High Accuracy Indicators of Androgen Suppression Therapy Failure for Prostate Cancer-A Modeling Study.

Prostate cancer is a serious public health concern in the United States. The primary obstacle to effective long-term management for prostate cancer patients is the eventual development of treatment resistance. Due to the uniquely chaotic nature of the neoplastic genome, it is difficult to determine the evolution of tumor composition over the course of treatment.

The Influence of a Mexican Cultural Immersion Experience on Personal and Professional Healthcare Practices.

The purpose of this study was to understand the influence of a cultural immersion experience on personal and professional healthcare practices of occupational therapists. The experience, a 10-day course in Oaxaca, Mexico, exposed participants to alternative and complementary medicine through interactive sessions with Mexican indigenous traditional healers. The literature indicates that cultural immersion experiences can increase the perceived cultural effectiveness of healthcare professionals.

Megabase-scale inversion polymorphism in the wild ancestor of maize.

Chromosomal inversions are thought to play a special role in local adaptation, through dramatic suppression of recombination, which favors the maintenance of locally adapted alleles. However, relatively few inversions have been characterized in population genomic data. On the basis of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping across a large panel of Zea mays, we have identified an ∼50-Mb region on the short arm of chromosome 1 where patterns of polymorphism are highly consistent with a polymorphic paracentric inversion that captures >700 genes.

Genome-wide association analysis of oxidative stress resistance in Drosophila melanogaster.

Background: Aerobic organisms are susceptible to damage by reactive oxygen species. Oxidative stress resistance is a quantitative trait with population variation attributable to the interplay between genetic and environmental factors. Drosophila melanogaster provides an ideal system to study the genetics of variation for resistance to oxidative stress.

grassy tillers1 promotes apical dominance in maize and responds to shade signals in the grasses.

The shape of a plant is largely determined by regulation of lateral branching. Branching architecture can vary widely in response to both genotype and environment, suggesting regulation by a complex interaction of autonomous genetic factors and external signals. Tillers, branches initiated at the base of grass plants, are suppressed in response to shade conditions.

MADS-box genes of maize: frequent targets of selection during domestication.

MADS-box genes encode transcription factors that are key regulators of plant inflorescence and flower development. We examined DNA sequence variation in 32 maize MADS-box genes and 32 randomly chosen maize loci and investigated their involvement in maize domestication and improvement. Using neutrality tests and a test based on coalescent simulation of a bottleneck model, we identified eight MADS-box genes as putative targets of the artificial selection associated with domestication.

Natural variation, functional pleiotropy and transcriptional contexts of odorant binding protein genes in Drosophila melanogaster.

How functional diversification affects the organization of the transcriptome is a central question in systems genetics. To explore this issue, we sequenced all six Odorant binding protein (Obp) genes located on the X chromosome, four of which occur as a cluster, in 219 inbred wild-derived lines of Drosophila melanogaster and tested for associations between genetic and phenotypic variation at the organismal and transcriptional level. We observed polymorphisms in Obp8a, Obp19a, Obp19b, and Obp19c associated with variation in olfactory responses and polymorphisms in Obp19d associated with variation in life span.

Using association mapping in teosinte to investigate the function of maize selection-candidate genes.

Background: Large-scale screens of the maize genome identified 48 genes that show the putative signature of artificial selection during maize domestication or improvement. These selection-candidate genes may act as quantitative trait loci (QTL) that control the phenotypic differences between maize and its progenitor, teosinte. The selection-candidate genes appear to be located closer in the genome to domestication QTL than expected by chance.

The genetic architecture of complex traits in teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis): new evidence from association mapping.

Previous association analyses showed that variation at major regulatory genes contributes to standing variation for complex traits in Balsas teosinte, the progenitor of maize. This study expands our previous association mapping effort in teosinte by testing 123 markers in 52 candidate genes for association with 31 traits in a population of 817 individuals. Thirty-three significant associations for markers from 15 candidate genes and 10 traits survive correction for multiple testing.

The role of regulatory genes during maize domestication: evidence from nucleotide polymorphism and gene expression.

We investigated DNA sequence variation in 72 candidate genes in maize landraces and the wild ancestor of maize, teosinte. The candidate genes were chosen because they exhibit very low sequence diversity among maize inbreds and have sequence homology to known regulatory genes. We observed signatures of selection in 17 candidate genes, indicating that they were potential targets of artificial selection during domestication.

Major regulatory genes in maize contribute to standing variation in teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis).

In plants, many major regulatory genes that control plant growth and development have been identified and characterized. Despite a detailed knowledge of the function of these genes little is known about how they contribute to the natural variation for complex traits. To determine whether major regulatory genes of maize contribute to standing variation in Balsas teosinte we conducted association mapping in 584 Balsas teosinte individuals.