The Virome of Cerebrospinal Fluid: Viruses Where We Once Thought There Were None.

Traditionally, medicine has held that some human body sites are sterile and that the introduction of microbes to these sites results in infections. This paradigm shifted significantly with the discovery of the human microbiome and acceptance of these commensal microbes living across the body. However, the central nervous system (CNS) is still believed by many to be sterile in healthy people. Using culture-independent methods, we examined the virome of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a cohort of mostly healthy human subjects. We identified a community of DNA viruses, most of which were identified as bacteriophages. Compared to other human specimen types, CSF viromes were not ecologically distinct. There was a high alpha diversity cluster that included feces, saliva, and urine, and a low alpha diversity cluster that included CSF, body fluids, plasma, and breast milk. The high diversity cluster included specimens known to have many bacteria, while other specimens traditionally assumed to be sterile formed the low diversity cluster. There was an abundance of viruses shared among CSF, breast milk, plasma, and body fluids, while each generally shared less with urine, feces, and saliva. These shared viruses ranged across different virus families, indicating that similarities between these viromes represent more than just a single shared virus family. By identifying a virome in the CSF of mostly healthy individuals, it is now less likely that any human body site is devoid of microbes, which further highlights the need to decipher the role that viral communities may play in human health

Human RIF1 and protein phosphatase 1 stimulate DNA replication origin licensing but suppress origin activation

We thank David Stead at the Aberdeen Proteomics Service for help in mass spectrometry interpretation, and Raif Yücel and his team at the University of Aberdeen Iain Fraser Cytometry Centre for assistance with flow cytometry. We thank Robert Alver and Julian Blow at University of Dundee for advice on the use of tautomycetin. Peter Cherepanov of the Francis Crick Institute gifted XL413. Daniel Durocher of Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute gifted DNA constructs. Work by ADD and SH was supported by Cancer Research UK Grant A13356, Cancer Research UK Programme Award A19059, and BBSRC grant (BB/K006304/1). AIL was supported by Wellcome Trust Awards (108058/Z/15/Z & 105024/Z/14/Z). This work was also supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant # 16H04739, 25116004 to CO and 16J04327 to YO.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Metal Abundances across Cosmic Time (MACT\mathcal{MACT}) Survey. III. The Relationship between Stellar Mass and Star Formation Rate in Extremely Low-Mass Galaxies

Extragalactic studies have demonstrated there is a moderately tight ($\approx$0.3 dex) relationship between galaxy stellar mass ($M_{\star}$) and star formation rate (SFR) that holds for star-forming galaxies at $M_{\star} \sim 3 \times 10^8$-10$^{11}~M_{\odot}$, i.e., the "star formation main sequence." However, it has yet to be determined whether such a relationship extends to even lower mass galaxies, particularly at intermediate or higher redshifts. We present new results using observations for 714 narrowband H$\alpha$-selected galaxies with stellar masses between $10^6$ and $10^{10}~M_{\odot}$ (average of $10^{8.2}~M_{\odot}$) at $z \approx$ 0.07-0.5. These galaxies have sensitive UV to near-infrared photometric measurements and optical spectroscopy. The latter allows us to correct our H$\alpha$ SFRs for dust attenuation using Balmer decrements. Our study reveals: (1) for low-SFR galaxies, our H$\alpha$ SFRs systematically underpredict compared to FUV measurements, consistent with other studies; (2) at a given stellar mass ($\approx$10$^{8}~M_{\odot}$), log(specific SFR) evolves as $A \log(1+z)$ with $A = 5.26 \pm 0.75$, and on average, specific SFR increases with decreasing stellar mass; (3) the SFR-$M_{\star}$ relation holds for galaxies down to $\sim$10$^6~M_{\odot}$ ($\sim$1.5 dex below previous studies), and over lookback times of up to 5 Gyr, follows a redshift-dependent relation of $\log{({\rm SFR})} \propto \alpha \log{M_{\star}} + \beta z$ with $\alpha = 0.60 \pm 0.01$ and $\beta = 1.86 \pm 0.07$; and (4) the observed dispersion in the SFR-$M_{\star}$ relation at low stellar masses is $\approx$0.3 dex. Accounting for survey selection effects using simulated galaxies, we estimate the true dispersion is $\approx$0.5 dex.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, 8 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Distinct pattern of TP53 mutations in human immunodeficiency virusâ related head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142251/1/cncr31063.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142251/2/cncr31063_am.pd

EMSY links breast cancer gene 2 to the 'Royal Family'

Although the role of the breast cancer gene 2 (BRCA2) tumor suppressor gene is well established in inherited breast and ovarian carcinomas, its involvement in sporadic disease is still uncertain. The recent identification of a novel BRCA2 binding protein, EMSY, as a putative oncogene implicates the BRCA2 pathway in sporadic tumors. Furthermore, EMSY's binding to members of the 'Royal Family' of chromatin remodeling proteins may lead to a better understanding of the physiological function of BRCA2 and its role in chromatin remodeling

Reassessing China’s Higher Education Development: A Focus on Academic Culture

During the past three and a half decades, China has been progressing in higher education in a surprisingly dramatic manner, evidenced especially by scientific publications and sheer numbers of graduates. Such a fact has national, regional and global implications. China’s higher education development and its future directions are now placed highly on the research agendas of many from various parts of the world. Unlike the general acknowledgment of China’s achievements, assessment of the future development of China’s higher education is wide open to question. To some, Chinese universities are on a trajectory to become “world-class” and China’s high-fliers challenge Western supremacy. To others, China’s notion of “world-class” status has been largely imitative. Pumping resources into universities will only lead to diminishing returns as Chinese culture and practices will act as a brake to the pursuit of academic excellence. An increasing deal of attention has been paid to where China will be located in a global higher education landscape and in what shape. Based on the author’s long-standing professional observation and recent empirical studies, this article assesses China’s higher education development, with a particular focus on the challenges brought forward by academic culture. It interrogates China’s pride of the idea that Chinese universities are not willing to assume that Western models define excellence, and asks how far Chinese universities could move within their current development model.postprin