Changes in serogroup and genotype prevalence among carried meningococci in the United Kingdom during vaccine implementation.

BACKGROUND: Herd immunity is important in the effectiveness of conjugate polysaccharide vaccines against encapsulated bacteria. A large multicenter study investigated the effect of meningococcal serogroup C conjugate vaccine introduction on the meningococcal population. METHODS: Carried meningococci in individuals aged 15-19 years attending education establishments were investigated before and for 2 years after vaccine introduction. Isolates were characterized by multilocus sequence typing, serogroup, and capsular region genotype and changes in phenotypes and genotypes assessed. RESULTS: A total of 8462 meningococci were isolated from 47 765 participants (17.7%). Serogroup prevalence was similar over the 3 years, except for decreases of 80% for serogroup C and 40% for serogroup 29E. Clonal complexes were associated with particular serogroups and their relative proportions fluctuated, with 12 statistically significant changes (6 up, 6 down). The reduction of ST-11 complex serogroup C meningococci was probably due to vaccine introduction. Reasons for a decrease in serogroup 29E ST-254 meningococci (from 1.8% to 0.7%) and an increase in serogroup B ST-213 complex meningococci (from 6.7% to 10.6%) were less clear. CONCLUSIONS: Natural fluctuations in carried meningococcal genotypes and phenotypes a can be affected by the use of conjugate vaccines, and not all of these changes are anticipatable in advance of vaccine introduction

Trichothecenes: From Simple to Complex Mycotoxins

As the world’s population grows, access to a safe food supply will continue to be a global priority. In recent years, the world has experienced an increase in mycotoxin contamination of grains due to climatic and agronomic changes that encourage fungal growth during cultivation. A number of the molds that are plant pathogens produce trichothecene mycotoxins, which are known to cause serious human and animal toxicoses. This review covers the types of trichothecenes, their complexity, and proposed biosynthetic pathways of trichothecenes

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

ESRRA-C11orf20 Is a Recurrent Gene Fusion in Serous Ovarian Carcinoma

Many ovarian cancers have a chromosomal rearrangement that fuses two neighboring genes, ESRRA and c11orf20. Similar rearrangements may be common, important features of cancer genomes that have largely escaped detection

Mutations in the MutSα interaction interface of MLH1 can abolish DNA mismatch repair

MutLα, a heterodimer of MLH1 and PMS2, plays a central role in human DNA mismatch repair. It interacts ATP-dependently with the mismatch detector MutSα and assembles and controls further repair enzymes. We tested if the interaction of MutLα with DNA-bound MutSα is impaired by cancer-associated mutations in MLH1, and identified one mutation (Ala128Pro) which abolished interaction as well as mismatch repair activity. Further examinations revealed three more residues whose mutation interfered with interaction. Homology modelling of MLH1 showed that all residues clustered in a small accessible surface patch, suggesting that the major interaction interface of MutLα for MutSα is located on the edge of an extensive β-sheet that backs the MLH1 ATP binding pocket. Bioinformatic analysis confirmed that this patch corresponds to a conserved potential protein–protein interaction interface which is present in both human MLH1 and its E.coli homologue MutL. MutL could be site-specifically crosslinked to MutS from this patch, confirming that the bacterial MutL–MutS complex is established by the corresponding interface in MutL. This is the first study that identifies the conserved major MutLα–MutSα interaction interface in MLH1 and demonstrates that mutations in this interface can affect interaction and mismatch repair, and thereby can also contribute to cancer development

Functional similarities between pigeon \u27milk\u27 and mammalian milk : induction of immune gene expression and modification of the microbiota

Pigeon ‘milk’ and mammalian milk have functional similarities in terms of nutritional benefit and delivery of immunoglobulins to the young. Mammalian milk has been clearly shown to aid in the development of the immune system and microbiota of the young, but similar effects have not yet been attributed to pigeon ‘milk’. Therefore, using a chicken model, we investigated the effect of pigeon ‘milk’ on immune gene expression in the Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GALT) and on the composition of the caecal microbiota. Chickens fed pigeon ‘milk’ had a faster rate of growth and a better feed conversion ratio than control chickens. There was significantly enhanced expression of immune-related gene pathways and interferon-stimulated genes in the GALT of pigeon ‘milk’-fed chickens. These pathways include the innate immune response, regulation of cytokine production and regulation of B cell activation and proliferation. The caecal microbiota of pigeon ‘milk’-fed chickens was significantly more diverse than control chickens, and appears to be affected by prebiotics in pigeon ‘milk’, as well as being directly seeded by bacteria present in pigeon ‘milk’. Our results demonstrate that pigeon ‘milk’ has further modes of action which make it functionally similar to mammalian milk. We hypothesise that pigeon ‘lactation’ and mammalian lactation evolved independently but resulted in similarly functional products

Sequencing and functional annotation of avian pathogenic Escherichia coli serogroup O78 strains reveals the evolution of E. coli lineages pathogenic for poultry via distinct mechanisms

Avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) causes respiratory and systemic disease in poultry. Sequencing of a multilocus sequence type 95 (ST95) serogroup O1 strain previously indicated that APEC resembles E. coli causing extraintestinal human diseases. We sequenced the genomes of two strains of another dominant APEC lineage (ST23 serogroup O78 strains χ7122 and IMT2125) and compared them to each other and to the reannotated APEC O1 sequence. For comparison, we also sequenced a human enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) strain of the same ST23 serogroup O78 lineage. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the APEC O78 strains were more closely related to human ST23 ETEC than to APEC O1, indicating that separation of pathotypes on the basis of their extraintestinal or diarrheagenic nature is not supported by their phylogeny. The accessory genome of APEC ST23 strains exhibited limited conservation of APEC O1 genomic islands and a distinct repertoire of virulence-associated loci. In light of this diversity, we surveyed the phenotype of 2,185 signature-tagged transposon mutants of χ7122 following intra-air sac inoculation of turkeys. This procedure identified novel APEC ST23 genes that play strain- and tissue-specific roles during infection. For example, genes mediating group 4 capsule synthesis were required for the virulence of χ7122 and were conserved in IMT2125 but absent from APEC O1. Our data reveal the genetic diversity of E. coli strains adapted to cause the same avian disease and indicate that the core genome of the ST23 lineage serves as a chassis for the evolution of E. coli strains adapted to cause avian or human disease via acquisition of distinct virulence genes

Statistical Mechanics of Horizontal Gene Transfer in Evolutionary Ecology

The biological world, especially its majority microbial component, is strongly interacting and may be dominated by collective effects. In this review, we provide a brief introduction for statistical physicists of the way in which living cells communicate genetically through transferred genes, as well as the ways in which they can reorganize their genomes in response to environmental pressure. We discuss how genome evolution can be thought of as related to the physical phenomenon of annealing, and describe the sense in which genomes can be said to exhibit an analogue of information entropy. As a direct application of these ideas, we analyze the variation with ocean depth of transposons in marine microbial genomes, predicting trends that are consistent with recent observations using metagenomic surveys.Comment: Accepted by Journal of Statistical Physic