Frequencies of polymorphisms associated with BSE resistance differ significantly between Bos taurus, Bos indicus, and composite cattle

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are neurodegenerative diseases that affect several mammalian species. At least three factors related to the host prion protein are known to modulate susceptibility or resistance to a TSE: amino acid sequence, atypical number of octapeptide repeats, and expression level. These factors have been extensively studied in breeds of <it>Bos taurus </it>cattle in relation to classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). However, little is currently known about these factors in <it>Bos indicus </it>purebred or <it>B. indicus </it>× <it>B. taurus </it>composite cattle. The goal of our study was to establish the frequency of markers associated with enhanced susceptibility or resistance to classical BSE in <it>B. indicus </it>purebred and composite cattle.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No novel or TSE-associated <it>PRNP</it>-encoded amino acid polymorphisms were observed for <it>B. indicus </it>purebred and composite cattle, and all had the typical number of octapeptide repeats. However, differences were observed in the frequencies of the 23-bp and 12-bp insertion/deletion (indel) polymorphisms associated with two bovine <it>PRNP </it>transcription regulatory sites. Compared to <it>B. taurus</it>, <it>B. indicus </it>purebred and composite cattle had a significantly lower frequency of 23-bp insertion alleles and homozygous genotypes. Conversely, <it>B. indicus </it>purebred cattle had a significantly higher frequency of 12-bp insertion alleles and homozygous genotypes in relation to both <it>B. taurus </it>and composite cattle. The origin of these disparities can be attributed to a significantly different haplotype structure within each species.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The frequencies of the 23-bp and 12-bp indels were significantly different between <it>B. indicus </it>and <it>B. taurus </it>cattle. No other known or potential risk factors were detected for the <it>B. indicus </it>purebred and composite cattle. To date, no consensus exists regarding which bovine <it>PRNP </it>indel region is more influential with respect to classical BSE. Should one particular indel region and associated genotypes prove more influential with respect to the incidence of classical BSE, differences regarding overall susceptibility and resistance for <it>B. indicus </it>and <it>B. taurus </it>cattle may be elucidated.</p

Ecological networks: Pursuing the shortest path, however narrow and crooked

International audienceRepresenting data as networks cuts across all sub-disciplines in ecology and evolutionary biology. Besides providing a compact representation of the interconnections between agents, network analysis allows the identification of especially important nodes, according to various metrics that often rely on the calculation of the shortest paths connecting any two nodes. While the interpretation of a shortest paths is straightforward in binary, unweighted networks, whenever weights are reported, the calculation could yield unexpected results. We analyzed 129 studies of ecological networks published in the last decade that use shortest paths, and discovered a methodological inaccuracy related to the edge weights used to calculate shortest paths (and related centrality measures), particularly in interaction networks. Specifically, 49% of the studies do not report sufficient information on the calculation to allow their replication, and 61% of the studies on weighted networks may contain errors in how shortest paths are calculated. Using toy models and empirical ecological data, we show how to transform the data prior to calculation and illustrate the pitfalls that need to be avoided. We conclude by proposing a five-point checklist to foster best-practices in the calculation and reporting of centrality measures in ecology and evolution studies. The last two decades have witnessed an exponential increase in the use of graph analysis in ecological and conservation studies (see refs. 1,2 for recent introductions to network theory in ecology and evolution). Networks (graphs) represent agents as nodes linked by edges representing pairwise relationships. For instance, a food web can be represented as a network of species (nodes) and their feeding relationships (edges) 3. Similarly, the spatial dynamics of a metapopulation can be analyzed by connecting the patches of suitable habitat (nodes) with edges measuring dispersal between patches 4. Data might either simply report the presence/absence of an edge (binary, unweighted networks), or provide a strength for each edge (weighted networks). In turn, these weights can represent a variety of ecologically-relevant quantities, depending on the system being described. For instance, edge weights can quantify interaction frequency (e.g., visitation networks 5), interaction strength (e.g., per-capita effect of one species on the growth rate of another 3), carbon-flow between trophic levels 6 , genetic similarity 7 , niche overlap (e.g., number of shared resources between two species 8), affinity 9 , dispersal probabilities (e.g., the rate at which individuals of a population move between patches 10), cost of dispersal between patches (e.g., resistance 11), etc. Despite such large variety of ecological network representations, a common task is the identification of nodes of high importance, such as keystone species in a food web, patches acting as stepping stones in a dispersal network , or genes with pleiotropic effects. The identification of important nodes is typically accomplished through centrality measures 5,12. Many centrality measures has been proposed, each probing complementary aspects of node-to-node relationships 13. For instance, Closeness centrality 14,15 highlights nodes that are "near" to all othe

High p<inf>T</inf> hadron production in photon-photon collisions

We have studied the properties of hadron production in photon-photon scattering with tagged photons at the e+e- storage ring PETRA. A tail in the pT distribution of particles consistent with pT-4 has been observed. We show that this tail cannot be due to the hadronic part of the photon. Selected events with high pT particles are found to be consistent with a two-jet structure as expected from a point-like coupling of the photons to quarks. The lowest-order cross section predicted for γγ → qq, σ = 3 Σ eq4 · σγγ → μμ, is approached from above by the data at large transverse momenta. © 1981

Exclusive proton-antiproton production in two-photon collisions

Production of proton-antiproton pairs by two-photon scattering has been observed at the electron-position storage ring PETRA. A total of eight proton-antiproton pairs have been identified using the time-of-flight technique. We have measured a total cross section of 4.5 ± 0.8 nb in the photon-photon c.m. energy range 2.0-2.6 GeV. © 1982