89 research outputs found
Relative Impacts of Adult Movement, Larval Dispersal and Harvester Movement on the Effectiveness of Reserve Networks
Movement of individuals is a critical factor determining the effectiveness of
reserve networks. Marine reserves have historically been used for the management
of species that are sedentary as adults, and, therefore, larval dispersal has
been a major focus of marine-reserve research. The push to use marine reserves
for managing pelagic and demersal species poses significant questions regarding
their utility for highly-mobile species. Here, a simple conceptual
metapopulation model is developed to provide a rigorous comparison of the
functioning of reserve networks for populations with different admixtures of
larval dispersal and adult movement in a home range. We find that adult movement
produces significantly lower persistence than larval dispersal, all other
factors being equal. Furthermore, redistribution of harvest effort previously in
reserves to remaining fished areas (‘fishery squeeze’) and fishing
along reserve borders (‘fishing-the-line’) considerably reduce
persistence and harvests for populations mobile as adults, while they only
marginally changes results for populations with dispersing larvae. Our results
also indicate that adult home-range movement and larval dispersal are not simply
additive processes, but rather that populations possessing both modes of
movement have lower persistence than equivalent populations having the same
amount of ‘total movement’ (sum of larval and adult movement spatial
scales) in either larval dispersal or adult movement alone
Guidelines for diagnosis and management of the cobalamin-related remethylation disorders cblC, cblD, cblE, cblF, cblG, cblJ and MTHFR deficiency
BACKGROUND: Remethylation defects are rare inherited disorders in which impaired remethylation of homocysteine to methionine leads to accumulation of homocysteine and perturbation of numerous methylation reactions.
OBJECTIVE: To summarise clinical and biochemical characteristics of these severe disorders and to provide guidelines on diagnosis and management.
DATA SOURCES: Review, evaluation and discussion of the medical literature (Medline, Cochrane databases) by a panel of experts on these rare diseases following the GRADE approach.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS: We strongly recommend measuring plasma total homocysteine in any patient presenting with the combination of neurological and/or visual and/or haematological symptoms, subacute spinal cord degeneration, atypical haemolytic uraemic syndrome or unexplained vascular thrombosis. We strongly recommend to initiate treatment with parenteral hydroxocobalamin without delay in any suspected remethylation disorder; it significantly improves survival and incidence of severe complications. We strongly recommend betaine treatment in individuals with MTHFR deficiency; it improves the outcome and prevents disease when given early
The role of protein structural analysis in the next generation sequencing era.
Proteins are macromolecules that serve a cell's myriad processes and functions in all living organisms via dynamic interactions with other proteins, small molecules and cellular components. Genetic variations in the protein-encoding regions of the human genome account for >85% of all known Mendelian diseases, and play an influential role in shaping complex polygenic diseases. Proteins also serve as the predominant target class for the design of small molecule drugs to modulate their activity. Knowledge of the shape and form of proteins, by means of their three-dimensional structures, is therefore instrumental to understanding their roles in disease and their potentials for drug development. In this chapter we outline, with the wide readership of non-structural biologists in mind, the various experimental and computational methods available for protein structure determination. We summarize how the wealth of structure information, contributed to a large extent by the technological advances in structure determination to date, serves as a useful tool to decipher the molecular basis of genetic variations for disease characterization and diagnosis, particularly in the emerging era of genomic medicine, and becomes an integral component in the modern day approach towards rational drug development
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