Transcriptome of the deep-sea black scabbardfish, Aphanopus carbo (Perciformes: Trichiuridae) : tissue-specific expression patterns and candidate genes associated to depth adaptation

Deep-sea fishes provide a unique opportunity to study the physiology and evolutionary adaptation to extreme environments. We carried out a high throughput sequencing analysis on a 454 GS-FLX titanium plate using unnormalized cDNA libraries from six tissues of A. carbo. Assemblage and annotations were performed by Newbler and InterPro/Pfam analyses, respectively. The assembly of 544,491 high quality reads provided 8,319 contigs, 55.6% of which retrieved blast hits against the NCBI nonredundant database or were annotated with ESTscan. Comparison of functional genes at both the protein sequences and protein stability levels, associated with adaptations to depth, revealed similarities between A. carbo and other bathypelagic fishes. A selection of putative genes was standardized to evaluate the correlation between number of contigs and their normalized expression, as determined by qPCR amplification. The screening of the libraries contributed to the identification of new EST simple-sequence repeats (SSRs) and to the design of primer pairs suitable for population genetic studies as well as for tagging and mapping of genes. The characterization of the deep-sea fish A. carbo first transcriptome is expected to provide abundant resources for genetic, evolutionary, and ecological studies of this species and the basis for further investigation of depth-related adaptation processes in fishes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Neonatal Brachial Plexus Palsy: Risk Factors and Its Prognostic Value

Introduction: Neonatal brachial plexus palsy affects 0.7 to 5.8 per 1,000 newborns and is characterised by upper limb paresis detected in the immediate neonatal period. Shoulder dystocia, instrumental delivery and foetal macrosomia are well-known risk factors. Most neonatal brachial plexus palsy evolve favourably, while 3%-27% of newborns have sequelae. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted to characterise neonatal brachial plexus palsy in the newborn population of a hospital with differentiated perinatal support and to assess the rela - tionship between the risk factors and lesion prognosis. The authors reviewed the newborn medical records referred to the physical medicine and rehabilitation clinic between January 2006 and December 2016. Results: During the study period, 137 cases of neo- natal brachial plexus palsy were identified in 36,833 births, which translate into an incidence of 3.7/1,000 live births. Foetal macrosomia was found in 41% and shoulder dystocia in 40%. According to the Narakas clas- sification, 58% were included in group I, 30% in group II, 9% in group III and 3% in group IV. The majority of patients were discharged without sequelae. Newborns with group II, III and IV lesions as well as macrosomic newborns were more likely to develop sequelae (p < 0.05). Shoulder dystocia and operative delivery did not present a statistically significant relationship with the prognosis of the lesion. Discussion: The incidence of neonatal brachial plexus palsy in this population was similar to is described in other series. The relationship between macrosomia and neonatal brachial plexus palsy with sequelae found may be of importance in the attempt to prevent this lesioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Interaction between vortices in models with two order parameters

The interaction energy and force between widely separated strings is analyzed in a field theory having applications to superconducting cosmic strings, the SO(5) model of high-temperature superconductivity, and solitons in nonlinear optics. The field theory has two order parameters, one of which is broken in the vacuum (giving rise to strings), the other of which is unbroken in the vacuum but which could nonetheless be broken in the core of the string. If this does occur, there is an effect on the energetics of widely separated strings. This effect is important if the length scale of this second order parameter is longer than that of the other fields in the problem.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. Minor changes in the text. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Fluid Dynamics of Relativistic Quantum Dust

The microscopic transport equations for free fields are solved using the Schwinger function. Thus, for general initial conditions, the evolution of the energy-momentum tensor is obtained, incorporating the quantum effects exactly. The result for relativistic fermions differs from classical hydrodynamics, which is illustrated for Landau and Bjorken type initial conditions in this model of exploding primordial matter. Free fermions behave like classical dust concerning hydrodynamic observables. However, quantum effects which are present in the initial state are preserved.Comment: 5 pages; LaTe

Density-dependence of functional development in spiking cortical networks grown in vitro

During development, the mammalian brain differentiates into specialized regions with distinct functional abilities. While many factors contribute to functional specialization, we explore the effect of neuronal density on the development of neuronal interactions in vitro. Two types of cortical networks, dense and sparse, with 50,000 and 12,000 total cells respectively, are studied. Activation graphs that represent pairwise neuronal interactions are constructed using a competitive first response model. These graphs reveal that, during development in vitro, dense networks form activation connections earlier than sparse networks. Link entropy analysis of dense net- work activation graphs suggests that the majority of connections between electrodes are reciprocal in nature. Information theoretic measures reveal that early functional information interactions (among 3 cells) are synergetic in both dense and sparse networks. However, during later stages of development, previously synergetic relationships become primarily redundant in dense, but not in sparse networks. Large link entropy values in the activation graph are related to the domination of redundant ensembles in late stages of development in dense networks. Results demonstrate differences between dense and sparse networks in terms of informational groups, pairwise relationships, and activation graphs. These differences suggest that variations in cell density may result in different functional specialization of nervous system tissue in vivo.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure