Guidelines for DNA recombination and repair studies: Cellular assays of DNA repair pathways

Understanding the plasticity of genomes has been greatly aided by assays for recombination, repair and mutagenesis. These assays have been developed in microbial systems that provide the advantages of genetic and molecular reporters that can readily be manipulated. Cellular assays comprise genetic, molecular, and cytological reporters. The assays are powerful tools but each comes with its particular advantages and limitations. Here the most commonly used assays are reviewed, discussed, and presented as the guidelines for future studies

Challenges to Professional Accreditation of Forestry Degree Programs with Low Enrollments: The Utah State University Experience

As a result of its setting in the semi‐arid Intermountain West where forests are confined largely to montane environments, Utah State University (USU) has historically had relatively low undergraduate enrollments in forestry compared to other natural resource disciplines and compared to other institutions in the U.S. also offering a broad range of natural resource degrees. As a result of this history, coupled to the national trend over the past two decades of proportionally lower enrollments in forestry compared to other natural resource disciplines, undergraduate enrollment in forestry at USU currently constitutes less than 4% of total enrollments in natural resources. This situation makes it difficult to justify the offering of forestry courses and the hiring of faculty with forestry degrees, which in turn is a challenge to the maintenance of professional accreditation in forestry. Our response to this challenge has been to create a solid professional core of courses that is basic to the science and management of terrestrial ecosystems and is taught by faculty from a wide array of natural resource disciplines, coupled to a modest component of specialization in forestry in the third and fourth years of study. This approach, while perhaps disadvantageous from the standpoint of professional accreditation under current standards, provides our forestry majors with a broad background in the science and management of terrestrial ecosystems and in some ways anticipates current discussions at the national level regarding the accreditation of broader programs in natural resources

Quantifying the fitness effects of resistance alleles with and without anthelmintic selection pressure using Caenorhabditis elegans.

Albendazole (a benzimidazole) and ivermectin (a macrocyclic lactone) are the two most commonly co-administered anthelmintic drugs in mass-drug administration programs worldwide. Despite emerging resistance, we do not fully understand the mechanisms of resistance to these drugs nor the consequences of delivering them in combination. Albendazole resistance has primarily been attributed to variation in the drug target, a beta-tubulin gene. Ivermectin targets glutamate-gated chloride channels (GluCls), but it is unknown whether GluCl genes are involved in ivermectin resistance in nature. Using Caenorhabditis elegans, we defined the fitness costs associated with loss of the drug target genes singly or in combinations of the genes that encode GluCl subunits. We quantified the loss-of-function effects on three traits: (i) multi-generational competitive fitness, (ii) fecundity, and (iii) development. In competitive fitness and development assays, we found that a deletion of the beta-tubulin gene ben-1 conferred albendazole resistance, but ivermectin resistance required the loss of two GluCl genes (avr-14 and avr-15). The fecundity assays revealed that loss of ben-1 did not provide any fitness benefit in albendazole conditions and that no GluCl deletion mutants were resistant to ivermectin. Next, we searched for evidence of multi-drug resistance across the three traits. Loss of ben-1 did not confer resistance to ivermectin, nor did loss of any single GluCl subunit or combination confer resistance to albendazole. Finally, we assessed the development of 124 C. elegans wild strains across six benzimidazoles and seven macrocyclic lactones to identify evidence of multi-drug resistance between the two drug classes and found a strong phenotypic correlation within a drug class but not across drug classes. Because each gene affects various aspects of nematode physiology, these results suggest that it is necessary to assess multiple fitness traits to evaluate how each gene contributes to anthelmintic resistance

Supplementary Table 2 from Transcriptional Heterogeneity Overcomes Super-Enhancer Disrupting Drug Combinations in Multiple Myeloma

Primers</p

Supplementary Data 2 from Transcriptional Heterogeneity Overcomes Super-Enhancer Disrupting Drug Combinations in Multiple Myeloma

GSEA Hallmark Gene Sets</p

Supplementary Data 5 from Transcriptional Heterogeneity Overcomes Super-Enhancer Disrupting Drug Combinations in Multiple Myeloma

GSEA of genes associated with BATF expression in CoMMpass</p