Safeguarding freshwater life beyond 2020: Recommendations for the new global biodiversity framework from the European experience

Plans are currently being drafted for the next decade of action on biodiversity-both the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Biodiversity Strategy of the European Union (EU). Freshwater biodiversity is disproportionately threatened and underprioritized relative to the marine and terrestrial biota, despite supporting a richness of species and ecosystems with their own intrinsic value and providing multiple essential ecosystem services. Future policies and strategies must have a greater focus on the unique ecology of freshwater life and its multiple threats, and now is a critical time to reflect on how this may be achieved. We identify priority topics including environmental flows, water quality, invasive species, integrated water resources management, strategic conservation planning, and emerging technologies for freshwater ecosystem monitoring. We synthesize these topics with decades of first-hand experience and recent literature into 14 special recommendations for global freshwater biodiversity conservation based on the successes and setbacks of European policy, management, and research. Applying and following these recommendations will inform and enhance the ability of global and European post-2020 biodiversity agreements to halt and reverse the rapid global decline of freshwater biodiversity

Novel multiple sclerosis susceptibility loci implicated in epigenetic regulation

We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility in German cohorts with 4888 cases and 10,395 controls. In addition to associations within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region, 15 non-MHC loci reached genome-wide significance. Four of these loci are novel MS susceptibility loci. They map to the genes L3MBTL3, MAZ, ERG, and SHMT1. The lead variant at SHMT1 was replicated in an independent Sardinian cohort. Products of the genes L3MBTL3, MAZ, and ERG play important roles in immune cell regulation. SHMT1 encodes a serine hydroxymethyltransferase catalyzing the transfer of a carbon unit to the folate cycle. This reaction is required for regulation of methylation homeostasis, which is important for establishment and maintenance of epigenetic signatures. Our GWAS approach in a defined population with limited genetic substructure detected associations not found in larger, more heterogeneous cohorts, thus providing new clues regarding MS pathogenesis

Моделирование литья алюминия в кокиль

На основе моделирования процесса заливки алюминиевого сплава в металлическую форму разработан технологический процесс минимизирующий количество дефектов в теле отливки

Properties of hot and dense matter from relativistic heavy ion collisions

We review the progress achieved in extracting the properties of hot and dense matter from relativistic heavy ion collisions at the relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the large hadron collider (LHC) at CERN. We focus on bulk properties of the medium, in particular the evidence for thermalization, aspects of the equation of state, transport properties, as well as fluctuations and correlations. We also discuss the in-medium properties of hadrons with light and heavy quarks, and measurements of dileptons and quarkonia. This review is dedicated to the memory of Gerald E. Brown

Clinical utility of combinatorial pharmacogenomic testing in depression: A Canadian patient- and rater-blinded, randomized, controlled trial

The pharmacological treatment of depression consists of stages of trial and error, with less than 40% of patients achieving remission during first medication trial. However, in a large, randomized-controlled trial (RCT) in the U.S. (“GUIDED”), significant improvements in response and remission rates were observed in patients who received treatment guided by combinatorial pharmacogenomic testing, compared to treatment-as-usual (TAU). Here we present results from the Canadian “GAPP-MDD” RCT. This 52-week, 3-arm, multi-center, participant- and rater-blinded RCT evaluated clinical outcomes among patients with depression whose treatment was guided by combinatorial pharmacogenomic testing compared to TAU. The primary outcome was symptom improvement (change in 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, HAM-D17) at week 8. Secondary outcomes included response (≥50% decrease in HAM-D17) and remission (HAM-D17 ≤ 7) at week 8. Numerically, patients in the guided-care arm had greater symptom improvement (27.6% versus 22.7%), response (30.3% versus 22.7%), and remission rates (15.7% versus 8.3%) compared to TAU, although these differences were not statistically significant. Given that the GAPP-MDD trial was ultimately underpowered to detect statistically significant differences in patient outcomes, it was assessed in parallel with the larger GUIDED RCT. We observed that relative improvements in response and remission rates were consistent between the GAPP-MDD (33.0% response, 89.0% remission) and GUIDED (31.0% response, 51.0% remission) trials. Together with GUIDED, the results from the GAPP-MDD trial indicate that combinatorial pharmacogenomic testing can be an effective tool to help guide depression treatment in the context of the Canadian healthcare setting (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02466477)

Search For Exotic Tau-decays

The Crystal Ball detector at the Doris II storage ring at DESY was used to search for the exotic decay processes tau -> e gamma, tau -> e pi0, tau -> e eta. No signal was observed. We obtained the following 90% CL upper limits on the branching fractions:B(tau -> e gamma)< 2.0x10^(-4),B(tau -> e pi0) < 1.4x10^(-4),B(tau -> e eta) < 2.4x10^(-4)

A global agenda for advancing freshwater biodiversity research

This manuscript is a contribution of the Alliance for Freshwater Life (www.allianceforfreshwaterlife.org). We thank Nick Bond, Lisa Bossenbroek, Lekima Copeland, Dean Jacobsen, Maria Cecilia Londo?o, David Lopez, Jaime Ricardo Garcia Marquez, Ketlhatlogile Mosepele, Nunia Thomas-Moko, Qiwei Wei and the authors of Living Waters: A Research Agenda for the Biodiversity of Inland and Coastal Waters for their contributions. We also thank Peter Thrall, Ian Harrison and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments that helped improve the manuscript. Open access funding enabled and organised by Projekt DEAL

Genome-wide regional heritability mapping identifies a locus within the<i> TOX2</i> gene associated with Major Depressive Disorder

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the second largest cause of global disease burden. It has an estimated heritability of 37%, but published genome-wide association studies have so far identified few risk loci. Haplotype-block-based regional heritability mapping (HRHM) estimates the localized genetic variance explained by common variants within haplotype blocks, integrating the effects of multiple variants, and may be more powerful for identifying MDD-associated genomic regions. Methods: We applied HRHM to Generation Scotland: The Scottish Family Health Study, a large family- and population-based Scottish cohort (N = 19,896). Single-single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and haplotype-based association tests were used to localize the association signal within the regions identified by HRHM. Functional prediction was used to investigate the effect of MDD-associated SNPs within the regions. Results: A haplotype block across a 24-kb region within the TOX2 gene reached genome-wide significance in HRHM. Single-SNP- and haplotype-based association tests demonstrated that five of nine genotyped SNPs and two haplotypes within this block were significantly associated with MDD. The expression of TOX2 and a brain-specific long noncoding RNA RP1-269M15.3 in frontal cortex and nucleus accumbens basal ganglia, respectively, were significantly regulated by MDD-associated SNPs within this region. Both the regional heritability and single-SNP associations within this block were replicated in the UK–Ireland group of the most recent release of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC), the PGC2–MDD (Major Depression Dataset). The SNP association was also replicated in a depressive symptom sample that shares some individuals with the PGC2–MDD. Conclusions: This study highlights the value of HRHM for MDD and provides an important target within TOX2 for further functional studies

Genome-wide association for major depression through age at onset stratification

BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a disabling mood disorder, and despite a known heritable component, a large meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies revealed no replicable genetic risk variants. Given prior evidence of heterogeneity by age at onset in MDD, we tested whether genome-wide significant risk variants for MDD could be identified in cases subdivided by age at onset. METHODS: Discovery case-control genome-wide association studies were performed where cases were stratified using increasing/decreasing age-at-onset cutoffs; significant single nucleotide polymorphisms were tested in nine independent replication samples, giving a total sample of 22,158 cases and 133,749 control subjects for subsetting. Polygenic score analysis was used to examine whether differences in shared genetic risk exists between earlier and adult-onset MDD with commonly comorbid disorders of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, and coronary artery disease. RESULTS: We identified one replicated genome-wide significant locus associated with adult-onset (>27 years) MDD (rs7647854, odds ratio: 1.16, 95% confidence interval: 1.11–1.21, p = 5.2 × 10-11). Using polygenic score analyses, we show that earlier-onset MDD is genetically more similar to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder than adult-onset MDD. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate that using additional phenotype data previously collected by genetic studies to tackle phenotypic heterogeneity in MDD can successfully lead to the discovery of genetic risk factor despite reduced sample size. Furthermore, our results suggest that the genetic susceptibility to MDD differs between adult- and earlier-onset MDD, with earlier-onset cases having a greater genetic overlap with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Bacterial Symbiosis Maintenance in the Asexually Reproducing and Regenerating Flatworm Paracatenula galateia

Bacteriocytes set the stage for some of the most intimate interactions between animal and bacterial cells. In all bacteriocyte possessing systems studied so far, de novo formation of bacteriocytes occurs only once in the host development, at the time of symbiosis establishment. Here, we present the free-living symbiotic flatworm Paracatenula galateia and its intracellular, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria as a system with previously undescribed strategies of bacteriocyte formation and bacterial symbiont transmission. Using thymidine analogue S-phase labeling and immunohistochemistry, we show that all somatic cells in adult worms – including bacteriocytes – originate exclusively from aposymbiotic stem cells (neoblasts). The continued bacteriocyte formation from aposymbiotic stem cells in adult animals represents a previously undescribed strategy of symbiosis maintenance and makes P. galateia a unique system to study bacteriocyte differentiation and development. We also provide morphological and immunohistochemical evidence that P. galateia reproduces by asexual fragmentation and regeneration (paratomy) and, thereby, vertically transmits numerous symbiont-containing bacteriocytes to its asexual progeny. Our data support the earlier reported hypothesis that the symbiont population is subjected to reduced bottleneck effects. This would justify both the codiversification between Paracatenula hosts and their Candidatus Riegeria symbionts, and the slow evolutionary rates observed for several symbiont genes