MirGeneDB 3.0: improved taxonomic sampling, uniform nomenclature of novel conserved microRNA families and updated covariance models.

We present a major update of MirGeneDB (3.0), the manually curated animal microRNA gene database. Beyond moving to a new server and the creation of a computational mirror, we have expanded the database with the addition of 33 invertebrate species, including representatives of 5 previously unsampled phyla, and 6 mammal species.

ATAD3 Proteins: Unique Mitochondrial Proteins Essential for Life in Diverse Eukaryotic Lineages.

ATPase family AAA domain-containing 3 (ATAD3) proteins are unique mitochondrial proteins that arose deep in the eukaryotic lineage but that are surprisingly absent in Fungi and Amoebozoa. These ∼600-amino acid proteins are anchored in the inner mitochondrial membrane and are essential in metazoans and Arabidopsis thaliana. ATAD3s comprise a C-terminal ATPases Associated with a variety of cellular Activities (AAA+) matrix domain and an ATAD3_N domain, which is located primarily in the inner membrane space but potentially extends to the cytosol to interact with the ER.

Pollen limitation of native plant reproduction in an urban landscape.

Premise: Evidence suggests that bees may benefit from moderate levels of human development. However, the effects of human development on pollination and reproduction of bee-pollinated plants are less-well understood. Studies have measured natural variation in pollination and plant reproduction as a function of urbanization, but few have experimentally measured the magnitude of pollen limitation in urban vs.

Arabidopsis thaliana zinc accumulation in leaf trichomes is correlated with zinc concentration in leaves.

Zinc (Zn) is a key micronutrient for plants and animals, and understanding Zn homeostasis in plants can improve both agriculture and human health. While root Zn transporters in plant model species have been characterized in detail, comparatively little is known about shoot processes controlling Zn concentrations and spatial distribution. Previous work showed that Zn hyperaccumulator species such as Arabidopsis halleri accumulate Zn and other metals in leaf trichomes.

Effects of florivory on plant-pollinator interactions: Implications for male and female components of plant reproduction.

Premise Of The Study: Florivory could have direct negative effects on plant fitness due to consumption of floral organs, and indirect effects mediated through changes in traits important to pollination. These effects likely vary with plant sexual system, depending on sex- or morph-specific patterns of damage. We investigated the direct and indirect effects of simulated florivory on male and female components of reproduction in the native, distylous vine Gelsemium sempervirens.

Phenological change in a spring ephemeral: implications for pollination and plant reproduction.

Climate change has had numerous ecological effects, including species range shifts and altered phenology. Altering flowering phenology often affects plant reproduction, but the mechanisms behind these changes are not well-understood. To investigate why altering flowering phenology affects plant reproduction, we manipulated flowering phenology of the spring herb Claytonia lanceolata (Portulacaceae) using two methods: in 2011-2013 by altering snow pack (snow-removal vs.

Prediction of the gene expression in normal lung tissue by the gene expression in blood.

Background: Comparative analysis of gene expression in human tissues is important for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying tissue-specific control of gene expression. It can also open an avenue for using gene expression in blood (which is the most easily accessible human tissue) to predict gene expression in other (less accessible) tissues, which would facilitate the development of novel gene expression based models for assessing disease risk and progression. Until recently, direct comparative analysis across different tissues was not possible due to the scarcity of paired tissue samples from the same individuals.

Epistasis in the risk of human neuropsychiatric disease.

Neuropsychiatric disease represents the ideal class of disease to assess the role of epistasis, as more genes are expressed in the brain than in any other tissue. In this chapter, two well-studied neuropsychiatric diseases are examined, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and schizophrenia, which have been shown to have multiple and, often, replicated interactions that associate with clinical endpoints or related phenotypes. In each case, a single gene is represented in a plurality of epistatic interactions, apolipoprotein E (APOE) for AD and catechol-O-methyltransferase for schizophrenia.

Cytoskeleton: cirque du septins.

Septins and F-actin are familiar cohabitants of the cleavage furrow yet how they might be functionally connected has been ambiguous. New work shows that septins can promote the assembly of curved bundles of F-actin, providing an unexpected molecular function for septins in cytokinesis.

Effects of suburbanization on forest bee communities.

Urbanization is a dominant form of land-use change driving species distributions, abundances, and diversity. Previous research has documented the negative impacts of urbanization on the abundance and diversity of many groups of organisms. However, some organisms, such as bees, may benefit from moderate levels of development, depending on how development alters the availability of foraging and nesting resources.

The impact of climate change measured at relevant spatial scales: new hope for tropical lizards.

Much attention has been given to recent predictions that widespread extinctions of tropical ectotherms, and tropical forest lizards in particular, will result from anthropogenic climate change. Most of these predictions, however, are based on environmental temperature data measured at a maximum resolution of 1 km(2), whereas individuals of most species experience thermal variation on a much finer scale. To address this disconnect, we combined thermal performance curves for five populations of Anolis lizard from the Bay Islands of Honduras with high-resolution temperature distributions generated from physical models.