Microhabitat and adhesive toepads shape gecko limb morphology.

Different substrates pose varied biomechanical challenges that select specific morphologies, such as long limbs for faster running and short limbs for balanced posture while climbing narrow substrates. We tested how gecko locomotion is affected by the microhabitat they occupy and by a key adaptation-adhesive toepads-through analyzing how those are related to limb morphology. We collected microhabitat and toepads data for over 90% of limbed gecko species, and limb measurements for 403 species from 83 of the 121 limbed gecko genera, which we then used in phylogenetic comparative analyses.

PSAURON: a tool for assessing protein annotation across a broad range of species.

Unlabelled: Evaluating the accuracy of protein-coding sequences in genome annotations is a challenging problem for which there is no broadly applicable solution. In this manuscript we introduce PSAURON (Protein Sequence Assessment Using a Reference ORF Network), a novel software tool developed to assess the quality of protein-coding gene annotations. Utilizing a machine learning model trained on a diverse dataset from over 1000 plant and animal genomes, PSAURON assigns a score to coding DNA or protein sequence that reflects the likelihood that the sequence is a genuine protein coding region.

A genome sequence for the threatened whitebark pine.

Whitebark pine (WBP, Pinus albicaulis) is a white pine of subalpine regions in the Western contiguous United States and Canada. WBP has become critically threatened throughout a significant part of its natural range due to mortality from the introduced fungal pathogen white pine blister rust (WPBR, Cronartium ribicola) and additional threats from mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), wildfire, and maladaptation due to changing climate. Vast acreages of WBP have suffered nearly complete mortality.

Low-Toxicity and High-Efficiency Genome Editing Tool Based on the Miniature Type V-F CRISPR/Cas Nuclease AsCas12f1.

Genome editing tools based on SpCas9 and FnCpf1 have facilitated strain improvements for natural product production and novel drug discovery in . However, due to high toxicity, their editing requires high DNA transformation efficiency, which is unavailable in most streptomycetes. The transformation efficiency of an all-in-one editing tool based on miniature Cas nuclease AsCas12f1 was significantly higher than those of SpCas9 and FnCpf1 in tested streptomycetes, which is due to its small size and weak DNA cleavage activity.