Patterns of fecal progestagens, estrogens, and androgens associated with reproduction in blue-throated piping guans (Pipile cumanensis)

While fecal hormone analyses are routinely employed to monitor reproduction in mammals, few studies have used these techniques for monitoring reproductive events in birds. This study describes the endocrine patterns associated with reproduction in the blue-throated piping guan (Pipile cumanensis), a less threatened relative of the critically endangered Trinidad piping guan (P. pipile). Fecal samples were collected approximately once a week for 3 years from seven female guans and six male guans at the Saint Louis Zoo. Concentrations of fecal progestagens, estrogens, and androgens were quantified using commercially available enzyme immunoassays. Baseline progestagen concentrations for females ranged from 1.2–1,007.1 ng/g (average ± S.E. = 51.2 ± 3.3 ng/g) and baseline estrogen concentrations ranged from 1.9–3,041.3 ng/g (average ± S.E. = 121.2 ± 7.6 ng/g). Concentrations of both hormones consistently increased prior to egg-laying days, with peak concentrations ranging from 249.7–1,007.1 ng/g for progestagens and 230.2–3041.3 ng/g for estrogens. Fecal androgen levels in males were substantially higher than females and ranged from 10.1–13,326.2 ng/g (average ± S.E. = 709.5 ± 39.2 ng/g. This study is the first one that documents the reproductive physiology of the blue-throated piping guan, and it is one of the few to use non-invasive fecal hormone analyses for monitoring reproduction in birds. The methods outlined here may assist ex situ breeding programs for horned guans and other endangered Cracidae species in the future

Trust in alternative and professional media : The case of the youth news audiences in three European countries

This exploratory paper applying cross-cultural and developmental perspective analyses and discusses trust in alternative media and its relation to trust in professional media, seeking to identify the national specifics of media trust and its developmental patterns. Employing 2016 survey data of Czech, Estonian and Greek youth (aged 14–25, N = 3654) collected as part of the international CATCH-EyoU project (Horizon 2020), the study outlines the typology of media trust, comprising trust in alternative and professional media, and compares social and political predictors influencing media trust in the three countries. The study illustrates the diversity of relations between the two types of media trust, concluding that differences in selected predictors of media trust and the distribution of media trust types across national sub-samples illuminate the strong role national context plays, illustrating the varying pathways development of media trust follows in these varied contexts along socioeconomic and cultural lines

Identification of common cystic fibrosis mutations in African-Americans with cystic fibrosis increases the detection rate to 75%.

Cystic fibrosis (CF)--an autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and characterized by abnormal chloride conduction across epithelial membranes, leading to chronic lung and exocrine pancreatic disease--is less common in African-Americans than in Caucasians. No large-scale studies of mutation identification and screening in African-American CF patients have been reported, to date. In this study, the entire coding and flanking intronic sequence of the CFTR gene was analyzed by denaturing gradient-gel electrophoresis and sequencing in an index group of 82 African-American CF chromosomes to identify mutations. One novel mutation, 3120+1G-->A, occurred with a frequency of 12.3% and was also detected in a native African patient. To establish frequencies, an additional group of 66 African-American CF chromosomes were screened for mutations identified in two or more African-American patients. Screening for 16 "common Caucasian" mutations identified 52% of CF alleles in African-Americans, while screening for 8 "common African" mutations accounted for an additional 23%. The combined detection rate of 75% was comparable to the sensitivity of mutation analysis in Caucasian CF patients. These results indicate that African-Americans have their own set of "common" CF mutations that originate from the native African population. Inclusion of these "common" mutations substantially improves CF mutation detection rates in African-Americans

Combining biodiversity resurveys across regions to advance global change research

More and more ecologists have started to resurvey communities sampled in earlier decades to determine long-term shifts in community composition and infer the likely drivers of the ecological changes observed. However, to assess the relative importance of and interactions among multiple drivers, joint analyses of resurvey data from many regions spanning large environmental gradients are needed. In this article, we illustrate how combining resurvey data from multiple regions can increase the likelihood of driver orthogonality within the design and show that repeatedly surveying across multiple regions provides higher representativeness and comprehensiveness, allowing us to answer more completely a broader range of questions. We provide general guidelines to aid the implementation of multiregion resurvey databases. In so doing, we aim to encourage resurvey database development across other community types and biomes to advance global environmental change research

Responses of competitive understorey species to spatial environmental gradients inaccurately explain temporal changes

Understorey plant communities play a key role in the functioning of forest ecosystems. Under favourable environmental conditions, competitive understorey species may develop high abundances and influence important ecosystem processes such as tree regeneration. Thus, understanding and predicting the response of competitive understorey species as a function of changing environmental conditions is important for forest managers. In the absence of sufficient temporal data to quantify actual vegetation changes, space-for-time (SFT) substitution is often used, i.e. studies that use environmental gradients across space to infer vegetation responses to environmental change over time. Here we assess the validity of such SFT approaches and analysed 36 resurvey studies from ancient forests with low levels of recent disturbances across temperate Europe to assess how six competitive understorey plant species respond to gradients of overstorey cover, soil conditions, atmospheric N deposition and climatic conditions over space and time. The combination of historical and contemporary surveys allows (i) to test if observed contemporary patterns across space are consistent at the time of the historical survey, and, crucially, (ii) to assess whether changes in abundance over time given recorded environmental change match expectations from patterns recorded along environmental gradients in space. We found consistent spatial relationships at the two periods: local variation in soil variables and overstorey cover were the best predictors of individual species’ cover while interregional variation in coarse-scale variables, i.e. N deposition and climate, was less important. However, we found that our SFT approach could not accurately explain the large variation in abundance changes over time. We thus recommend to be cautious when using SFT substitution to infer species responses to temporal changes.</p

A genome-wide association study of myasthenia gravis

IMPORTANCE: Myasthenia gravis is a chronic, autoimmune, neuromuscular disease characterized by fluctuating weakness of voluntary muscle groups. Although genetic factors are known to play a role in this neuroimmunological condition, the genetic etiology underlying myasthenia gravis is not well understood. OBJECTIVE: To identify genetic variants that alter susceptibility to myasthenia gravis, we performed a genome-wide association study. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: DNA was obtained from 1032 white individuals from North America diagnosed as having acetylcholine receptor antibody–positive myasthenia gravis and 1998 race/ethnicity-matched control individuals from January 2010 to January 2011. These samples were genotyped on Illumina OmniExpress single-nucleotide polymorphism arrays. An independent cohort of 423 Italian cases and 467 Italian control individuals were used for replication. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: We calculated P values for association between 8114394 genotyped and imputed variants across the genome and risk for developing myasthenia gravis using logistic regression modeling. A threshold P value of 5.0 × 10(−8) was set for genome-wide significance after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. RESULTS: In the over all case-control cohort, we identified association signals at CTLA4 (rs231770; P = 3.98 × 10(−8); odds ratio, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.25–1.49), HLA-DQA1 (rs9271871; P = 1.08 × 10(−8); odds ratio, 2.31; 95% CI, 2.02 – 2.60), and TNFRSF11A (rs4263037; P = 1.60 × 10(−9); odds ratio, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.29–1.53). These findings replicated for CTLA4 and HLA-DQA1 in an independent cohort of Italian cases and control individuals. Further analysis revealed distinct, but overlapping, disease-associated loci for early- and late-onset forms of myasthenia gravis. In the late-onset cases, we identified 2 association peaks: one was located in TNFRSF11A (rs4263037; P = 1.32 × 10(−12); odds ratio, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.44–1.68) and the other was detected in the major histocompatibility complex on chromosome 6p21 (HLA-DQA1; rs9271871; P = 7.02 × 10(−18); odds ratio, 4.27; 95% CI, 3.92–4.62). Association within the major histocompatibility complex region was also observed in early-onset cases (HLA-DQA1; rs601006; P = 2.52 × 10(−11); odds ratio, 4.0; 95% CI, 3.57–4.43), although the set of single-nucleotide polymorphisms was different from that implicated among late-onset cases. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Our genetic data provide insights into aberrant cellular mechanisms responsible for this prototypical autoimmune disorder. They also suggest that clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs related to CTLA4 and that are already Food and Drug Administration approved as therapies for other autoimmune diseases could be considered for patients with refractory disease

Correction: A european spectrum of pharmacogenomic biomarkers: Implications for clinical pharmacogenomics (PLoS ONE (2016) 11:9 (e0162866) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162866)

The thirty-Third author's name is spelled incorrectly. The correct name is: Jadranka Sertić

Location of studies and evidence of effects of herbivory on Arctic vegetation: a systematic map

Herbivores modify the structure and function of tundra ecosystems. Understanding their impacts is necessary to assess the responses of these ecosystems to ongoing environmental changes. However, the effects of herbivores on plants and ecosystem structure and function vary across the Arctic. Strong spatial variation in herbivore effects implies that the results of individual studies on herbivory depend on local conditions, i.e., their ecological context. An important first step in assessing whether generalizable conclusions can be produced is to identify the existing studies and assess how well they cover the underlying environmental conditions across the Arctic. This systematic map aims to identify the ecological contexts in which herbivore impacts on vegetation have been studied in the Arctic. Specifically, the primary question of the systematic map was: “What evidence exists on the effects of herbivores on Arctic vegetation?”

A European Spectrum of Pharmacogenomic Biomarkers: Implications for Clinical Pharmacogenomics

Pharmacogenomics aims to correlate inter-individual differences of drug efficacy and/or toxicity with the underlying genetic composition, particularly in genes encoding for protein factors and enzymes involved in drug metabolism and transport. In several European populations, particularly in countries with lower income, information related to the prevalence of pharmacogenomic biomarkers is incomplete or lacking. Here, we have implemented the microattribution approach to assess the pharmacogenomic biomarkers allelic spectrum in 18 European populations, mostly from developing European countries, by analyzing 1,931 pharmacogenomics biomarkers in 231 genes. Our data show significant interpopulation pharmacogenomic biomarker allele frequency differences, particularly in 7 clinically actionable pharmacogenomic biomarkers in 7 European populations, affecting drug efficacy and/ or toxicity of 51 medication treatment modalities. These data also reflect on the differences observed in the prevalence of high-risk genotypes in these populations, as far as common markers in the CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP3A5, VKORC1, SLCO1B1 and TPMT pharmacogenes are concerned. Also, our data demonstrate notable differences in predicted genotype-based warfarin dosing among these populations. Our findings can be exploited not only to develop guidelines for medical prioritization, but most importantly to facilitate integration of pharmacogenomics and to support pre-emptive pharmacogenomic testing. This may subsequently contribute towards significant cost-savings in the overall healthcare expenditure in the participating countries, where pharmacogenomics implementation proves to be cost-effective