Bachmannbolton1638

Many animals, including humans, have evolved to live and move in groups. In humans, disrupted social interactions are a fundamental feature of many psychiatric disorders. However, we know little about how genes regulate social behavior. Zebrafish may serve as a powerful model to explore this question. By comparing the behavior of wild-type fish with 90 mutant lines, we show that mutations of genes associated with human psychiatric disorders can alter the collective behavior of adult zebrafish. We identify three categories of behavioral variation across mutants "scattered," in which fish show reduced cohesion; "coordinated," in which fish swim more in aligned schools; and "huddled," in which fish form dense but disordered groups. Changes in individual interaction rules can explain these differences. This work demonstrates how emergent patterns in animal groups can be altered by genetic changes in individuals and establishes a framework for understanding the fundamentals of social information processing. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a rare malignancy in most parts of the world, but is endemic in some ethnic groups. The association of NPC with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is firmly established; however, the mechanism is still unclear. TLR9 is well known for its essential role in viral pathogen recognition and activation of innate immunity. Here, we report a set of TLR9 polymorphisms in the TIR-2 domain of the TLR9 protein collected from the EBV-infected NPC samples from northeast Indian populations sharing the aforesaid ethnicity. The occurrence of mutations is significantly high in these samples as we found a p value of less then 0.0001 at a significance level of 0.05. These might play an important role for the lack of function of TLR9 and thus for the higher occurrence of EBV-mediated NPC in such ethnic groups. Drought is a major threat in agriculture and horticulture, including commercial strawberry production. Here, we compare hormonal regulation of a first-line drought stress response, namely stomatal closure, in two Fragaria x ananassa cultivars, known to differ in their drought stress phenotype. We show that the observed difference in xylem abscisic acid accumulation cannot explain the different stomatal responses under osmotic stress. Foliar abscisic acid accumulation cannot fully account for the stomatal behavior in one of both cultivars either. An indirect effect of abscisic acid on stomatal conductance via an impact on leaf hydraulic conductance, possibly mediated via aquaporins, as is recently proposed in literature, was not observed here. Next, we show that these two cultivars respond differently to jasmonic acid and one of its precursors. This difference in sensitivity of the jasmonates pathway between both cultivars may partly explain the different stomatal response. This study contributes to the understanding of the regulation of an important drought stress response in an economically important crop prone to water deficit stress. Soldanella alpina differing in leaf epidermal UV-A absorbance (DEA375), as measured with the Dualex, was investigated as a model alpine plant for the flavonoid (Flav) composition and concentration and for anatomical and pigment characteristics. In sun leaves, twenty-three flavones were characterised by their mass formula, their maximum absorption, their glycosylation, their methylation and dehydroxylation pattern. The flavones belonged to four subfamilies (tetra-hydroxy-flavones, penta-hydroxy-flavones, penta-hydroxy-methyl-flavones and tri-hydroxy-di-methoxy-flavones), abundant in sun and shade leaves. Their concentration was estimated by their absorption at 350 nm after HPLC separation. Sun leaves contained relatively higher contents of penta-hydroxy-methyl-flavones and shade leaves higher contents of tetra-hydroxy-flavones. The flavones were present mainly in vacuoles, all over the leaf. After shade-sun transfer, the content of most flavones increased, irrespective of the presence or absence of UV radiation. Highly significant correlations with the log-transformed DEA375 suggest that DEA375 can be readily applied to predict the flavone content of S. alpina leaves. Shade-sun transfer of leaves decreased the hydroxycinnamic acid (HCA) content, the mass-based chlorophyll (Chl) a+b content and the Chl/Carotenoid (Car) ratio but increased DEA375, and the Car content. Together with previously reported anatomical characteristics all these parameters correlated significantly with the DEA375. The Flav content is therefore correlated to most of the structural characteristics of leaf acclimation to light and this can be probed in situ by DEA375. Light and temperature are two primary environmental factors for plant growth and development. The response of plants to multiple stresses of high light intensity and heat stress are complex. DTNB inhibitor The priming effects of high light and heat stress on improving heat tolerance of plants need to be further illuminated. This study aimed to explain the effect of high light intensity, high temperature and their combination on tomato and clarify the response of tomato to heat stress after priming. Tomato plants were treated under control, high light, heat stress and the combination for the first-round treatments, followed by recurring heat stress as the second-round treatments. For the first-round treatments, the net photosynthetic rate (PN) of the plants at individual high light and individual high temperature on day four significantly increased and decreased, respectively, as compared with control. Combined stress caused significant reduction in Fv/Fm (maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II) and chlorophyll content as well as increase in carotenoids and carbohydrates content. No significant difference in the PN was observed in tomato with and without priming; however, heat priming did improve the heat avoidance ability by increasing evaporation and decreasing leaf temperature. Overall, the high light affected the physiological response of tomatoes at heat stress. The tomato plants developed their defense systems including chlorophyll loss and synthesis of carotenoids to protect themselves from multiple stresses. Our work provided new insights into the understanding of plants response to high light and heat stress.