Macroparasite communities in European eels, Anguilla anguilla, from French Mediterranean lagoons, with special reference to the invasive species Anguillicola crassus and Pseudodactylogyrus spp.

European eel parasites, in particular invasive species, are suspected to play a role in the decline in the populations of their host. The aims of this work were to describe the parasitic fauna of eels in French Mediterranean lagoons and to study the epidemiological trends of the invasive helminth species, the nematode Anguillicola crassus and the monogenean Pseudodactylogyrus spp., in regard to spatio-temporal dynamics, host biological characteristics and parasite community. A total of 418 eels was sampled in eight lagoons between March 2003 and June 2005. Our results revealed a total macroparasite richness of 23 species: 1 Monogenea, 13 Digenea, 2 Cestoda, 3 Nematoda, 2 Acantocephala and 2 Crustacea. We found no variation in A. crassus abundance in Salses-Leucate lagoon in the same month across years. However, the nematode abundance was higher in eels caught in summer than in those caught in winter. Pseudodactylogyrus sp. was not found in Salses-Leucate lagoon, except in July 2004. Comparisons between the lagoons on the same date showed that they could be separated into two groups for both species' abundance: Grau-du-Roi, Mauguio, Palavas and Vaccarès lagoons, where abundance was rather high, against Bages-Sigean, Pierre-Blanche, Salses-Leucate and Thau lagoons, where abundance was rather low or nil. We found significant negative relationships between A. crassus abundance and the length and age of eels. We also found a significant positive relationship between A. crassus and Pseudodactylogyrus sp. abundance. Finally, our results showed significant positive relationships between both A. crassus and Pseudodactylogyrus sp. abundance and the abundance of the digeneans Prosorhynchus aculeatus and Lecithochirium gravidum. We discuss the results in regard to the dynamics of invasions, the characteristics of the parasite life cycles and the ecology of eels

Macroparasite communities in European eels, Anguilla anguilla

European eel parasites, in particular invasive species, are suspected to play a role in the decline in the populations of their host. The aims of this work were to describe the parasitic fauna of eels in French Mediterranean lagoons and to study the epidemiological trends of the invasive helminth species, the nematode Anguillicola crassus and the monogenean Pseudodactylogyrus spp., in regard to spatio-temporal dynamics, host biological characteristics and parasite community. A total of 418 eels was sampled in eight lagoons between March 2003 and June 2005. Our results revealed a total macroparasite richness of 23 species: 1 Monogenea, 13 Digenea, 2 Cestoda, 3 Nematoda, 2 Acantocephala and 2 Crustacea. We found no variation in A. crassus abundance in Salses-Leucate lagoon in the same month across years. However, the nematode abundance was higher in eels caught in summer than in those caught in winter. Pseudodactylogyrus sp. was not found in Salses-Leucate lagoon, except in July 2004. Comparisons between the lagoons on the same date showed that they could be separated into two groups for both species' abundance: Grau-du-Roi, Mauguio, Palavas and Vaccarès lagoons, where abundance was rather high, against Bages-Sigean, Pierre-Blanche, Salses-Leucate and Thau lagoons, where abundance was rather low or nil. We found significant negative relationships between A. crassus abundance and the length and age of eels. We also found a significant positive relationship between A. crassus and Pseudodactylogyrus sp. abundance. Finally, our results showed significant positive relationships between both A. crassus and Pseudodactylogyrus sp. abundance and the abundance of the digeneans Prosorhynchus aculeatus and Lecithochirium gravidum. We discuss the results in regard to the dynamics of invasions, the characteristics of the parasite life cycles and the ecology of eels

Active gyroscopic stabilizer to mitigate vibration in a multimegawatt wind turbine

One of the main concerns in developing large wind turbines, especially offshore, is their cost‐effectiveness versus traditional power sources. Significant dynamic loads are applied to the tower and the foundation of a multimegawatt wind turbine. Any reduction in the loads can reduce the size of the structure and, consequently, the turbine's cost. In this paper, a novel structural control application is proposed to mitigate the transmitted vibrations to a multimegawatt turbine tower to decrease the tower base shear forces and overturning moments. For this purpose, a hybrid passive/active gyro stabilizer is designed and incorporated into the NREL baseline 5‐MW wind turbine. Furthermore, two controllers, including a proportional integral differential (PID), as the baseline controller, and a nonlinear fuzzy logic controller (FLC) as the main and nonlinear controllers, have been designed and implemented to the turbine model. The structural control systems are implemented into the turbine model by cosimulating ADAMS and Simulink. The results reveal that the application of the proposed stabilizer can significantly reduce the overturning moment at the base of the tower compared to the reference NREL 5‐MW mode

Heterochromatin protein 1 is recruited to various types of DNA damage

Heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) family members are chromatin-associated proteins involved in transcription, replication, and chromatin organization. We show that HP1 isoforms HP1-α, HP1-β, and HP1-γ are recruited to ultraviolet (UV)-induced DNA damage and double-strand breaks (DSBs) in human cells. This response to DNA damage requires the chromo shadow domain of HP1 and is independent of H3K9 trimethylation and proteins that detect UV damage and DSBs. Loss of HP1 results in high sensitivity to UV light and ionizing radiation in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, indicating that HP1 proteins are essential components of DNA damage response (DDR) systems. Analysis of single and double HP1 mutants in nematodes suggests that HP1 homologues have both unique and overlapping functions in the DDR. Our results show that HP1 proteins are important for DNA repair and may function to reorganize chromatin in response to damage

Trans-Translation in Helicobacter pylori: Essentiality of Ribosome Rescue and Requirement of Protein Tagging for Stress Resistance and Competence

BACKGROUND: The ubiquitous bacterial trans-translation is one of the most studied quality control mechanisms. Trans-translation requires two specific factors, a small RNA SsrA (tmRNA) and a protein co-factor SmpB, to promote the release of ribosomes stalled on defective mRNAs and to add a specific tag sequence to aberrant polypeptides to direct them to degradation pathways. Helicobacter pylori is a pathogen persistently colonizing a hostile niche, the stomach of humans. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We investigated the role of trans-translation in this bacterium well fitted to resist stressful conditions and found that both smpB and ssrA were essential genes. Five mutant versions of ssrA were generated in H. pylori in order to investigate the function of trans-translation in this organism. Mutation of the resume codon that allows the switch of template of the ribosome required for its release was essential in vivo, however a mutant in which this codon was followed by stop codons interrupting the tag sequence was viable. Therefore one round of translation is sufficient to promote the rescue of stalled ribosomes. A mutant expressing a truncated SsrA tag was viable in H. pylori, but affected in competence and tolerance to both oxidative and antibiotic stresses. This demonstrates that control of protein degradation through trans-translation is by itself central in the management of stress conditions and of competence and supports a regulatory role of trans-translation-dependent protein tagging. In addition, the expression of smpB and ssrA was found to be induced upon acid exposure of H. pylori. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude to a central role of trans-translation in H. pylori both for ribosome rescue possibly due to more severe stalling and for protein degradation to recover from stress conditions frequently encountered in the gastric environment. Finally, the essential trans-translation machinery of H. pylori is an excellent specific target for the development of novel antibiotics

Oxamniquine resistance alleles are widespread in Old World Schistosoma mansoni and predate drug deployment

Do mutations required for adaptation occur de novo, or are they segregating within populations as standing genetic variation? This question is key to understanding adaptive change in nature, and has important practical consequences for the evolution of drug resistance. We provide evidence that alleles conferring resistance to oxamniquine (OXA), an antischistosomal drug, are widespread in natural parasite populations under minimal drug pressure and predate OXA deployment. OXA has been used since the 1970s to treat Schistosoma mansoni infections in the New World where S. mansoni established during the slave trade. Recessive loss-of-function mutations within a parasite sulfotransferase (SmSULT-OR) underlie resistance, and several verified resistance mutations, including a deletion (p.E142del), have been identified in the New World. Here we investigate sequence variation in SmSULT-OR in S. mansoni from the Old World, where OXA has seen minimal usage. We sequenced exomes of 204 S. mansoni parasites from West Africa, East Africa and the Middle East, and scored variants in SmSULT-OR and flanking regions. We identified 39 non-synonymous SNPs, 4 deletions, 1 duplication and 1 premature stop codon in the SmSULT-OR coding sequence, including one confirmed resistance deletion (p.E142del). We expressed recombinant proteins and used an in vitro OXA activation assay to functionally validate the OXA-resistance phenotype for four predicted OXA-resistance mutations. Three aspects of the data are of particular interest: (i) segregating OXA-resistance alleles are widespread in Old World populations (4.29–14.91% frequency), despite minimal OXA usage, (ii) two OXA-resistance mutations (p.W120R, p.N171IfsX28) are particularly common (>5%) in East African and Middle-Eastern populations, (iii) the p.E142del allele has identical flanking SNPs in both West Africa and Puerto Rico, suggesting that parasites bearing this allele colonized the New World during the slave trade and therefore predate OXA deployment. We conclude that standing variation for OXA resistance is widespread in S. mansoni

An ultrasoft X-ray multi-microbeam irradiation system for studies of DNA damage responses by fixed- and live-cell fluorescence microscopy

Localized induction of DNA damage is a valuable tool for studying cellular DNA damage responses. In recent decades, methods have been developed to generate DNA damage using radiation of various types, including photons and charged particles. Here we describe a simple ultrasoft X-ray multi-microbeam system for high dose-rate, localized induction of DNA strand breaks in cells at spatially and geometrically adjustable sites. Our system can be combined with fixed- and live-cell microscopy to study responses of cells to DNA damage

Global Analysis of Extracytoplasmic Stress Signaling in Escherichia coli

The Bae, Cpx, Psp, Rcs, and σE pathways constitute the Escherichia coli signaling systems that detect and respond to alterations of the bacterial envelope. Contributions of these systems to stress response have previously been examined individually; however, the possible interconnections between these pathways are unknown. Here we investigate the dynamics between the five stress response pathways by determining the specificities of each system with respect to signal-inducing conditions, and monitoring global transcriptional changes in response to transient overexpression of each of the effectors. Our studies show that different extracytoplasmic stress conditions elicit a combined response of these pathways. Involvement of the five pathways in the various tested stress conditions is explained by our unexpected finding that transcriptional responses induced by the individual systems show little overlap. The extracytoplasmic stress signaling pathways in E. coli thus regulate mainly complementary functions whose discrete contributions are integrated to mount the full adaptive response

Involvement of the Cytokine MIF in the Snail Host Immune Response to the Parasite Schistosoma mansoni

We have identified and characterized a Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor (MIF) family member in the Lophotrochozoan invertebrate, Biomphalaria glabrata, the snail intermediate host of the human blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni. In mammals, MIF is a widely expressed pleiotropic cytokine with potent pro-inflammatory properties that controls cell functions such as gene expression, proliferation or apoptosis. Here we show that the MIF protein from B. glabrata (BgMIF) is expressed in circulating immune defense cells (hemocytes) of the snail as well as in the B. glabrata embryonic (Bge) cell line that has hemocyte-like features. Recombinant BgMIF (rBgMIF) induced cell proliferation and inhibited NO-dependent p53-mediated apoptosis in Bge cells. Moreover, knock-down of BgMIF expression in Bge cells interfered with the in vitro encapsulation of S. mansoni sporocysts. Furthermore, the in vivo knock-down of BgMIF prevented the changes in circulating hemocyte populations that occur in response to an infection by S. mansoni miracidia and led to a significant increase in the parasite burden of the snails. These results provide the first functional evidence that a MIF ortholog is involved in an invertebrate immune response towards a parasitic infection and highlight the importance of cytokines in invertebrate-parasite interactions