Allozyme Variation in Domesticated Annual Sunflower and Its Wild Relatives

The annual sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is a morphologically and genetically variable species composed of wild, weedy, and domesticated forms that are used for ornament, oilseed, and edible seeds. In this study, we evaluated genetic variation in 146 germplasm accessions of wild and domesticated sunflowers using allozyme analysis. Results from this survey showed that wild sunflower exhibits geographically structured genetic variation, as samples from the Great Plains region of the central United States were genetically divergent from accessions from California and the southwestern United States. Sunflower populations from the Great Plains harbored greater allelic diversity than did wild sunflower from the western United States. Comparison of genetic variability in wild and domesticated sunflower by principal coordinate analysis showed these groups to be genetically divergent, in large part due to differences in the frequency of common alleles. Neighbor-Joining analyses of domesticated H. annuus, wild H. annuus and two closely related wild species (H. argophyllus T. & G. and H. petiolaris Nutt.) showed that domesticated sunflowers form a genetically coherent group and that wild sunflowers from the Great Plains may include the most likely progenitor of domesticated sunflowers

Anomalous Aortic Origin of a Coronary Artery With an Interarterial Course Should Family Screening Be Routine?

ObjectivesWe sought to present cases of familial occurrence of anomalous aortic origin of a coronary artery with an interarterial course (AAOCA) to determine if it would alter our current screening and management recommendations.BackgroundAnomalous aortic origin of a coronary artery with an interarterial course is a rare congenital anomaly that carries an increased risk of sudden death in children and young adults. There are no reports in the literature of familial AAOCA in the pediatric population.MethodsIn preparation for a multi-institutional prospective study evaluating patient management and surgical outcomes in children and young adults with AAOCA, a questionnaire was sent to multiple pediatric institutions in North and South America. Several respondents indicated caring for families with more than 1 member with AAOCA. These patients were identified and charts were retrospectively reviewed.ResultsWe identified 5 families in which a child was diagnosed with AAOCA and another family member was subsequently identified through screening with echocardiography. The odds of this occurring are significantly greater than what would be expected by chance. All identified by screening were asymptomatic and had anomalous right coronary artery despite 2 of the 5 index cases having anomalous left coronary artery.ConclusionsIt is possible that there is a genetic link for AAOCA. Future research into this is warranted. Due to the potential risk of myocardial ischemia and sudden death associated with AAOCA, screening first-degree relatives for AAOCA using transthoracic echocardiography would be the prudent approach to potentially prevent a sudden catastrophic event

Environmental drivers of movement in a threatened seabird: insights from a mechanistic model and implications for conservation

Determining the drivers of movement of different life‐history stages is crucial for understanding age‐related changes in survival rates and, for marine top predators, the link between fisheries overlap and incidental mortality (bycatch), which is driving population declines in many taxa. Here, we combine individual tracking data and a movement model to investigate the environmental drivers and conservation implications of divergent movement patterns in juveniles (fledglings) and adults of a threatened seabird, the white‐chinned petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis)

Albatrosses Following Fishing Vessels: How Badly Hooked Are They on an Easy Meal?

Fisheries have major impacts on seabirds, both by changing food availability and by causing direct mortality of birds during trawling and longline setting. However, little is known about the nature and the spatial-temporal extent of the interactions between individual birds and vessels. By studying a system in which we had fine-scale data on bird movements and activity, and near real-time information on vessel distribution, we provide new insights on the association of a threatened albatross with fisheries. During early chick-rearing, black-browed albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris from two different colonies (separated by only 75 km) showed significant differences in the degree of association with fisheries, despite being nearly equidistant to the Falklands fishing fleet. Most foraging trips from either colony did not bring tracked individuals close to vessels, and proportionally little time and foraging effort was spent near ships. Nevertheless, a few individuals repeatedly visited fishing vessels, which may indicate they specialise on fisheries-linked food sources and so are potentially more vulnerable to bycatch. The evidence suggests that this population has little reliance on fisheries discards at a critical stage of its nesting cycle, and hence measures to limit fisheries waste on the Patagonian shelf that also reduce vessel attractiveness and the risk of incidental mortality, would be of high overall conservation benefit

CRT-100.12 Risk of Bleeding Among Cangrelor-Treated Patients Administered Upstream P2Y12 Inhibitor Therapy

Introduction: Little is known about the use of cangrelor in patients with MI who are treated with an oral P2Y12 inhibitor upstream prior to cardiac catheterization. Methods: CAMEO (Cangrelor in Acute MI: Effectiveness and Outcomes) is a 12-hospital observational registry studying platelet inhibition for MI patients undergoing cardiac cath. Upstream oral P2Y12 inhibition was defined as receipt of an oral P2Y12 inhibitor within 24 hours prior to hospitalization or in-hospital prior to cath. Among cangrelor-treated patients, we compared bleeding after cangrelor use through 7 days post-discharge between patients with and w/o upstream oral P2Y12 inhibitor exposure using logistic regression. We examined rates of bleeding among patients with a shorter (\u3c1 hour) vs. longer (1-3 hours or \u3e3 hours) duration between the last oral dose and cangrelor start. Results: Among 1,775 cangrelor-treated MI patients, 433 (24.4%) had upstream oral P2Y12 inhibitor treatment prior to cath. Of these, 165 patients (38%) started cangrelor within 1 hour, 109 (25%) between 1-3 hours, and 134 (31%) \u3e 3 hours after the in-hospital oral P2Y12 inhibitor dose. Cangrelor-treated patients who received upstream treatment were more likely to have a history of prior PCI, MI, PAD, and diabetes and to be clopidogrel-treated (all p\u3c0.01) compared w/o upstream treatment. There was no significant difference in risk of bleeding among cangrelor-treated patients with and w/o upstream oral P2Y12 inhibitor exposure (Table). While bleeding events were higher in patients with longer delays to cangrelor initiation, bleeding risk was not significant after adjustment (Table). Conclusions: Bleeding risk was not observed to be higher in cangrelor-treated patients after upstream oral P2Y12 inhibitor exposure compared with patients treated with cangrelor w/o upstream oral P2Y12 inhibitor exposure

Loss of CIC promotes mitotic dysregulation and chromosome segregation defects

Background: CIC is a transcriptional repressor inactivated by loss-of-function mutations in several cancer types, including gliomas, lung cancers, and gastric adenocarcinomas. CIC alterations and/or loss of CIC activity have been associated with poorer outcomes and more aggressive phenotypes across cancer types, which is consistent with the notion that CIC functions as a tumour suppressor across a wide range of contexts. Results: Using mammalian cells lacking functional CIC, we found that CIC deficiency was associated with chromosome segregation (CS) defects, resulting in chromosomal instability and aneuploidy. These CS defects were associated with transcriptional dysregulation of spindle assembly checkpoint and cell cycle regulators. We also identified novel CIC interacting proteins, including core members of the SWI/SNF complex, and showed that they cooperatively regulated the expression of genes involved in cell cycle regulation. Finally, we showed that loss of CIC and ARID1A cooperatively increased CS defects and reduced cell viability. Conclusions: Our study ascribes a novel role to CIC as an important regulator of the cell cycle and demonstrates that loss of CIC can lead to chromosomal instability and aneuploidy in human and murine cells through defects in CS, providing insight into the underlying mechanisms of CIC's increasingly apparent role as a "pan-cancer" tumour suppressor

Loss of CIC promotes mitotic dysregulation and chromosome segregation defects

Background: CIC is a transcriptional repressor inactivated by loss-of-function mutations in several cancer types, including gliomas, lung cancers, and gastric adenocarcinomas. CIC alterations and/or loss of CIC activity have been associated with poorer outcomes and more aggressive phenotypes across cancer types, which is consistent with the notion that CIC functions as a tumour suppressor across a wide range of contexts. Results: Using mammalian cells lacking functional CIC, we found that CIC deficiency was associated with chromosome segregation (CS) defects, resulting in chromosomal instability and aneuploidy. These CS defects were associated with transcriptional dysregulation of spindle assembly checkpoint and cell cycle regulators. We also identified novel CIC interacting proteins, including core members of the SWI/SNF complex, and showed that they cooperatively regulated the expression of genes involved in cell cycle regulation. Finally, we showed that loss of CIC and ARID1A cooperatively increased CS defects and reduced cell viability. Conclusions: Our study ascribes a novel role to CIC as an important regulator of the cell cycle and demonstrates that loss of CIC can lead to chromosomal instability and aneuploidy in human and murine cells through defects in CS, providing insight into the underlying mechanisms of CIC's increasingly apparent role as a "pan-cancer" tumour suppressor

Primate social cognition: uniquely primate, uniquely social, or just unique?

Primates undoubtedly have impressive abilities in perceiving, recognising, understanding and interpreting other individuals, their ranks and relationships; they learn rapidly in social situations, employ both deceptive and cooperative tactics to manipulate companions, and distinguish others’ knowledge from ignorance. Some evidence suggests that great apes recognize the cognitive basis of manipulative tactics and have a deeper appreciation of intention and cooperation than monkeys; and only great apes among primates show any understanding of the concept of self. None of these abilities is unique to primates, however. We distinguish (1) a package of quantitative advantages in social sophistication, evident in several broad mammalian taxa, in which neocortical enlargement is associated with social group size; from (2) a qualitative difference in understanding found in several distantly related but large-brained species, including great apes, some corvids, and perhaps elephants, dolphins, and domestic dogs. Convergence of similar abilities in widely divergent taxa should enable their cognitive basis and evolutionary origins to be determined. Cortical enlargement seems to have been evolutionarily selected by social challenges, although it confers intellectual benefits in other domains also; most likely the mechanism is more efficient memory. The taxonomic distribution of qualitatively special social skills does not point to an evolutionary origin in social challenges, and may be more closely linked to a need to acquire novel ways of dealing with the physical world; but at present research on this question remains in its infancy. In the case of great apes, their ability to learn new manual routines by parsing action components may also account for their qualitatively different social skills, suggesting that any strict partition of physical and social cognition is likely to be misleading