Key biosynthetic gene subfamily recruited for pheromone production prior to the extensive radiation of Lepidoptera

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Moths have evolved highly successful mating systems, relying on species-specific mixtures of sex pheromone components for long-distance mate communication. Acyl-CoA desaturases are key enzymes in the biosynthesis of these compounds and to a large extent they account for the great diversity of pheromone structures in Lepidoptera. A novel desaturase gene subfamily that displays Δ11 catalytic activities has been highlighted to account for most of the unique pheromone signatures of the taxonomically advanced ditrysian species. To assess the mechanisms driving pheromone evolution, information is needed about the signalling machinery of primitive moths. The currant shoot borer, <it>Lampronia capitella</it>, is the sole reported primitive non-ditrysian moth known to use unsaturated fatty-acid derivatives as sex-pheromone. By combining biochemical and molecular approaches we elucidated the biosynthesis paths of its main pheromone component, the (<it>Z,Z</it>)-9,11-tetradecadien-1-ol and bring new insights into the time point of the recruitment of the key Δ11-desaturase gene subfamily in moth pheromone biosynthesis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The reconstructed evolutionary tree of desaturases evidenced two ditrysian-specific lineages (the Δ11 and Δ9 (18C>16C)) to have orthologs in the primitive moth <it>L. capitella </it>despite being absent in Diptera and other insect genomes. Four acyl-CoA desaturase cDNAs were isolated from the pheromone gland, three of which are related to Δ9-desaturases whereas the fourth cDNA clusters with Δ11-desaturases. We demonstrated that this transcript (<it>Lca</it>-KPVQ) exclusively accounts for both steps of desaturation involved in pheromone biosynthesis. This enzyme possesses a Z11-desaturase activity that allows transforming the palmitate precursor (C16:0) into (<it>Z</it>)-11-hexadecenoic acid and the (<it>Z</it>)-9-tetradecenoic acid into the conjugated intermediate (<it>Z,Z</it>)-9,11-tetradecadienoic acid.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The involvement of a single Z11-desaturase in pheromone biosynthesis of a non-ditrysian moth species, supports that the duplication event leading to the origin of the Lepidoptera-specific Δ11-desaturase gene subfamily took place before radiation of ditrysian moths and their divergence from other heteroneuran lineages. Our findings uncover that this novel class of enzymes affords complex combinations of unique unsaturated fatty acyl-moieties of variable chain-lengths, regio- and stereo-specificities since early in moth history and contributes a notable innovation in the early evolution of moth-pheromones.</p

Genetic diversity and recent ancestry based on whole-genome sequencing of endangered Swedish cattle breeds

Several indigenous cattle breeds in Sweden are endangered. Conservation of their genetic diversity and genomic characterization is a priority.Whole-genome sequences (WGS) with a mean coverage of 25X, ranging from 14 to 41X were obtained for 30 individuals of the breeds Fjallko, Fjallnara, Bohuskulla, Rodkulla, Ringamala, and Vaneko. WGS-based genotyping revealed 22,548,028 variants in total, comprising 18,876,115 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 3,671,913 indels. Out of these, 1,154,779 SNPs and 304,467 indels were novel. Population stratification based on roughly 19 million SNPs showed two major groups of the breeds that correspond to northern and southern breeds. Overall, a higher genetic diversity was observed in the southern breeds compared to the northern breeds. While the population stratification was consistent with previous genome-wide SNP array-based analyses, the genealogy of the individuals inferred from WGS based estimates turned out to be more complex than expected from previous SNP-array based estimates. Polymorphisms and their predicted phenotypic consequences were associated with differences in the coat color phenotypes between the northern and southern breeds. Notably, these high-consequence polymorphisms were not represented in SNP arrays, which are used routinely for genotyping of cattle breeds.This study is the first WGS-based population genetic analysis of Swedish native cattle breeds. The genetic diversity of native breeds was found to be high. High-consequence polymorphisms were linked with desirable phenotypes using whole-genome genotyping, which highlights the pressing need for intensifying WGS-based characterization of the native breeds

Influence of amino acids on the formation of mutagenic/carcinogenic heterocydic amines in a model system

Mixtures of creatinine, glucose and various single amino acids were heated at 180°C for 10 min in an aqueous model system. The heated mixtures all showed mutagenic activity, ranging from 80 to 2400 TA98 revertant colonies/μmol creatinine with metabolic activation. Testing of HPLC fractions for mutagenic activity showed each mixture to contain several mutagenic components, some of which corresponded to known heterocyclic amines and others to unknown compounds. The presence of 2-amino-3-methyl-imidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline, 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline and 2-amino-3,7,8-trimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline in most of the samples was established using HPLC with photodiode array detection and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry with electrospray interface and single ion monitoring. In addition, 2-amino-3,4,8-trimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine, 3-amino-1,4-di-methyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole and 3-amino-1-methyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole and the co-mutagenic compounds 9H-pyrido[3,4-bindole and 1-methyl-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole were detected in some sample

Parameter space mapping of InAs nanowire crystal structure

Crystal structure and defects have been shown to have a strong impact on III-Vnanowire properties. Recently, it was demonstrated that the issue of random stacking and polytypism in semiconductornanowires can often be controlled using accessible growth parameters (such as temperature, diameter, and V/III ratio). In addition, it has been shown that crystal phase can be tuned selectively between cubic zinc blende and hexagonal wurtzite within individual nanowires of III-V materials such as InAs. In order for such results to be generally applied to different growth setups, it is necessary to fully explore and understand the trends governing crystal phase dependencies on all accessible growth parameters, including how they relate to each other. In this study, the authors have systematically investigated the influence of temperature, diameter, V/III ratio, and total mass flow on the crystal structure of InAsnanowiresgrown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy over a broad parameter range. The authors observed that each of these accessible parameters can affect the resulting crystal structure, and that the trends for each parameter are affected by the magnitude of the others. The authors also noted that most of the parameter dependencies are nonlinear and, in fact, exhibit threshold values at which structure changes discontinuously. By optimizing each of the growth parameters, it is shown that pure ZB or pure WZ phase can be achieved for several different sets of growth conditions. The roles of nucleation kinetics, thermodynamics, and precursor chemistry are also discussed to compare the results to current nanowiregrowth models. The results in this work should facilitate comparison of data and transfer of knowledge between different growth systems and techniques, which, in turn, should lead to greater understanding of polytypism in nanowires and greater control and freedom in nanowire crystal phase engineering.This work was supported by the Nanometer Structure Consortium at Lund University nmC@LU, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research SSF, the Swedish Research Council VR, and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation

Oscillatory Instabilities of Standing Waves in One-Dimensional Nonlinear Lattices

In one-dimensional anharmonic lattices, we construct nonlinear standing waves (SWs) reducing to harmonic SWs at small amplitude. For SWs with spatial periodicity incommensurate with the lattice period, a transition by breaking of analyticity versus wave amplitude is observed. As a consequence of the discreteness, oscillatory linear instabilities, persisting for arbitrarily small amplitude in infinite lattices, appear for all wave numbers Q not equal to zero or \pi. Incommensurate analytic SWs with |Q|>\pi/2 may however appear as 'quasi-stable', as their instability growth rate is of higher order.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Shared Ancestry and Signatures of Recent Selection in Gotland Sheep

Gotland sheep, a breed native to Gotland, Sweden (an island in the Baltic Sea), split from the Gute sheep breed approximately 100 years ago, and since, has probably been crossed with other breeds. This breed has recently gained popularity, due to its pelt quality. This study estimates the shared ancestors and identifies recent selection signatures in Gotland sheep using 600 K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotype data. Admixture analysis shows that the Gotland sheep is a distinct breed, but also has shared ancestral genomic components with Gute (similar to 50%), Karakul (similar to 30%), Romanov (similar to 20%), and Fjallnas (similar to 10%) sheep breeds. Two complementary methods were applied to detect selection signatures: A Bayesian population differentiation F-ST and an integrated haplotype homozygosity score (iHS). Our results find that seven significant SNPs (q-value < 0.05) using the F-ST analysis and 55 significant SNPs (p-value < 0.0001) using the iHS analysis. Of the candidate genes that contain significant markers, or are in proximity to them, we identify several belongings to the keratin genes, RXFP2, ADCY1, ENOX1, USF2, COX7A1, ARHGAP28, CRYBB2, CAPNS1, FMO3, and GREB1. These genes are involved in wool quality, polled and horned phenotypes, fertility, twining rate, meat quality, and growth traits. In summary, our results provide shared founders of Gotland sheep and insight into genomic regions maintained under selection after the breed was formed. These results contribute to the detection of candidate genes and QTLs underlying economic traits in sheep

Inbreeding and pedigree analysis of the European red dairy cattle

Background Red dairy cattle breeds have an important role in the European dairy sector because of their functional characteristics and good health. Extensive pedigree information is available for these breeds and provides a unique opportunity to examine their population structure, such as effective population size, depth of the pedigree, and effective number of founders and ancestors, and inbreeding levels. Animals with the highest genetic contributions were identified. Pedigree data included 9,073,403 animals that were born between 1900 and 2019 from Denmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden, and covered 32 breeds. The numerically largest breeds were Red Dairy Cattle and Meuse-Rhine-Yssel. Results The deepest average complete generation equivalent (9.39) was found for Red Dairy Cattle in 2017. Mean pedigree completeness ranged from 0.6 for Finncattle to 7.51 for Red Dairy Cattle. An effective population size of 166 animals was estimated for the total pedigree and ranged from 35 (Rotes Hohenvieh) to 226 (Red Dairy Cattle). Average generation intervals were between 5 and 7 years. The mean inbreeding coefficient for animals born between 1960 and 2018 was 1.5%, with the highest inbreeding coefficients observed for Traditional Angler (4.2%) and Rotes Hohenvieh (4.1%). The most influential animal was a Dutch Meuse-Rhine-Yssel bull born in 1960. The mean inbreeding level for animals born between 2016 and 2018 was 2% and highest for the Meuse-Rhine-Yssel (4.64%) and Rotes Hohenvieh breeds (3.80%). Conclusions We provide the first detailed analysis of the genetic diversity and inbreeding levels of the European red dairy cattle breeds. Rotes Hohenvieh and Traditional Angler have high inbreeding levels and are either close to or below the minimal recommended effective population size, thus it is necessary to implement tools to monitor the selection process in order to control inbreeding in these breeds. Red Dairy Cattle, Vorderwalder, Swedish Polled and Hinterwalder hold more genetic diversity. Regarding the Meuse-Rhine-Yssel breed, given its decreased population size, increased inbreeding and low effective population size, we recommend implementation of a breeding program to prevent further loss in its genetic diversity

A Fully Abstract Symbolic Semantics for Psi-Calculi

We present a symbolic transition system and bisimulation equivalence for psi-calculi, and show that it is fully abstract with respect to bisimulation congruence in the non-symbolic semantics. A psi-calculus is an extension of the pi-calculus with nominal data types for data structures and for logical assertions representing facts about data. These can be transmitted between processes and their names can be statically scoped using the standard pi-calculus mechanism to allow for scope migrations. Psi-calculi can be more general than other proposed extensions of the pi-calculus such as the applied pi-calculus, the spi-calculus, the fusion calculus, or the concurrent constraint pi-calculus. Symbolic semantics are necessary for an efficient implementation of the calculus in automated tools exploring state spaces, and the full abstraction property means the semantics of a process does not change from the original

Towards sustainable servitization: a literature review of methods and frameworks

Service-based business models have attracted growing interest as means to capture sustainable value. There is still unclear terminology and lack of understanding on how servitization can locate sustainability as central value. The purpose of this study is to consolidate the terminology and methods for servitization, to identify factors and elements that contribute to a sustainability perspective. The followed methodology includes a comprehensive literature review, further analyzed through a conceptual framework using an evidence-based approach. The findings of this study will clarify existing terminologies and frameworks while supporting the development of service-based business models that avoid the sustainability paradox of servitization