Single Cell Sequencing Provides Clues about the Developmental Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Adaptations in Syngnathid Fishes.

Seahorses, pipefishes, and seadragons are fishes from the family Syngnathidae that have evolved extraordinary traits including male pregnancy, elongated snouts, loss of teeth, and dermal bony armor. The developmental genetic and cellular changes that led to the evolution of these traits are largely unknown. Recent syngnathid genome assemblies revealed suggestive gene content differences and provide the opportunity for detailed genetic analyses.

Host genomic variation shapes gut microbiome diversity in threespine stickleback fish.

A major focus of host-microbe research is to understand how genetic differences, of various magnitudes, among hosts translate to differences in their microbiomes. This has been challenging for animal hosts, including humans, because it is difficult to control environmental variables tightly enough to isolate direct genetic effects on the microbiome. Our work in stickleback fish is a significant contribution because our experimental approach allowed strict control over environmental factors, including standardization of the microbiome from the earliest stage of development and unrestricted co-housing of fish in a truly common environment.

Ovarian transcriptional response to Wolbachia infection in D. melanogaster in the context of between-genotype variation in gene expression.

Wolbachia is a maternally transmitted endosymbiotic bacteria that infects a wide variety of arthropod and nematode hosts. The effects of Wolbachia on host biology are far-reaching and include changes in host gene expression. However, previous work on the host transcriptional response has generally been investigated in the context of a single host genotype.

Evolution and developmental expression of the sodium-iodide symporter (, ) gene family: Implications for perchlorate toxicology.

The vertebrate sodium-iodide symporter (NIS or SLC5A5) transports iodide into the thyroid follicular cells that synthesize thyroid hormone. The SLC5A protein family includes transporters of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. Disruption of SLC5A5 function by perchlorate, a pervasive environmental contaminant, leads to human pathologies, especially hypothyroidism.

Rising Above: COVID-19 Impacts to Culture-Based Programming in Four American Indian Communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. Tribes, tribal organizations, AI/AN youth and community-serving programs, and tribal health organizations have responded and adapted programs and services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores how COVID-19 impacted Native PRIDE, an American Indian non-profit organization, and the tribal communities involved in the Intergenerational Connections Project (ICP).

The evolution of the testis transcriptome in pregnant male pipefishes and seahorses.

In many animals, sperm competition and sexual conflict are thought to drive the rapid evolution of male-specific genes, especially those expressed in the testes. A potential exception occurs in the male pregnant pipefishes, where females transfer eggs to the males, eliminating testes from participating in these processes. Here, we show that testis-related genes differ dramatically in their rates of molecular evolution and expression patterns in pipefishes and seahorses (Syngnathidae) compared to other fish.

Leafy and weedy seadragon genomes connect genic and repetitive DNA features to the extravagant biology of syngnathid fishes.

Seadragons are a remarkable lineage of teleost fishes in the family Syngnathidae, renowned for having evolved male pregnancy. Comprising three known species, seadragons are widely recognized and admired for their fantastical body forms and coloration, and their specific habitat requirements have made them flagship representatives for marine conservation and natural history interests. Until recently, a gap has been the lack of significant genomic resources for seadragons.

Advancing human disease research with fish evolutionary mutant models.

Model organism research is essential to understand disease mechanisms. However, laboratory-induced genetic models can lack genetic variation and often fail to mimic the spectrum of disease severity. Evolutionary mutant models (EMMs) are species with evolved phenotypes that mimic human disease.

mRNA-encoded, constitutively active STING is a potent genetic adjuvant of antigen-specific CD8 T cell response.

mRNA vaccines induce potent immune responses in preclinical models and clinical studies. Adjuvants are used to stimulate specific components of the immune system to increase immunogenicity of vaccines. We utilized a constitutively active mutation (V155M) of the stimulator of interferon (IFN) genes (STING), which had been described in a patient with STING-associated vasculopathy with onset in infancy (SAVI), to act as a genetic adjuvant for use with our lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-encapsulated mRNA vaccines.

Healers Need Healing Too: Results from the Good Road of Life Training.

Mental health professionals that work with American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations are often viewed as ineffective because their professional training is based on a Western model of service delivery that is an extension of Western colonization. Research on effective training approaches for AI/AN mental health providers or mental health professionals that work with AI/AN populations is limited. The purpose of this study is to document the experiences and impact of the Good Road of Life (GRL) training on mental health professionals that work with AI/AN populations.

QTL Mapping of Intestinal Neutrophil Variation in Threespine Stickleback Reveals Possible Gene Targets Connecting Intestinal Inflammation and Systemic Health.

Selection, via host immunity, is often required to foster beneficial microbial symbionts and suppress deleterious pathogens. In animals, the host immune system is at the center of this relationship. Failed host immune system-microbial interactions can result in a persistent inflammatory response in which the immune system indiscriminately attacks resident microbes, and at times the host cells themselves, leading to diseases such as Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's Disease, and Psoriasis.

Highly Reproducible 16S Sequencing Facilitates Measurement of Host Genetic Influences on the Stickleback Gut Microbiome.

Multicellular organisms interact with resident microbes in important ways, and a better understanding of host-microbe interactions is aided by tools such as high-throughput 16S sequencing. However, rigorous evaluation of the veracity of these tools in a different context from which they were developed has often lagged behind. Our goal was to perform one such critical test by examining how variation in tissue preparation and DNA isolation could affect inferences about gut microbiome variation between two genetically divergent lines of threespine stickleback fish maintained in the same laboratory environment.

Developmental tuning of mineralization drives morphological diversity of gill cover bones in sculpins and their relatives.

The role of osteoblast placement in skeletal morphological variation is relatively well understood, but alternative developmental mechanisms affecting bone shape remain largely unknown. Specifically, very little attention has been paid to variation in later mineralization stages of intramembranous ossification as a driver of morphological diversity. We discover the occurrence of specific, sometimes large, regions of nonmineralized osteoid within bones that also contain mineralized tissue.

A rich diversity of opercle bone shape among teleost fishes.

The opercle is a prominent craniofacial bone supporting the gill cover in all bony fish and has been the subject of morphological, developmental, and genetic investigation. We surveyed the shapes of this bone among 110 families spanning the teleost tree and examined its pattern of occupancy in a principal component-based morphospace. Contrasting with expectations from the literature that suggest the local morphospace would be only sparsely occupied, we find primarily dense, broad filling of the morphological landscape, indicating rich diversity.

Host Genotype and Microbiota Contribute Asymmetrically to Transcriptional Variation in the Threespine Stickleback Gut.

Recent studies of interactions between hosts and their resident microbes have revealed important ecological and evolutionary consequences that emerge from these complex interspecies relationships, including diseases that occur when the interactions go awry. Given the preponderance of these interactions, we hypothesized that effects of the microbiota on gene expression in the developing gut-an important aspect of host biology-would be pervasive, and that these effects would be both comparable in magnitude to and contingent on effects of the host genetic background. To evaluate the effects of the microbiota, host genotype, and their interaction on gene expression in the gut of a genetically diverse, gnotobiotic host model, the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), we compared RNA-seq data among 84 larval fish.

Establishing the reliability and validity of the sources of strength in one American Indian community.

Strength-based approaches that explore resilience and health among Native communities are needed. This report highlights the results from a sources of strength inventory reported over a 2-year period by participants (N = 48) from a Montana tribe who attended cultural camps. The authors found the sources of strength scale to be a reliable and valid measure for the population (N = 11 items, α = .

Innate immune responses to gut microbiota differ between oceanic and freshwater threespine stickleback populations.

Animal hosts must co-exist with beneficial microbes while simultaneously being able to mount rapid, non-specific, innate immune responses to pathogenic microbes. How this balance is achieved is not fully understood, and disruption of this relationship can lead to disease. Excessive inflammatory responses to resident microbes are characteristic of certain gastrointestinal pathologies such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Development and clinical validation of an in situ biopsy-based multimarker assay for risk stratification in prostate cancer.

Purpose: Prostate cancer aggressiveness and appropriate therapy are routinely determined following biopsy sampling. Current clinical and pathologic parameters are insufficient for accurate risk prediction leading primarily to overtreatment and also missed opportunities for curative therapy.

Experimental Design: An 8-biomarker proteomic assay for intact tissue biopsies predictive of prostate pathology was defined in a study of 381 patient biopsies with matched prostatectomy specimens.

Genetic evidence for monogamy in the dwarf seahorse, Hippocampus zosterae.

Syngnathid fishes (pipefishes, seahorses, and seadragons) exhibit a wide array of mating systems ranging from monogamy with long-term pair bonds to more promiscuous mating systems, such as polyandry and polygynandry. Some seahorses, including the dwarf seahorse Hippocampus zosterae, have been found to be socially monogamous. Although several seahorse species have also been shown to be genetically monogamous, parentage analysis has not yet been applied to the dwarf seahorse.

Automated quantitative multiplex immunofluorescence in situ imaging identifies phospho-S6 and phospho-PRAS40 as predictive protein biomarkers for prostate cancer lethality.

Background: We have witnessed significant progress in gene-based approaches to cancer prognostication, promising early intervention for high-risk patients and avoidance of overtreatment for low-risk patients. However, there has been less advancement in protein-based approaches, even though perturbed protein levels and post-translational modifications are more directly linked with phenotype. Most current, gene expression-based platforms require tissue lysis resulting in loss of structural and molecular information, and hence are blind to tumor heterogeneity and morphological features.

Functional similarity and molecular divergence of a novel reproductive transcriptome in two male-pregnant Syngnathus pipefish species.

Evolutionary studies have revealed that reproductive proteins in animals and plants often evolve more rapidly than the genome-wide average. The causes of this pattern, which may include relaxed purifying selection, sexual selection, sexual conflict, pathogen resistance, reinforcement, or gene duplication, remain elusive. Investigative expansions to additional taxa and reproductive tissues have the potential to shed new light on this unresolved problem.

Inter-regulation of Th17 cytokines and the IL-36 cytokines in vitro and in vivo: implications in psoriasis pathogenesis.

Accumulating evidence indicates that IL-1 family members and Th17 cytokines have a pathogenic role in psoriasis. We investigated the regulatory interactions of the IL-1-like IL-36 cytokine family and the Th17 cytokines in the context of skin inflammation. We observed increased gene expression of all three IL-36 cytokines in a Th17-dominant psoriasis-like animal model.

Pathways activated during human asthma exacerbation as revealed by gene expression patterns in blood.

Background: Asthma exacerbations remain a major unmet clinical need. The difficulty in obtaining airway tissue and bronchoalveolar lavage samples during exacerbations has greatly hampered study of naturally occurring exacerbations. This study was conducted to determine if mRNA profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) could provide information on the systemic molecular pathways involved during asthma exacerbations.

A practical guide to methods of parentage analysis.

The use of molecular techniques for parentage analysis has been a booming science for over a decade. The most important technological breakthrough was the introduction of microsatellite markers to molecular ecology, an advance that was accompanied by a proliferation and refinement of statistical techniques for the analysis of parentage data. Over the last several years, we have seen steady progress in a number of areas related to parentage analysis, and the prospects for successful studies continue to improve.