Writing Amnesia in Hervé Guibert’s Le Paradis

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The rph1 Gene Is a Common Contributor to the Evolution of Phosphine Resistance in Independent Field Isolates of Rhyzopertha Dominica

Phosphine is the only economically viable fumigant for routine control of insect pests of stored food products, but its continued use is now threatened by the world-wide emergence of high-level resistance in key pest species. Phosphine has a unique mode of action relative to well-characterised contact pesticides. Similarly, the selective pressures that lead to resistance against field sprays differ dramatically from those encountered during fumigation. The consequences of these differences have not been investigated adequately. We determine the genetic basis of phosphine resistance in Rhyzopertha dominica strains collected from New South Wales and South Australia and compare this with resistance in a previously characterised strain from Queensland. The resistance levels range from 225 and 100 times the baseline response of a sensitive reference strain. Moreover, molecular and phenotypic data indicate that high-level resistance was derived independently in each of the three widely separated geographical regions. Despite the independent origins, resistance was due to two interacting genes in each instance. Furthermore, complementation analysis reveals that all three strains contain an incompletely recessive resistance allele of the autosomal rph1 resistance gene. This is particularly noteworthy as a resistance allele at rph1 was previously proposed to be a necessary first step in the evolution of high-level resistance. Despite the capacity of phosphine to disrupt a wide range of enzymes and biological processes, it is remarkable that the initial step in the selection of resistance is so similar in isolated outbreaks

Use of Mutagenesis, Genetic Mapping and Next Generation Transcriptomics to Investigate Insecticide Resistance Mechanisms

Insecticide resistance is a worldwide problem with major impact on agriculture and human health. Understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms is crucial for the management of the phenomenon; however, this information often comes late with respect to the implementation of efficient counter-measures, particularly in the case of metabolism-based resistance mechanisms. We employed a genome-wide insertional mutagenesis screen to Drosophila melanogaster, using a Minos-based construct, and retrieved a line (MiT[w−]3R2) resistant to the neonicotinoid insecticide Imidacloprid. Biochemical and bioassay data indicated that resistance was due to increased P450 detoxification. Deep sequencing transcriptomic analysis revealed substantial over- and under-representation of 357 transcripts in the resistant line, including statistically significant changes in mixed function oxidases, peptidases and cuticular proteins. Three P450 genes (Cyp4p2, Cyp6a2 and Cyp6g1) located on the 2R chromosome, are highly up-regulated in mutant flies compared to susceptible Drosophila. One of them (Cyp6g1) has been already described as a major factor for Imidacloprid resistance, which validated the approach. Elevated expression of the Cyp4p2 was not previously documented in Drosophila lines resistant to neonicotinoids. In silico analysis using the Drosophila reference genome failed to detect transcription binding factors or microRNAs associated with the over-expressed Cyp genes. The resistant line did not contain a Minos insertion in its chromosomes, suggesting a hit-and-run event, i.e. an insertion of the transposable element, followed by an excision which caused the mutation. Genetic mapping placed the resistance locus to the right arm of the second chromosome, within a ∼1 Mb region, where the highly up-regulated Cyp6g1 gene is located. The nature of the unknown mutation that causes resistance is discussed on the basis of these results

Nature, extent and ecological implications of night-time light from road vehicles

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record1.The erosion of night‐time by the introduction of artificial lighting constitutes a profound pressure on the natural environment. It has altered what had for millennia been reliable signals from natural light cycles used for regulating a host of biological processes, with impacts ranging from changes in gene expression to ecosystem processes. 2.Studies of these impacts have focused almost exclusively on those resulting from stationary sources of light emissions, and particularly streetlights. However, mobile sources, especially road vehicle headlights, contribute substantial additional emissions. 3.The ecological impacts of light emissions from vehicle headlights are likely to be especially high because these are (i) focused so as to light roadsides at higher intensities than commonly experienced from other sources, and well above activation thresholds for many biological processes; (ii) projected largely in a horizontal plane and thus can carry over long distances; (iii) introduced into much larger areas of the landscape than experience street lighting; (iv) typically broad ‘white’ spectrum, which substantially overlaps the action spectra of many biological processes; and (v) often experienced at roadsides as series of pulses of light (produced by passage of vehicles), a dynamic known to have major biological impacts. 4.The ecological impacts of road vehicle headlights will markedly increase with projected global growth in numbers of vehicles and the road network, increasing the local severity of emissions (because vehicle numbers are increasing faster than growth in the road network) and introducing emissions into areas from which they were previously absent. The effects will be further exacerbated by technological developments that are increasing the intensity of headlight emissions and the amounts of blue light in emission spectra. 5.Synthesis and applications. Emissions from vehicle headlights need to be considered as a major, and growing, source of ecological impacts of artificial night‐time lighting. It will be a significant challenge to minimize these impacts whilst balancing drivers’ needs at night and avoiding risk and discomfort for other road users. Nonetheless, there is potential to identify solutions to these conflicts, both through the design of headlights and that of roads.The research leading to this article has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 268504 and Natural Environment Research Council grants NE/N001672/1 and NE/P01156X/1

The Polarity Protein Scribble Regulates Myelination and Remyelination in the Central Nervous System

The development and regeneration of myelin by oligodendrocytes, the myelin-forming cells of the central nervous system (CNS), requires profound changes in cell shape that lead to myelin sheath initiation and formation. Here, we demonstrate a requirement for the basal polarity complex protein Scribble in CNS myelination and remyelination. Scribble is expressed throughout oligodendroglial development and is up-regulated in mature oligodendrocytes where it is localised to both developing and mature CNS myelin sheaths. Knockdown of Scribble expression in cultured oligodendroglia results in disrupted morphology and myelination initiation. When Scribble expression is conditionally eliminated in the myelinating glia of transgenic mice, myelin initiation in CNS is disrupted, both during development and following focal demyelination, and longitudinal extension of the myelin sheath is disrupted. At later stages of myelination, Scribble acts to negatively regulate myelin thickness whilst suppressing the extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK)/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAP) kinase pathway, and localises to non-compact myelin flanking the node of Ranvier where it is required for paranodal axo-glial adhesion. These findings demonstrate an essential role for the evolutionarily-conserved regulators of intracellular polarity in myelination and remyelination

Memories of the Unlived Body:Jean-Louis Schefer, Georges Bataille and Gilles Deleuze

Jean-Louis Schefer's newly translated The Ordinary Man of Cinema (2016), originally published in 1980, proposes a singular account of the experience of cinema which departs from the principal tendencies of film theory. It has nevertheless had a profound if somewhat invisible influence in film philosophy and theory since its publication, notably in the work of Gilles Deleuze. This essay proposes a synthetic discussion of Schefer's work on film up to The Ordinary Man, arguing that Schefer's work, which draws on his earlier work on painting, construes film as radically non-representational, and as bringing into being, in the spectator, a virtual affectivity corresponding to the distorted and disproportionate bodies and aberrant movements that it presents. I argue that in its recurrent emphasis on the “inchoate” elements in film, and on the “inceptions” of movements that it provokes, Schefer's thought draws implicitly on the Bataillean notion of the informe (formlessness). This return to an impossibility of thought at the heart of thought is among the fundamental insights which Deleuze draws from Schefer in Cinema 2: The Time-image.</jats:p