1,269 research outputs found
A major QTL affects temperature sensitive adult lethality and inbreeding depression in life span in Drosophila melanogaster
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The study of inbreeding depression has major relevance for many disciplines, including conservation genetics and evolutionary biology. Still, the molecular genetic basis of this phenomenon remains poorly characterised, as knowledge on the mechanistic causes of inbreeding depression and the molecular properties of genes that give rise to or modulate its deleterious effects is lacking. These questions warrant the detailed study of genetic loci giving rise to inbreeding depression. However, the complex and polygenic nature of general inbreeding depression makes this a daunting task. Study of inbreeding effects in specific traits, such as age-specific mortality and life span, provide a good starting point, as a limited set of genes is expected to be involved.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we report on a QTL mapping study on inbreeding related and temperature sensitive lethality in male <it>Drosophila melanogaster</it>. The inbreeding effect was expressed at moderately high temperature, and manifested itself as severe premature mortality in males, but not in females. We used a North Carolina crossing design 3 to estimate average dominance ratio and heritability. We found the genetic basis of the lethal effect to be relatively simple, being due mainly to a single recessive QTL on the left arm of chromosome 2. This locus colocalised with a QTL that conditioned variation in female life span, acting as an overdominant locus for this trait. Male life span was additionally affected by variation at the X-chromosome.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This demonstrates that analysis of large conditional lethal effects is a viable strategy for delineating genes which are sensitive to inbreeding depression.</p
Consequences of fragmentation for the ability to adapt to novel environments in experimental <i>Drosophila</i> metapopulations
We used experimental populations of Drosophila melanogaster, which had either been subdivided (metapopulations) or kept undivided for 40 generations, to study the consequences of population subdivision for the tolerance and adaptive response after six generations of exposure to novel environmental factors (high temperature, medium with ethanol or salt added) for traits with different genetic architectures. In this setup, we attempted to separate the effects of the loss of fitness due to inbreeding (i.e., the survival upon first exposure to stress) from the loss of adaptive potential due to the lack of genetic variation. To place our experimental results in a more general perspective, we used individual-based simulations combining different options of levels of gene flow, intensity of selection and genetic architecture to derive quantitative hypotheses of the effects of these factors on the adaptive response to stress. We observed that population subdivision resulted in substantial inter-deme variation in tolerance due to redistribution of genetic variation from within demes to among demes. In line with the simulation results, the adaptive response was generally lower in the subdivided than in the undivided populations, particularly so for high temperature. We observed pronounced differences between stress factors that are likely related to the different genetic architectures involved in resistance to these factors. From a conservation genetics viewpoint, our results have two important implications: (i) Long-term fragmentation in combination with restricted gene flow will limit the adaptive potential of individual subpopulations because adaptive variation will become distributed among populations rather than within populations. (ii) The genetic architecture of the trait(s) under selection is of great significance to understand the possible responses to novel stresses that may be expected
Induction of morphological aberrations by enzyme inhibition in Drosophila melanogaster
Zusatz zum Futter vonDrosophila melanogaster von 5-Fluoro-2-deoxyuridin oder Aminopterin induziert überzählige Skutellar- und Dorsozentralborsten sowie gekerbte Flügel. Diese Modifikationen wurden als Konsequenz von Enzymhemmung interpretiert
Crying Without Tears:Dimensions of Crying and Relations With Ocular Dryness and Mental Well-Being in Patients With Sjogren's Syndrome
This study examined dimensions of crying and its relations with ocular dryness and mental well-being in patients with Sjogren's syndrome, a systemic autoimmune disease with dryness as primary symptom. Three-hundred patients with Sjogren's syndrome completed questionnaires on crying, dryness, and well-being. The crying questionnaire revealed four dimensions: "Cryability" (comprising both crying sensibility and ability to cry), Somatic consequences, Frustration, and Suppression. Compared to 100 demographically-matched control participants from the general population, patients scored low on Cryability and high on Somatic consequences and Frustration. The crying dimensions generally showed significant but weak associations with ocular dryness and mental well-being in patients. This is the first quantitative study indicating that crying problems are more common in patients with Sjogren's syndrome than in the general population. Perhaps, patients who experience problems with crying could be helped to rely on other ways of expressing emotions than crying in tear-inducing situations.</p
Collective Modes in a Dilute Bose-Fermi Mixture
We here study the collective excitations of a dilute spin-polarized
Bose-Fermi mixture at zero temperature, considering in particular the features
arising from the interaction between the two species. We show that a
propagating zero-sound mode is possible for the fermions even when they do not
interact among themselves.Comment: latex, 6 eps figure
Gapless finite- theory of collective modes of a trapped gas
We present predictions for the frequencies of collective modes of trapped
Bose-condensed Rb atoms at finite temperature. Our treatment includes a
self-consistent treatment of the mean-field from finite- excitations and the
anomolous average. This is the first gapless calculation of this type for a
trapped Bose-Einstein condensed gas. The corrections quantitatively account for
the downward shift in the excitation frequencies observed in recent
experiments as the critical temperature is approached.Comment: 4 pages Latex and 2 postscript figure
Equation of State for Helium-4 from Microphysics
We compute the free energy of helium-4 near the lambda transition based on an
exact renormalization-group equation. An approximate solution permits the
determination of universal and nonuniversal thermodynamic properties starting
from the microphysics of the two-particle interactions. The method does not
suffer from infrared divergences. The critical chemical potential agrees with
experiment. This supports a specific formulation of the functional integral
that we have proposed recently. Our results for the equation of state reproduce
the observed qualitative behavior. Despite certain quantitative shortcomings of
our approximation, this demonstrates that ab initio calculations for collective
phenomena become possible by modern renormalization-group methods.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, revtex updated version, journal referenc
Transition temperature of a dilute homogeneous imperfect Bose gas
The leading-order effect of interactions on a homogeneous Bose gas is
theoretically predicted to shift the critical temperature by an amount
\Delta\Tc = # a_{scatt} n^{1/3} T_0 from the ideal gas result T_0, where
a_{scatt} is the scattering length and n is the density. There have been
several different theoretical estimates for the numerical coefficient #. We
claim to settle the issue by measuring the numerical coefficient in a lattice
simulation of O(2) phi^4 field theory in three dimensions---an effective theory
which, as observed previously in the literature, can be systematically matched
to the dilute Bose gas problem to reproduce non-universal quantities such as
the critical temperature. We find # = 1.32 +- 0.02.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett; minor changes due to
improvement of analysis in the longer companion pape
Thermodynamic properties of confined interacting Bose gases - a renormalization group approach
A renormalization group method is developed with which thermodynamic
properties of a weakly interacting, confined Bose gas can be investigated.
Thereby effects originating from a confining potential are taken into account
by periodic boundary conditions and by treating the resulting discrete energy
levels of the confined degrees of freedom properly. The resulting density of
states modifies the flow equations of the renormalization group in momentum
space. It is shown that as soon as the characteristic length of confinement
becomes comparable to the thermal wave length of a weakly interacting and
trapped Bose gas its thermodynamic properties are changed significantly. This
is exemplified by investigating characteristic bunching properties of the
interacting Bose gas which manifest themselves in the second order coherence
factor
Critical Temperature of a Trapped Interacting Bose Gas in the Local Density Approximation
The Bose gas in an external potential is studied by means of the local
density approximation. An analytical result is derived for the dependence of
the critical temperature of Bose-Einstein condensation on the mutual
interaction in a generic power-law potential.Comment: 6 pages, latex, no figure
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