How the sauce got to be better than the fish : scholarship and rivalry in Isaac Casaubon’s Studies of Ancient Satire

Isaac Casaubon’s 1605 Persius edition and its companion-piece, the De satyrica Graecorum poesi et Romanorum satira, likewise published in 1605, have long been considered milestones in the history of scholarship on Ancient satire. Marshalling evidence from humanist correspondences, annotated copies of early printed books, manuscripts and visual materials, this study offers a fresh and much fuller and more nuanced view of either book’s trajectory from concept to print and distribution, of the motivations and guiding principles behind Casaubon’s research, and, more generally, of scholarly endeavor around the turn of the seventeenth century. I demonstrate how Casaubon’s work on satire is linked to the humanist recovery of Ancient scholia, how its erudition integrates observations on the contemporary world and non-textual evidence, and how it is marked by fierce scholarly rivalry and – hitherto underestimated – confessional differences

From volcanic rock powder to Sr and Pb isotope ratios : a fit-for-purpose procedure for multi-collector ICP–mass spectrometric analysis

Geochemical research into volcanic rocks often involves isotopic analysis of whole rock powders. The method of Deniel and Pin (Anal. Chim. Acta, 2001, 426, 95-103) for simultaneous isolation of strontium and lead using extraction chromatography via Sr spec (TM) resin was therefore adapted into a straightforward procedure for Sr and Pb isotope ratio determination by multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). The main focus was to reduce their rather extensive and costly cleaning procedures for resin and columns without negatively affecting data quality. It was furthermore demonstrated that non-quantitative Sr and Pb recoveries do not compromise the quality of the isotope data obtained and that no Pb isotopic fractionation occurs on the Sr spec (TM) resin. The accuracy of the analyses was assessed by monitoring rock reference materials. GSJ basalt JB-2, commonly regarded as the most homogeneous Pb isotopic rock reference material, hereby produced one anomalous Pb isotopic composition out of eight analyses, suggesting that JB-2 might also be affected by nugget contamination

MarkerMiner 1.0: a new application for phylogenetic marker development using angiosperm transcriptomes

Premise of the study: Targeted sequencing using next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms offers enormous potential for plant systematics by enabling economical acquisition of multilocus data sets that can resolve difficult phylogenetic problems. However, because discovery of single-copy nuclear (SCN) loci from NGS data requires both bioinformatics skills and access to high-performance computing resources, the application of NGS data has been limited. Methods and Results: We developed MarkerMiner 1.0, a fully automated, open-access bioinformatic workflow and application for discovery of SCN loci in angiosperms. Our new tool identified as many as 1993 SCN loci from transcriptomic data sampled as part of four independent test cases representing marker development projects at different phylogenetic scales. Conclusions: MarkerMiner is an easy-to-use and effective tool for discovery of putative SCN loci. It can be run locally or via the Web, and its tabular and alignment outputs facilitate efficient downstream assessments of phylogenetic utility, locus selection, intron-exon boundary prediction, and primer or probe development

Antibiotic affects the gut microbiota composition and expression of genes related to lipid metabolism and myofiber types in skeletal muscle of piglets

Background: Early-life antibiotic administration is known to affect gut microbiota and host adiposity, but the effects of antibiotic exposure on skeletal muscle properties remain unknown. The present study evaluated the changes in skeletal muscle properties including myofiber characteristics and composition, as well as intramuscular fat (IMF) content in skeletal muscle of piglets when exposed to a tylosin-containing diet. Results: A total of 18 piglets (28 days of age) were randomly allocated into two groups: control basal diet (Control) and Control + 100 mg tylosin phosphate/kg of feed (Antibiotic). The trial lasted for 39 days. High-throughput amplicon sequencing revealed that no significant difference in initial gut microbiota composition was existed between Control and Antibiotic groups. Antibiotic administration increased body weight and growth rate and decreased feed to gain ratio of pigs (P < 0.05). The carcass lean and fat volumes of pigs were increased by the tylosin administration (P < 0.05). Antibiotic treatment increased myofiber density and the expression of genes related to type I and type IIb myofibers in longissimus muscle (P < 0.05). The IMF content in longissimus muscle was increased by antibiotic exposure (P < 0.05). Antibiotic administration increased expression of genes related to fatty acid uptake and de novo synthesis, and decreased expression of genes related to triglyceride hydrolysis (P < 0.05). Tylosin administration affected taxonomic distribution and beta diversity of the caecal and colonic microbiota of piglets. Conclusion: These results confirm that the growth performance, myofiber composition and muscle lipid metabolism are affected by antibiotic administration, which may be associated with an altered gut microbiota, suggesting that the gut microbiota could be served as a potential target for modulating skeletal muscle properties of host

Clinical, biochemical and genetic spectrum of 70 patients with ACAD9 deficiency: is riboflavin supplementation effective?

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial acyl-CoA dehydrogenase family member 9 (ACAD9) is essential for the assembly of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I. Disease causing biallelic variants in ACAD9 have been reported in individuals presenting with lactic acidosis and cardiomyopathy. RESULTS: We describe the genetic, clinical and biochemical findings in a cohort of 70 patients, of whom 29 previously unpublished. We found 34 known and 18 previously unreported variants in ACAD9. No patients harbored biallelic loss of function mutations, indicating that this combination is unlikely to be compatible with life. Causal pathogenic variants were distributed throughout the entire gene, and there was no obvious genotype-phenotype correlation. Most of the patients presented in the first year of life. For this subgroup the survival was poor (50% not surviving the first 2 years) comparing to patients with a later presentation (more than 90% surviving 10 years). The most common clinical findings were cardiomyopathy (85%), muscular weakness (75%) and exercise intolerance (72%). Interestingly, severe intellectual deficits were only reported in one patient and severe developmental delays in four patients. More than 70% of the patients were able to perform the same activities of daily living when compared to peers. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that riboflavin treatment improves complex I activity in the majority of patient-derived fibroblasts tested. This effect was also reported for most of the treated patients and is mirrored in the survival data. In the patient group with disease-onset below 1 year of age, we observed a statistically-significant better survival for patients treated with riboflavin

Trehalose-6-phosphate-mediated toxicity determines essentiality of OtsB2 in Mycobacterium tuberculosis in vitro and in mice

Trehalose biosynthesis is considered an attractive target for the development of antimicrobials against fungal, helminthic and bacterial pathogens including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The most common biosynthetic route involves trehalose-6-phosphate (T6P) synthase OtsA and T6P phosphatase OtsB that generate trehalose from ADP/UDP-glucose and glucose-6-phosphate. In order to assess the drug target potential of T6P phosphatase, we generated a conditional mutant of M. tuberculosis allowing the regulated gene silencing of the T6P phosphatase gene otsB2. We found that otsB2 is essential for growth of M. tuberculosis in vitro as well as for the acute infection phase in mice following aerosol infection. By contrast, otsB2 is not essential for the chronic infection phase in mice, highlighting the substantial remodelling of trehalose metabolism during infection by M. tuberculosis. Blocking OtsB2 resulted in the accumulation of its substrate T6P, which appears to be toxic, leading to the self-poisoning of cells. Accordingly, blocking T6P production in a ΔotsA mutant abrogated otsB2 essentiality. T6P accumulation elicited a global upregulation of more than 800 genes, which might result from an increase in RNA stability implied by the enhanced neutralization of toxins exhibiting ribonuclease activity. Surprisingly, overlap with the stress response caused by the accumulation of another toxic sugar phosphate molecule, maltose-1-phosphate, was minimal. A genome-wide screen for synthetic lethal interactions with otsA identified numerous genes, revealing additional potential drug targets synergistic with OtsB2 suitable for combination therapies that would minimize the emergence of resistance to OtsB2 inhibitors