High Diversity at PRDM9 in Chimpanzees and Bonobos

BACKGROUND: The PRDM9 locus in mammals has increasingly attracted research attention due to its role in mediating chromosomal recombination and possible involvement in hybrid sterility and hence speciation processes. The aim of this study was to characterize sequence variation at the PRDM9 locus in a sample of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: PRDM9 contains a highly variable and repetitive zinc finger array. We amplified this domain using long-range PCR and determined the DNA sequences using conventional Sanger sequencing. From 17 chimpanzees representing three subspecies and five bonobos we obtained a total of 12 alleles differing at the nucleotide level. Based on a data set consisting of our data and recently published Pan PRDM9 sequences, we found that at the subspecies level, diversity levels did not differ among chimpanzee subspecies or between chimpanzee subspecies and bonobos. In contrast, the sample of chimpanzees harbors significantly more diversity at PRDM9 than samples of humans. Pan PRDM9 shows signs of rapid evolution including no alleles or ZnFs in common with humans as well as signals of positive selection in the residues responsible for DNA binding. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: The high number of alleles specific to the genus Pan, signs of positive selection in the DNA binding residues, and reported lack of conservation of recombination hotspots between chimpanzees and humans suggest that PRDM9 could be active in hotspot recruitment in the genus Pan. Chimpanzees and bonobos are considered separate species and do not have overlapping ranges in the wild, making the presence of shared alleles at the amino acid level between the chimpanzee and bonobo species interesting in view of the hypothesis that PRDM9 plays a universal role in interspecific hybrid sterility

Identification of Genomic Regions Associated with Phenotypic Variation between Dog Breeds using Selection Mapping

Peer reviewe

Wearing the Ghanaian border : Performing borders through the National Friday Wear programme

This paper argues that cultural and political strategies that appeal to citizenship and national identity can be used to regulate flows across borders. In this process, citizen bodies may be enrolled as key agents. Drawing on the National Friday Wear programme – a Ghanaian government initiative intended to encourage white-collar workers to dress their bodies in domestically produced textiles on Fridays to reduce the consumption, and thereby also the inflow, of foreign textiles – the paper illustrates that citizen bodies are both spaces upon which borders are inscribed and geopolitical actors that perform borders on behalf of the nation-state.

Att leva med en oinbjuden gäst: -en litteraturstudie om hur individer upplever multiple skleros

Bakgrund: Multipel Skleros (MS) är en kronisk inflammatorisk demyeliniserande sjukdom som drabbar det centrala nervsystemet, CNS. MS är en relativt vanlig sjukdom och idag lever cirka 2 miljoner runt om i världen med sjukdomen, varav 18,000 i Sverige (Socialstyrelsen, 2016). Alla har sin individuella historia kring sitt insjuknande och hur de lär sig att hantera ett liv med sjukdomen. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur patienter upplever och hanterar Multipel Skleros. Metod: En kvalitativ litteraturstudie genomfördes baserad på nio kvalitativa studier. Dessa analyserades enligt Evans (2002) beskrivande modell. Resultat. Resultaten kommer att presentera hur individer reagerar när de får diagnosen MS. Det kommer också beskriva vilka olika hanteringsstrategier tas till samt hur den drabbades familj upplever den nya situationen. Slutsats: Resultatet visar att individer upplever sjukdomen olika och tar till olika strategier för att hantera situationen. Det framkom också att patienten och dennes familj ofta känner sig försummade av vården och sällan upplever att de får den psykologiska stöttning som behövs och önskas. Vården av MS-patienter behöver därför utvecklas för att optimera det psykologiska stödet

Border timespaces : Understanding the regulation of international mobility and migration

The distorted shape of many of today’s political borders has been widely noted. An increasingly sprawling body of literature in geography and beyond has explored the growing spatial ambiguity of borders which are now seen as both externalised and networked throughout society. There is some recognition that the spatial reconfiguration of borders to appear in locations that challenge conventional assumptions about the relationship between state, border and territory may involve a temporal dimension; however, the many ways in which time and space work through each other to shape what it means to move in and out of a political community have remained largely overlooked. In order to make sense of the complex temporal and spatial entanglements involved in contemporary bordering processes, I advance an understanding of borders as devices which selectively contract and expand the distance between internal and external spaces and mobilise and immobilise migrants by altering the speed and rhythm of their movements. A focus on dynamic, fragmented and ephemeral border timespaces, in my view, offers a more nuanced account of how the cross-border movements of migrants are currently regulated

Making Borders : Engaging the threat of Chinese textiles in Ghana

The borders of the twenty-first century come in many forms and are performed by an increasing number of actors in a broad variety of places, both within and beyond the territories of nation-states. This thesis sets out a detailed political geography of how borders operate to reconcile the often conflicting demands of open markets and security. Focusing on Ghana, where there is a widespread fear that the inflow of Chinese versions of African prints will lead to the collapse of the local textile industry, the study explores where and when borders are enforced, who performs them and what kinds of borders are enacted in order to maintain and protect the Ghanaian nation and market without compromising the country’s status as a liberal economy. It combines interviews and documentary sources with analysis drawn from border, security and migration studies to explore three sets of spatial strategies that have defined the Ghanaian approach to the perceived threat of Chinese African prints. They are the institution of a single corridor for African print imports, the anti-counterfeiting raids carried out in Ghana’s marketplaces, and the promotion of garments made from locally produced textiles as office wear through the National Friday Wear and Everyday Wear programmes. These strategies stretch, disperse and embody the borders of the state or nation to control trade in ways that resolve the fears of both open flows and closed borders. This thesis thus seeks to show how a geographical analysis can clarify the specificities of how borders now work to control mobility. In doing so, it not only unsettles conventional assumptions about what borders are and where they are supposed to be located, but also the idea that borders primarily are used to constrain the mobility of certain people while facilitating economic flows. Furthermore, this thesis adds to the understanding of the variety of responses to the inflow of Chinese consumer products to the African continent