Zoantharians (Hexacorallia: Zoantharia) associated with cold-water corals in the azores region: New species and associations in the deep sea

Zoantharians are a group of cnidarians that are often found in association with marine invertebrates, including corals, in shallow and deep-sea environments. However, little is known about deep-sea zoantharian taxonomy, specificity and nature of their associations with their coral hosts. In this study, analyses of molecular data (mtDNA COI, 16S, and 12S rDNA) coupled with ecological and morphological characteristics were used to examine zoantharian specimens associated with cold-water corals (CWC) at depths between 110 and 800 m from seamounts and island slopes in the Azores region. The zoantharians examined were found living in association with stylasterids, antipatharians and octocorals. From the collected specimens, four new species were identified: (1) Epizoanthus martinsae sp. n. associated with the antipatharian Leiopathes sp.; (2) Parazoanthus aliceae sp. n. associated with the stylasterid Errina dabneyi (Pourtalès, 1871); (3) Zibrowius alberti sp. n. associated with octocorals of the family Primnoidae [Paracalyptrophora josephinae (Lindström, 1877)] and the family Plexauridae (Dentomuricea aff. meteor Grasshoff, 1977); (4) Hurlizoanthus hirondelleae sp. n. associated with the primnoid octocoral Candidella imbricata (Johnson, 1862). In addition, based on newly collected material, morphological and molecular data and phylogenic reconstruction, the zoantharian Isozoanthus primnoidus Carreiro-Silva, Braga-Henriques, Sampaio, de Matos, Porteiro & Ocaña, 2011, associated with the primnoid octocoral Callogorgia verticillata (Pallas, 1766), was reclassified as Zibrowius primnoidus comb. nov. The zoantharians, Z. primnoidus comb. nov., Z. alberti sp. n., and H. hirondelleae sp. n. associated with octocorals showed evidence of a parasitic relationship, where the zoantharian progressively eliminates gorgonian tissue and uses the gorgonian axis for structure and support, and coral sclerites for protection. In contrast, the zoantharian P. aliceae sp. n. associated with the stylasterid E. dabneyi and the zoantharian E. martinsae sp. n. associated with the antipatharian Leiopathes sp., appear to use the coral host only as support with no visible damage to the host. The monophyly of octocoral-associated zoantharians suggests that substrate specificity is tightly linked to the evolution of zoantharians.publishedVersio

Improving Water Supply System Components Visualization into GPR Images

[EN] This work focuses on the use of easy-to-apply procedures that allow rapid visualization of components of water supply systems (WSSs) by non-highly qualified personnel. We use a methodology that does not alter the conditions and characteristics of the environment (nondestructive methods), specifically the study of images obtained with ground penetrating radar (GPR). The study is based on the analysis and interpretation of the wave amplitude, then applying a series of image corrections, so that the display and handling of data is improved. The results are promising as a subjective and repeatable methodology to visualize buried pipes efficiently. The goal is to generate know-how to be able to train intelligent systems for the characterization of components of WSSsPart of this work has been developed under the support of an FPI (Formación de Personal Investigador)-UPV (Universitat Politècnica de València) scholarship granted to the first author by the Programa de Ayudas de Investigación y Desarrollo (PAID) of the Universitat Politècnica de València.Ayala Cabrera, D.; Ocana-Levario, SJ.; Izquierdo Sebastián, J.; Pérez García, R. (2014). Improving Water Supply System Components Visualization into GPR Images. Athens journal of technology & engineering. 1(4):253-261. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/63179S2532611

Divergent genomic trajectories predate the origin of animals and fungi

22 pages, 4 figures, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05110-4.-- Data availability: The raw sequence data and assembled genomes generated in this study have been deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) at EMBL-EBI under accession number PRJEB52884 (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB52884). The genome assemblies are also available in figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19895962.v1). Protein sequences of the species used in this study were downloaded from the GenBank public databases (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/protein/), Uniprot (https://www.uniprot.org/), JGI genome database (https://genome.jgi.doe.gov/portal/) and Ensembl genomes (https://www.ensembl.org). The following specific databases were also used in this study: Pfam A v29 (https://pfam.xfam.org/), EggNOG emapperdb-4.5.1 (http://eggnog5.embl.de) and UniProt reference proteomes release 2016_02 (https://www.uniprot.org/). The supporting data files of this study are available in the following repository: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13140191.v1.-- Code availability: The most relevant custom code developed for this study (the MAPBOS pipeline and the machine learning classifiers) is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6586559Animals and fungi have radically distinct morphologies, yet both evolved within the same eukaryotic supergroup: Opisthokonta1,2. Here we reconstructed the trajectory of genetic changes that accompanied the origin of Metazoa and Fungi since the divergence of Opisthokonta with a dataset that includes four novel genomes from crucial positions in the Opisthokonta phylogeny. We show that animals arose only after the accumulation of genes functionally important for their multicellularity, a tendency that began in the pre-metazoan ancestors and later accelerated in the metazoan root. By contrast, the pre-fungal ancestors experienced net losses of most functional categories, including those gained in the path to Metazoa. On a broad-scale functional level, fungal genomes contain a higher proportion of metabolic genes and diverged less from the last common ancestor of Opisthokonta than did the gene repertoires of Metazoa. Metazoa and Fungi also show differences regarding gene gain mechanisms. Gene fusions are more prevalent in Metazoa, whereas a larger fraction of gene gains were detected as horizontal gene transfers in Fungi and protists, in agreement with the long-standing idea that transfers would be less relevant in Metazoa due to germline isolation3,4,5. Together, our results indicate that animals and fungi evolved under two contrasting trajectories of genetic change that predated the origin of both groups. The gradual establishment of two clearly differentiated genomic contexts thus set the stage for the emergence of Metazoa and FungiE.O.-P. was supported by a predoctoral FPI grant from MINECO (BES-2015-072241) and by ESF Investing in your future. E.O.-P., D.L-E., A.S.A. and I.R.-T. received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 616960) and also from grants (BFU2014-57779-P and PID2020-120609GB-I00) by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ‘ERDF A way of making Europe’. E.O.-P. and G.J.Sz. received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 714774). T.A.W. was supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF\R\201024) and NERC standard grant NE/P00251X/1. This work was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF9741 to T.A.W. and G.J.Sz. J.S.P. and E.B. received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 615274). D.V.T. and cell culturing were supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant no. 18-14-00239, https://rscf.ru/project/18-14-00239/. Culture of P. vietnamica was obtained as the result of field work in Vietnam as part of the project ‘Ecolan 3.2’ of the Russian–Vietnam Tropical Center. P.J.K. is supported by an Investigator Award from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (https://doi.org/10.37807/GBMF9201)With the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S)Peer reviewe

Group-by-treatment interaction effects in comparative bioavailability studies

Comparative bioavailability studies often involve multiple groups of subjects for a variety of reasons, such as clinical capacity limitations. This raises questions about the validity of pooling data from these groups in the statistical analysis and whether a group-by-treatment interaction should be evaluated. We investigated the presence or absence of group-by-treatment interactions through both simulation techniques and a meta-study of well-controlled trials. Our findings reveal that the test falsely detects an interaction when no true group-by-treatment interaction exists. Conversely, when a true group-by-treatment interaction does exist, it often goes undetected. In our meta-study, the detected group-by-treatment interactions were observed at approximately the level of the test and, thus, can be considered false positives. Testing for a group-by-treatment interaction is both misleading and uninformative. It often falsely identifies an interaction when none exists and fails to detect a real one. This occurs because the test is performed between subjects in crossover designs, and studies are powered to compare treatments within subjects. This work demonstrates a lack of utility for including a group-by-treatment interaction in the model when assessing single-site comparative bioavailability studies, and the clinical trial study structure is divided into groups.Open access funding provided by Medical University of Vienna.https://link.springer.com/journal/12248hj2024StatisticsNon

On the Mechanism of Action of SJ-172550 in Inhibiting the Interaction of MDM4 and p53

SJ-172550 (1) was previously discovered in a biochemical high throughput screen for inhibitors of the interaction of MDMX and p53 and characterized as a reversible inhibitor (J. Biol. Chem. 2010; 285∶10786). Further study of the biochemical mode of action of 1 has shown that it acts through a complicated mechanism in which the compound forms a covalent but reversible complex with MDMX and locks MDMX into a conformation that is unable to bind p53. The relative stability of this complex is influenced by many factors including the reducing potential of the media, the presence of aggregates, and other factors that influence the conformational stability of the protein. This complex mechanism of action hinders the further development of compound 1 as a selective MDMX inhibitor

Enhanced Platelet-activating Factor synthesis facilitates acute and delayed effects of ethanol intoxicated thermal burn injury

Thermal burn injuries in patients alcohol intoxicated result in greater morbidity and mortality. Murine models combining ethanol and localized thermal burn injury reproduce the systemic toxicity seen in human subjects, which consists of both acute systemic cytokine production with multiple organ dysfunction, as well as a delayed systemic immunosuppression. However, the exact mechanisms for these acute and delayed effects are unclear. These studies sought to define the role of the lipid mediator Platelet-activating factor (PAF) in the acute and delayed effects of intoxicated burn injury. Combining ethanol and thermal burn injury resulted in increased enzymatic PAF generation in a keratinocyte cell line in vitro, human skin explants ex vivo, as well as in murine skin in vivo. Further, the acute increase in inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6, and the systemic immunosuppressive effects of intoxicated thermal burn injury, were suppressed in mice lacking PAF receptors. Together, these studies provide a potential mechanism and novel treatment strategies for the augmented toxicity and immunosuppressive effects of thermal burn injury in the setting of acute ethanol exposure, which involves the pleotropic lipid mediator PAF

On Imprimitive Representations of Finite Reductive Groups in Non-defining Characteristic

In this paper, we begin with the classification of Harish-Chandra imprimitive representations in non-defining characteristic. We recall the connection of this problem to certain generalizations of Iwahori-Hecke algebras and show that Harish-Chandra induction is compatible with the Morita equivalence by Bonnaf\'{e} and Rouquier, thus reducing the classification problem to quasi-isolated blocks. Afterwards, we consider imprimitivity of unipotent representations of certain classical groups. In the case of general linear and unitary groups, our reduction methods then lead to results for arbitrary Lusztig series

Imaging of the spleen in malaria

n/