 18th century that were discovered in 1994 inside a crypt in Vác, Hungary. This collection ...offers a unique opportunity to study the relationship between humans and pathogens in the pre-antibiotic era, as previous studies have shown a high proportion of tuberculosis (TB) infections among the individuals. In this study, we recovered ancient DNA with shotgun sequencing from a rib bone sample of a 18th century midwife. This individual is part of the collection and shows clear skeletal changes that are associated with tuberculosis and syphilis. To provide molecular proof, we applied a metagenomic approach to screen for ancient pathogen DNA. While we were unsuccessful to recover any ancient Treponema pallidum DNA, we retrieved high coverage ancient TB DNA and identified a mixed infection with two distinct TB strains by detailed single-nucleotide polymorphism and phylogenetic analysis. Thereby, we have obtained comprehensive results demonstrating the long-time prevalence of mixed infections with the sublineages L4.1.2.1/Haarlem and L4.10/PGG3 within the local community in preindustrial Hungary and put them in context of sociohistorical factors.
Selection may favour individuals of the same population to differ consistently in nutritional preference, for example, because optimal diets covary with morphology or personality. We provided ...Southern field crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus) with two synthetic food sources (carbohydrates and proteins) and quantified repeatedly how much of each macronutrient was consumed by each individual. We then quantified (i) whether individuals were repeatable in carbohydrate and protein intake rate, (ii) whether an individual's average daily intake of carbohydrates was correlated with its average daily intake of protein, and (iii) whether short-term changes in intake of carbohydrates coincided with changes in intake of protein within individuals. Intake rates were individually repeatable for both macronutrients. However, individuals differed in their relative daily intake of carbohydrates versus proteins (i.e., 'nutritional preference'). By contrast, total consumption varied plastically as a function of body weight within individuals. Body weight-but not personality (i.e., aggression, exploration behaviour)-positively predicted nutritional preference at the individual level as large crickets repeatedly consumed a higher carbohydrate to protein ratio compared to small ones. Our finding of level-specific associations between the consumption of distinct nutritional components demonstrates the merit of applying multivariate and multi-level viewpoints to the study of nutritional preference.
Many sampling protocols have been established to successfully retrieve human DNA from archaeological remains, however the systematic detection of ancient pathogens remains challenging. Here, we ...present a first assessment of the intra-bone variability of metagenomic composition in human skeletal remains and its effect on the sampling success for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and human endogenous DNA. For this purpose, four bone samples from published peer-reviewed studies with PCR-based evidence for ancient MTB DNA were selected. Two bone samples of a Neolithic individual from Halberstadt, Germany and two ribs of two 18th-century Hungarian church mummies were sampled at multiple locations for equal amounts, followed by DNA extraction and library construction. Shotgun sequencing data was generated for taxonomic profiling as well as quantitative and qualitative evaluation of MTB and human endogenous DNA. Despite low variance in microbial diversity within and across samples, intra-bone variability of up to 36.45- and 62.88-fold for authentic ancient MTB and human reads, respectively, was detected. This study demonstrates the variable sampling success for MTB and human endogenous DNA within single skeletal samples despite relatively consistent microbial composition and highlights how a multisampling approach can facilitate the detection of hotspots with highly concentrated pathogen and human endogenous DNA.
Nucleic acid extraction from complex environmental and ancient tissue material is prone to co‐extract inhibitory substances that make further molecular analysis difficult or impossible. This ...co‐extraction occurs in both solid‐phase and liquid‐phase/organic nucleic acid extraction protocols. Currently, the widely used method to overcome inhibition includes the addition of bovine serum albumin (BSA) to the downstream enzymatic reactions or the dilution of the nucleic acid extracts. BSA, however, seems to reduce the inhibitory effect of certain compounds only, and excessive dilution may change the original DNA composition.
In this study, we introduce an innovative new method using linear polyacrylamide (LPA) to efficiently precipitate and purify nucleic acids extracted from complex environmental and ancient tissue samples in one working step. The LPA method replaces the precipitation step in classic liquid‐phase/organic extraction protocols or can be easily applied as an additional post‐extraction step on impure DNA extracts. As a proof of concept, we experimented with this method on different ancient human mummy samples (bones, soft tissues and gut contents) from different time periods (5000 BC–1800 AD), as well as on complex environmental samples (e.g. soil, activated sludge and animal faeces) known to contain inhibitory compounds.
We demonstrated that LPA precipitates nucleic acids, even in an aqueous ethanol solution without the addition of chaotropic salts, resulting in the recovery of highly pure DNA from all tested samples that displayed inhibition with previously published extraction protocols. Compared to the current, most widely used silica‐based extraction method for ancient and sedimentary DNA, our LPA method resulted in comparable DNA qualities and overall DNA compositions (human endogenous content and microbial diversity).
In conclusion, our LPA method with its high purifying capacity provides an important alternative to the commonly used DNA extraction protocols in the environmental and ancient DNA (aDNA) fields.
مستخلص
استخلاص الحمض النووي من العينات البيئية و الأنسجة القديمة المعقدة غالباً ما يكون يقترن باستخلاص بعض المواد المثبطة التي تجعل إجراء المزيد من التحاليل الجزيئية صعبًا أو مستحيلًا. يحدث هذا الاستخلاص المقترن في كلٍ من بروتوكولات استخلاص الأحماض النووية القائمة على حالة الاستخلاص الصلبة أو حالة الاستخلاص السائلة العضوية. في الوقت الحالي ، يتم التغلب على هذا التثبيط إما بإضافة ألبومين المصل البقري (BSA) إلى التفاعلات الإنزيمية اللاحقة أو بتخفيف مستخلصات الحمض النووي. ولكن إضافة الـBSA تقلل التأثير المثبط لمركبات معينة فقط ، وقد يؤدي التخفيف المفرط إلى تغيير النسب الأصلية للحمض النووي.
في هذه الدراسة ، نقدم طريقة جديدة مبتكرة باستخدام عديد الأكريلاميد الخطي (LPA) لترسيب وتنقية الأحماض النووية المستخرجة من العينات البيئية والأنسجة القديمة المعقدة في خطوة واحدة. تحل طريقة LPA محل خطوة الترسيب في بروتوكولات الاستخلاص التقليدية ‐ سواءً في حالة الاستخلاص الصلبة أو السائلة ‐ أو يمكن تطبيقها بسهولة كخطوة إضافية على مستخلصات الأحماض النووية الغير النقية. ولإثبات هذا المفهوم ، جربنا هذه الطريقة على عينات مومياء بشرية قديمة مختلفة (عظام وأنسجة رخوة ومحتويات معوية) من فترات زمنية مختلفة (5000 ق.م. ‐ 1800 م) ، وعينات بيئية معقدة (عينات تربة و حمأة و براز حيوانات) المعروف باحتوائها على مركبات مثبطة.
تمكنا من إثبات أن مادة الـLPA ترسب الأحماض النووية في محلول الإيثانول المائي دون إضافة أملاح تشوتروبيكية chaotropic ، مما يؤدي إلى الحصول على مستخلصات أحماض نووية نقية للغاية من جميع العينات المختبرة التي أظهرت تثبيطًا باستخدام بروتوكولات الاستخراج المنشورة مسبقًا. مقارنةً بأسلوب الاستخلاص القائم على السيليكا ‐ الأكثر استخدامًا حاليًا للحمض النووي القديم والرسوبي ‐ نتج عن طريقة LPA الخاصة بنا صفات مماثلة وتركيبات شاملة للحمض النووي (من حيث المحتوى الأصلي للحمض النووي البشري والتنوع الميكروبي).
وأخيراً ، تمثل طريقة LPA الخاصة بنا ‐ والتي تتميز بقدرتها العالية على التنقية ‐ بديلاً هامًا لبروتوكولات استخراج الحمض النووي شائعة الاستخدام في المجالات البيئية ومجالات الحمض النووي القديم.
Medulloblastomas are the most common malignant brain tumours in children. Identifying and understanding the genetic events that drive these tumours is critical for the development of more effective ...diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic strategies. Recently, our group and others described distinct molecular subtypes of medulloblastoma on the basis of transcriptional and copy number profiles. Here we use whole-exome hybrid capture and deep sequencing to identify somatic mutations across the coding regions of 92 primary medulloblastoma/normal pairs. Overall, medulloblastomas have low mutation rates consistent with other paediatric tumours, with a median of 0.35 non-silent mutations per megabase. We identified twelve genes mutated at statistically significant frequencies, including previously known mutated genes in medulloblastoma such as CTNNB1, PTCH1, MLL2, SMARCA4 and TP53. Recurrent somatic mutations were newly identified in an RNA helicase gene, DDX3X, often concurrent with CTNNB1 mutations, and in the nuclear co-repressor (N-CoR) complex genes GPS2, BCOR and LDB1. We show that mutant DDX3X potentiates transactivation of a TCF promoter and enhances cell viability in combination with mutant, but not wild-type, β-catenin. Together, our study reveals the alteration of WNT, hedgehog, histone methyltransferase and now N-CoR pathways across medulloblastomas and within specific subtypes of this disease, and nominates the RNA helicase DDX3X as a component of pathogenic β-catenin signalling in medulloblastoma.
Referate Nettmann, H.K.Voland; Walter, H; Hou, Y ...
Anthropologischer Anzeiger,
06/1996, Letnik:
54, Številka:
2
Book Review
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