Comparative genomic analysis of the gut bacterium Bifidobacterium longum reveals loci susceptible to deletion during pure culture growth

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bifidobacteria are frequently proposed to be associated with good intestinal health primarily because of their overriding dominance in the feces of breast fed infants. However, clinical feeding studies with exogenous bifidobacteria show they don't remain in the intestine, suggesting they may lose competitive fitness when grown outside the gut.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To further the understanding of genetic attenuation that may be occurring in bifidobacteria cultures, we obtained the complete genome sequence of an intestinal isolate, <it>Bifidobacterium longum </it>DJO10A that was minimally cultured in the laboratory, and compared it to that of a culture collection strain, <it>B. longum </it>NCC2705. This comparison revealed colinear genomes that exhibited high sequence identity, except for the presence of 17 unique DNA regions in strain DJO10A and six in strain NCC2705. While the majority of these unique regions encoded proteins of diverse function, eight from the DJO10A genome and one from NCC2705, encoded gene clusters predicted to be involved in diverse traits pertinent to the human intestinal environment, specifically oligosaccharide and polyol utilization, arsenic resistance and lantibiotic production. Seven of these unique regions were suggested by a base deviation index analysis to have been precisely deleted from strain NCC2705 and this is substantiated by a DNA remnant from within one of the regions still remaining in the genome of NCC2705 at the same locus. This targeted loss of genomic regions was experimentally validated when growth of the intestinal <it>B. longum </it>in the laboratory for 1,000 generations resulted in two large deletions, one in a lantibiotic encoding region, analogous to a predicted deletion event for NCC2705. A simulated fecal growth study showed a significant reduced competitive ability of this deletion strain against <it>Clostridium difficile </it>and <it>E. coli</it>. The deleted region was between two IS<it>30 </it>elements which were experimentally demonstrated to be hyperactive within the genome. The other deleted region bordered a novel class of mobile elements, termed mobile integrase cassettes (MIC) substantiating the likely role of these elements in genome deletion events.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Deletion of genomic regions, often facilitated by mobile elements, allows bifidobacteria to adapt to fermentation environments in a very rapid manner (2 genome deletions per 1,000 generations) and the concomitant loss of possible competitive abilities in the gut.</p

Subatomic movements of a domain wall in the Peierls potential

Movements of individual domain walls in a ferromagnetic garnet were studied with angstrom resolution. The measurements reveal that domain walls can be locked between adjacent crystallographic planes and propagate by distinct steps matching the lattice periodicity. Domain walls are found to be weakly mobile within valleys of the atomic washboard but become unexpectedly flexible on Peierls ridges, where they can be kept in a bi-stable state by ac magnetic field. We describe the latter observation in terms of a single magnetic kink propagating along a domain wall

Extreme sensitivity in Snowball Earth formation to mountains on PaleoProterozoic supercontinents

During the PaleoProterozoic 2.45 to 2.2 billion years ago, several glaciations may have produced Snowball Earths. These glacial cycles occurred during large environmental change when atmospheric oxygen was increasing, a supercontinent was assembled from numerous landmasses, and collisions between these landmasses formed mountain ranges. Despite uncertainties in the composition of the atmosphere and reconstruction of the landmasses, paleoclimate model simulations can test the sensitivity of the climate to producing a Snowball Earth. Here we present a series of simulations that vary the atmospheric methane concentration and latitudes of west–east-oriented mountain ranges on an idealised supercontinent. For a given methane concentration, the latitudes of mountains control whether a Snowball Earth forms or not. Significantly, mountains in middle latitudes inhibited Snowball Earth formation, and mountains in low latitudes promoted Snowball Earth formation, with the supercontinent with mountains at ±30° being most conducive to forming a Snowball Earth because of reduced albedo at low latitudes. We propose that the extreme sensitivity of a Snowball Earth to reconstructions of the paleogeography and paleoatmospheric composition may explain the observed glaciations, demonstrating the importance of high-quality reconstructions to improved understanding of this early period in Earth’s history

Epigenetically-Inherited Centromere and Neocentromere DNA Replicates Earliest in S-Phase

Eukaryotic centromeres are maintained at specific chromosomal sites over many generations. In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, centromeres are genetic elements defined by a DNA sequence that is both necessary and sufficient for function; whereas, in most other eukaryotes, centromeres are maintained by poorly characterized epigenetic mechanisms in which DNA has a less definitive role. Here we use the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans as a model organism to study the DNA replication properties of centromeric DNA. By determining the genome-wide replication timing program of the C. albicans genome, we discovered that each centromere is associated with a replication origin that is the first to fire on its respective chromosome. Importantly, epigenetic formation of new ectopic centromeres (neocentromeres) was accompanied by shifts in replication timing, such that a neocentromere became the first to replicate and became associated with origin recognition complex (ORC) components. Furthermore, changing the level of the centromere-specific histone H3 isoform led to a concomitant change in levels of ORC association with centromere regions, further supporting the idea that centromere proteins determine origin activity. Finally, analysis of centromere-associated DNA revealed a replication-dependent sequence pattern characteristic of constitutively active replication origins. This strand-biased pattern is conserved, together with centromere position, among related strains and species, in a manner independent of primary DNA sequence. Thus, inheritance of centromere position is correlated with a constitutively active origin of replication that fires at a distinct early time. We suggest a model in which the distinct timing of DNA replication serves as an epigenetic mechanism for the inheritance of centromere position

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources

We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30 kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101 sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for new physics with same-sign isolated dilepton events with jets and missing transverse energy

A search for new physics is performed in events with two same-sign isolated leptons, hadronic jets, and missing transverse energy in the final state. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.98 inverse femtobarns produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. This constitutes a factor of 140 increase in integrated luminosity over previously published results. The observed yields agree with the standard model predictions and thus no evidence for new physics is found. The observations are used to set upper limits on possible new physics contributions and to constrain supersymmetric models. To facilitate the interpretation of the data in a broader range of new physics scenarios, information on the event selection, detector response, and efficiencies is provided.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter

Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments

In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one