Analysis of Non-Relapsed and Relapsed Adult Type Granulosa Cell Tumors Suggests Stable Transcriptomes during Tumor Progression.

Adult-type granulosa cell tumor (AGCT) is a rare ovarian malignancy characterized by slow growth and hormonal activity. The prognosis of AGCT is generally favorable, but one-third of patients with low-stage disease experience a late relapse, and over half of them die of AGCT. To identify markers that would distinguish patients at risk for relapse, we performed Lexogen QuantSeq 3' mRNA sequencing on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded, archival AGCT tissue samples tested positive for the pathognomonic Forkhead Box L2 () mutation.

Ecological and genetic basis of metapopulation persistence of the Glanville fritillary butterfly in fragmented landscapes.

Ecologists are challenged to construct models of the biological consequences of habitat loss and fragmentation. Here, we use a metapopulation model to predict the distribution of the Glanville fritillary butterfly during 22 years across a large heterogeneous landscape with 4,415 small dry meadows. The majority (74%) of the 125 networks into which the meadows were clustered are below the extinction threshold for long-term persistence.

Predictable allele frequency changes due to habitat fragmentation in the Glanville fritillary butterfly.

Describing the evolutionary dynamics of now extinct populations is challenging, as their genetic composition before extinction is generally unknown. The Glanville fritillary butterfly has a large extant metapopulation in the Åland Islands in Finland, but declined to extinction in the nearby fragmented southwestern (SW) Finnish archipelago in the 20th century. We genotyped museum samples for 222 SNPs across the genome, including SNPs from candidate genes and neutral regions.

Effects of ambient and preceding temperatures and metabolic genes on flight metabolism in the Glanville fritillary butterfly.

Flight is essential for foraging, mate searching and dispersal in many insects, but flight metabolism in ectotherms is strongly constrained by temperature. Thermal conditions vary greatly in natural populations and may hence restrict fitness-related activities. Working on the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia), we studied the effects of temperature experienced during the first 2 days of adult life on flight metabolism, genetic associations between flight metabolic rate and variation in candidate metabolic genes, and genotype-temperature interactions.

Phenotypic plasticity in thermal tolerance in the Glanville fritillary butterfly.

Ambient temperature is an ubiquitous environmental factor affecting all organisms. Global climate change increases temperature variation and the frequency of extreme temperatures, which may pose challenges to ectotherms. Here, we examine phenotypic plasticity to temperature and genotypic effects on thermal tolerance in the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia).