Association between two common transitions of H2BFWT gene and male infertility: a case�control, meta, and structural analysis

H2BFWT is one of the testis‐specific histones that plays a fundamental role in spermatogenesis, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in this gene may result in male infertility. This study aimed to investigate the association between −9C>T and 368A>G transitions of H2BFWT gene and male infertility through a case–control, meta‐analysis, and a bioinformatics approach. In this case–control study, 490 subjects including 240 idiopathic infertile men and 250 healthy controls were included. The −9C>T and 368A>G SNPs genotyping were performed by a PCR–RFLP method. To find eligible studies for meta‐analysis, we searched valid scientific databases. The odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were estimated to find the strength of these associations. Furthermore, the influences of two common transitions on the molecular features of H2BFWT were assessed by in silico tools. Our case–control data revealed that −9C>T is not associated with male infertility. But, there was a significant association between 368A>G and male infertility. In the meta‐analysis, five eligible studies were included. Our data revealed significant associations between −9C>T, 368A>G, and male infertility in overall and stratified analyses. Moreover, structural analysis showed that 368A>G could affect the protein structure (SNAP prediction: non‐neutral, score: 42, expected accuracy: 71%; SIFT prediction: deleterious, score: −2.55), while −9C>T may affect the binding nucleotide in the promoter region. Based on these findings, two aforementioned polymorphisms were associated with increased risk of male infertility. However, studies with larger sample size and different ethnicities are needed to obtain more accurate conclusions

Representing Fitness Landscapes by Valued Constraints to Understand the Complexity of Local Search

Local search is widely used to solve combinatorial optimisation problems and to model biological evolution, but the performance of local search algorithms on different kinds of fitness landscapes is poorly understood. Here we introduce a natural approach to modelling fitness landscapes using valued constraints. This allows us to investigate minimal representations (normal forms) and to consider the effects of the structure of the constraint graph on the tractability of local search. First, we show that for fitness landscapes representable by binary Boolean valued constraints there is a minimal necessary constraint graph that can be easily computed. Second, we consider landscapes as equivalent if they allow the same (improving) local search moves; we show that a minimal normal form still exists, but is NP-hard to compute. Next we consider the complexity of local search on fitness landscapes modelled by valued constraints with restricted forms of constraint graph. In the binary Boolean case, we prove that a tree-structured constraint graph gives a tight quadratic bound on the number of improving moves made by any local search; hence, any landscape that can be represented by such a model will be tractable for local search. We build two families of examples to show that both the conditions in our tractability result are essential. With domain size three, even just a path of binary constraints can model a landscape with an exponentially long sequence of improving moves. With a treewidth two constraint graph, even with a maximum degree of three, binary Boolean constraints can model a landscape with an exponentially long sequence of improving moves

BacHBerry: BACterial Hosts for production of Bioactive phenolics from bERRY fruits

BACterial Hosts for production of Bioactive phenolics from bERRY fruits (BacHBerry) was a 3-year project funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Union that ran between November 2013 and October 2016. The overall aim of the project was to establish a sustainable and economically-feasible strategy for the production of novel high-value phenolic compounds isolated from berry fruits using bacterial platforms. The project aimed at covering all stages of the discovery and pre-commercialization process, including berry collection, screening and characterization of their bioactive components, identification and functional characterization of the corresponding biosynthetic pathways, and construction of Gram-positive bacterial cell factories producing phenolic compounds. Further activities included optimization of polyphenol extraction methods from bacterial cultures, scale-up of production by fermentation up to pilot scale, as well as societal and economic analyses of the processes. This review article summarizes some of the key findings obtained throughout the duration of the project