Hornets are the largest of the social wasps, and are important regulators of insect populations in their native ranges. Hornets are also very successful as invasive species, with often devastating economic, ecological and societal effects. Understanding why these wasps are such successful invaders is critical to managing future introductions and minimising impact on native biodiversity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA key mechanistic hypothesis for the evolution of division of labour in social insects is that a shared set of genes co-opted from a common solitary ancestral ground plan (a genetic toolkit for sociality) regulates caste differentiation across levels of social complexity. Using brain transcriptome data from nine species of vespid wasps, we test for overlap in differentially expressed caste genes and use machine learning models to predict castes using different gene sets. We find evidence of a shared genetic toolkit across species representing different levels of social complexity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEntropy (Basel)
December 2022
Decentralized finance (DeFi) is by far the most popular application of blockchain technology. Despite the wide acceptance of new financial instruments and services, there are still many unexplored areas in the field. We dedicate this research to the understanding of one of the most crucial limitations of decentralized finance-oracles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe evolution of cooperation in cellular groups is threatened by lineages of cheaters that proliferate at the expense of the group. These cell lineages occur within microbial communities, and multicellular organisms in the form of tumours and cancer. In contrast to an earlier study, here we show how the evolution of pleiotropic genetic architectures-which link the expression of cooperative and private traits-can protect against cheater lineages and allow cooperation to evolve.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Opin Insect Sci
August 2018
The major evolutionary transition to superorganismality has taken place several times in the insects. Although there has been much consideration of the ultimate evolutionary explanations for superorganismality, we know relatively little about what proximate mechanisms constrain or promote this major transition. Here, we propose that Vespid wasps represent an understudied, but potentially very useful, model system for studying the mechanisms underpinning superorganismality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Biologic heterogeneity is a feature of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and the existence of a subgroup with poor prognosis and phenotypic proximity to Burkitt lymphoma is well known. Conventional cytogenetics identifies some patients with rearrangements of MYC and BCL2 and/or BCL6 (double-hit lymphomas) who are increasingly treated with more intensive chemotherapy, but a more biologically coherent and clinically useful definition of this group is required.
Patients And Methods: We defined a molecular high-grade (MHG) group by applying a gene expression-based classifier to 928 patients with DLBCL from a clinical trial that investigated the addition of bortezomib to standard rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (R-CHOP) therapy.
The rice blast fungus causes significant annual harvest losses. It also serves as a genetically-tractable model to study fungal ingress. Whilst pathogenicity determinants have been unmasked and changes in global gene expression described, we know little about Magnaporthe oryzae cell wall remodelling.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOpsin proteins covalently bind to small molecular chromophores and each protein-chromophore complex is sensitive to particular wavelengths of light. Multiple opsins with different wavelength absorbance peaks are required for color vision. Comparing opsin responses is challenging at low light levels, explaining why color vision is often lost in nocturnal species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
September 2014
The roles of 2-oxoglutarate (2OG)-dependent prolyl-hydroxylases in eukaryotes include collagen stabilization, hypoxia sensing, and translational regulation. The hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) sensing system is conserved in animals, but not in other organisms. However, bioinformatics imply that 2OG-dependent prolyl-hydroxylases (PHDs) homologous to those acting as sensing components for the HIF system in animals occur in prokaryotes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBacteria in the diverse Pseudomonas fluorescens group include rhizosphere inhabitants known for their antifungal metabolite production and biological control of plant disease, such as Pseudomonas protegens Pf-5, and mushroom pathogens, such as Pseudomonas tolaasii. Here, we report that strain Pf-5 causes brown, sunken lesions on peeled caps of the button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) that resemble brown blotch symptoms caused by P. tolaasii.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Extra-cellular microRNAs have been identified within blood and their profiles reflect various pathologies; therefore they have potential as disease biomarkers. Our aim was to investigate how circulating microRNA profiles change during cancer treatment. Our hypothesis was that tumour-related profiles are lost after tumour resection and therefore that comparison of profiles before and after surgery would allow identification of biomarker microRNAs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants produce flowers with complex visual and olfactory signals, but we know relatively little about the way that signals such as floral scents have evolved. One important factor that may direct the evolution of floral signals is a pollinator's ability to learn. When animals learn to associate two similar signals with different outcomes, biases in their responses to new signals can be formed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF