Melendezneville8156
Phylogenetics and the placement of WGDs within highly polyploid lineages continues to be a major challenge. This study adds to the conversation on WGD inference difficulties by demonstrating that sampling is especially important for WGD identification and phylogenetic placement. Given its economic importance and genomic resources, the Brassicales continues to be an ideal group for assessing WGD inference methods.
Phylogenetics and the placement of WGDs within highly polyploid lineages continues to be a major challenge. This study adds to the conversation on WGD inference difficulties by demonstrating that sampling is especially important for WGD identification and phylogenetic placement. Given its economic importance and genomic resources, the Brassicales continues to be an ideal group for assessing WGD inference methods.
Resource availability affects biomass allocation in ways that could influence plant responses to disturbance such as fire. This is important because fire also varies across landscapes in ways that are correlated to resource availability. We hypothesized that plants growing in landscape microsites with a shortage of nutrients and water allocate more biomass and resources to belowground structures (and thus promote traits that enhance post-fire resprouting ability) than plants in more mesic sites.
We selected sites in three contrasting topographies (3 gullies, 3 midslopes, and 3 ridges) that supported different vegetation types and fire regimes, in Jalisco, Mexico. At each site, we measured soil nutrient and water content and light availability. Then we sampled biomass and root starch allocation in three post-fire resprouting shrubs that grow across a wide range of microenvironmental conditions.
The ridges showed the highest values of solar radiation and the lowest of soil N and water content. Overall, we found a significant tendency for higher root-to-shoot (R/S) ratios, greater fine root biomass, and higher root starch content, in individuals growing in ridges or midslopes compared to the values of the plants living in gullies.
Plants located in open canopy sites, characterized by a shortage of nutrients and water, tend to allocate more biomass belowground than plants in wet and fertile sites. Thus, plants in wet and fertile forests should be more vulnerable to increased disturbance such as wildfires.
Plants located in open canopy sites, characterized by a shortage of nutrients and water, tend to allocate more biomass belowground than plants in wet and fertile sites. Thus, plants in wet and fertile forests should be more vulnerable to increased disturbance such as wildfires.
Klotho is a membrane-bound or soluble protein, originally identified as an age-suppressing factor and regulator of mineral metabolism. Klotho deficiency is associated with the development of renal disease, but its role in cardiac function in the context of uraemic cardiomyopathy is unknown.
We explored the effects of Klotho on cardiac Ca
cycling. We analysed Ca
handling in adult cardiomyocytes from Klotho-deficient (kl/kl) mice and from a murine model of 5/6 nephrectomy (Nfx). We also studied the effect of exogenous Klotho supplementation, by chronic recombinant Klotho treatment, or endogenous Klotho overexpression, using transgenic mice overexpressing Klotho (Tg-Kl), on uraemic cardiomyopathy. Hearts from Nfx mice were used to study Ca
sensitivity of ryanodine receptors and their phosphorylation state.
Cardiomyocytes from kl/kl mice showed decreased amplitude of intracellular Ca
transients and cellular shortening together with an increase in pro-arrhythmic Ca
events compared with cells from wild-type mice. Cardiomyocytes from Nfx mice exhibited the same impairment in Ca
cycling as kl/kl mice. Changes in Nfx cardiomyocytes were explained by higher sensitivity of ryanodine receptors to Ca
and their increased phosphorylation at the calmodulin kinase type II and protein kinase A sites. Ca
mishandling in Nfx-treated mice was fully prevented by chronic recombinant Klotho administration or transgenic Klotho overexpression.
Klotho emerges as an attractive therapeutic tool to improve cardiac Ca
mishandling observed in uraemic cardiomyopathy. Strategies that improve Klotho availability are good candidates to protect the heart from functional cardiac alterations in renal disease.
Klotho emerges as an attractive therapeutic tool to improve cardiac Ca2+ mishandling observed in uraemic cardiomyopathy. Strategies that improve Klotho availability are good candidates to protect the heart from functional cardiac alterations in renal disease.Family with sequence similarity 20, member C (FAM20C) is the main kinase of secreted phosphoproteins, including the multifunctional protein and cytokine, osteopontin (OPN). The phosphorylation of OPN varies greatly among cell types, tissues and species, and the different phospho-isoforms contribute to the multifunctionality of the protein. Expression of OPN is increased in human malignancies, and less phosphorylated isoforms of the protein have been associated with this phenotype. Here, we compared OPN from ras-transformed fibroblasts with that from their non-transformed parental cells, and found that OPN was less phosphorylated after ras-transformation. Furthermore, we demonstrated that expression of FAM20C mRNA was reduced five-fold in ras-transformed fibroblasts compared with non-transformed fibroblasts. Transfection with FAM20C of the ras-transformed fibroblasts restored the FAM20C mRNA expression but the phosphorylation of OPN was not increased proportionally. Likewise, the mRNA level of FAM20C was reduced in the malignant ras-transformed mammary cell line MCF10ACA1a compared with its non-transformed parental cell line MCF10A. These results suggest that expression of the FAM20C kinase is reduced after oncogenic ras-transformation, which potentially affects the phosphorylation of secreted phosphoproteins.In recent decades, many genome-wide association studies on insomnia have reported numerous genes harboring multiple risk variants. learn more Nevertheless, the molecular functions of these risk variants conveying risk to insomnia are still ill-studied. In the present study, we integrated GWAS summary statistics (N=386,533) with two independent brain expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) datasets (N=329) to determine whether expression-associated SNPs convey risk to insomnia. Furthermore, we applied numerous bioinformatics analyses to highlight promising genes associated with insomnia risk. By using Sherlock integrative analysis, we detected 449 significant insomnia-associated genes in the discovery stage. These identified genes were significantly overrepresented in six biological pathways including Huntington's disease (P=5.58 × 10-5), Alzheimer's disease (P=5.58 × 10-5), Parkinson's disease (P=6.34 × 10-5), spliceosome (P=1.17 × 10-4), oxidative phosphorylation (P=1.09 × 10-4), and wnt signaling pathways (P=2.07 × 10-4).