Draft Genome Sequences of Chlamydiales Bacterium STE3 and Neochlamydia sp. Strain AcF84, Endosymbionts of Acanthamoeba spp.

Chlamydiales bacterium STE3 and Neochlamydia sp. strain AcF84 are obligate intracellular symbionts of Acanthamoeba spp. isolated from the biofilm of a littoral cave wall and gills from striped tiger leaf fish, respectively. We report the draft genome sequences of these two environmental chlamydiae affiliated with the family Parachlamydiaceae

SuRe:food – ein Bewertungstool für regional wirksame Nachhaltigkeitseffekte von Lebensmittelwertschöpfungsketten

SuRe:food ist ein Tool, das Nachhaltigkeit mit dem Konzept der Regionalität verknüpft und so eine Bewertung ganzer Lebensmittelwertschöpfungsketten ermöglicht. In diesem Beitrag wird der methodische Rahmen vorgestellt und seine Anwendung anhand von vier Bio-Produkten in Österreich illustriert

Scintillation efficiency measurement of Na recoils in NaI(Tl) below the DAMA/LIBRA energy threshold

The dark matter interpretation of the DAMA modulation signal depends on the NaI(Tl) scintillation efficiency of nuclear recoils. Previous measurements for Na recoils have large discrepancies, especially in the DAMA/LIBRA modulation energy region. We report a quenching effect measurement of Na recoils in NaI(Tl) from 3keV$_{\text{nr}}$ to 52keV$_{\text{nr}}$, covering the whole DAMA/LIBRA energy region for light WIMP interpretations. By using a low-energy, pulsed neutron beam, a double time-of-flight technique, and pulse-shape discrimination methods, we obtained the most accurate measurement of this kind for NaI(Tl) to date. The results differ significantly from the DAMA reported values at low energies, but fall between the other previous measurements. We present the implications of the new quenching results for the dark matter interpretation of the DAMA modulation signal

Transcriptome Analysis in Tardigrade Species Reveals Specific Molecular Pathways for Stress Adaptations

Tardigrades have unique stress-adaptations that allow them to survive extremes of cold, heat, radiation and vacuum. To study this, encoded protein clusters and pathways from an ongoing transcriptome study on the tardigrade Milnesium tardigradum were analyzed using bioinformatics tools and compared to expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from Hypsibius dujardini, revealing major pathways involved in resistance against extreme environmental conditions. ESTs are available on the Tardigrade Workbench along with software and databank updates. Our analysis reveals that RNA stability motifs for M. tardigradum are different from typical motifs known from higher animals. M. tardigradum and H. dujardini protein clusters and conserved domains imply metabolic storage pathways for glycogen, glycolipids and specific secondary metabolism as well as stress response pathways (including heat shock proteins, bmh2, and specific repair pathways). Redox-, DNA-, stress- and protein protection pathways complement specific repair capabilities to achieve the strong robustness of M. tardigradum. These pathways are partly conserved in other animals and their manipulation could boost stress adaptation even in human cells. However, the unique combination of resistance and repair pathways make tardigrades and M. tardigradum in particular so highly stress resistant

Measurement of Scintillation and Ionization Yield and Scintillation Pulse Shape from Nuclear Recoils in Liquid Argon

We have measured the scintillation and ionization yield of recoiling nuclei in liquid argon as a function of applied electric field by exposing a dual-phase liquid argon time projection chamber (LAr-TPC) to a low energy pulsed narrow band neutron beam produced at the Notre Dame Institute for Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics. Liquid scintillation counters were arranged to detect and identify neutrons scattered in the TPC and to select the energy of the recoiling nuclei. We report measurements of the scintillation yields for nuclear recoils with energies from 10.3 to 57.3 keV and for median applied electric fields from 0 to 970 V/cm. For the ionization yields, we report measurements from 16.9 to 57.3 keV and for electric fields from 96.4 to 486 V/cm. We also report the observation of an anticorrelation between scintillation and ionization from nuclear recoils, which is similar to the anticorrelation between scintillation and ionization from electron recoils. Assuming that the energy loss partitions into excitons and ion pairs from $^{83m}$Kr internal conversion electrons is comparable to that from $^{207}$Bi conversion electrons, we obtained the numbers of excitons ($N_{ex}$) and ion pairs ($N_i$) and their ratio ($N_{ex}/N_i$) produced by nuclear recoils from 16.9 to 57.3 keV. Motivated by arguments suggesting direction sensitivity in LAr-TPC signals due to columnar recombination, a comparison of the light and charge yield of recoils parallel and perpendicular to the applied electric field is presented for the first time.Comment: v2 to reflect published versio

Comparative metagenomics reveals the distinctive adaptive features of the Spongia officinalis endosymbiotic consortium

Current knowledge of sponge microbiome functioning derives mostly from comparative analyses with bacterioplankton communities. We employed a metagenomics-centered approach to unveil the distinct features of the Spongia officinalis endosymbiotic consortium in the context of its two primary environmental vicinities. Microbial metagenomic DNA samples (n = 10) from sponges, seawater, and sediments were subjected to Hiseq Illumina sequencing (c. 15 million 100 bp reads per sample). Totals of 10,272 InterPro (IPR) predicted protein entries and 784 rRNA gene operational taxonomic units (OTUs, 97% cut-off) were uncovered from all metagenomes. Despite the large divergence in microbial community assembly between the surveyed biotopes, the S. officinalis symbiotic community shared slightly greater similarity (p < 0.05), in terms of both taxonomy and function, to sediment than to seawater communities. The vast majority of the dominant S. officinalis symbionts (i.e., OTUs), representing several, so-far uncultivable lineages in diverse bacterial phyla, displayed higher residual abundances in sediments than in seawater. CRISPR-Cas proteins and restriction endonucleases presented much higher frequencies (accompanied by lower viral abundances) in sponges than in the environment. However, several genomic features sharply enriched in the sponge specimens, including eukaryotic-like repeat motifs (ankyrins, tetratricopeptides, WD-40, and leucine-rich repeats), and genes encoding for plasmids, sulfatases, polyketide synthases, type IV secretion proteins, and terpene/terpenoid synthases presented, to varying degrees, higher frequencies in sediments than in seawater. In contrast, much higher abundances of motility and chemotaxis genes were found in sediments and seawater than in sponges. Higher cell and surface densities, sponge cell shedding and particle uptake, and putative chemical signaling processes favoring symbiont persistence in particulate matrices all may act as mechanisms underlying the observed degrees of taxonomic connectivity and functional convergence between sponges and sediments. The reduced frequency of motility and chemotaxis genes in the sponge microbiome reinforces the notion of a prevalent mutualistic mode of living inside the host. This study highlights the S. officinalis "endosymbiome" as a distinct consortium of uncultured prokaryotes displaying a likely "sit-and-wait" strategy to nutrient foraging coupled to sophisticated anti-viral defenses, unique natural product biosynthesis, nutrient utilization and detoxification capacities, and both microbe-microbe and host-microbe gene transfer amenability.Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) [PTDC/BIA-MIC/3865/2012, PTDC/MAR-BIO/1547/2014]; Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (European Commission, Erasmus Mundus Programme) [EMA2 lot7/SALA1206422]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Neurochemical Architecture of the Central Complex Related to Its Function in the Control of Grasshopper Acoustic Communication

The central complex selects and coordinates the species- and situation-specific song production in acoustically communicating grasshoppers. Control of sound production is mediated by several neurotransmitters and modulators, their receptors and intracellular signaling pathways. It has previously been shown that muscarinic cholinergic excitation in the central complex promotes sound production whereas both GABA and nitric oxide/cyclic GMP signaling suppress its performance. The present immunocytochemical and pharmacological study investigates the question whether GABA and nitric oxide mediate inhibition of sound production independently. Muscarinic ACh receptors are expressed by columnar output neurons of the central complex that innervate the lower division of the central body and terminate in the lateral accessory lobes. GABAergic tangential neurons that innervate the lower division of the central body arborize in close proximity of columnar neurons and thus may directly inhibit these central complex output neurons. A subset of these GABAergic tangential neurons accumulates cyclic GMP following the release of nitric oxide from neurites in the upper division of the central body. While sound production stimulated by muscarine injection into the central complex is suppressed by co-application of sodium nitroprusside, picrotoxin-stimulated singing was not affected by co-application of this nitric oxide donor, indicating that nitric oxide mediated inhibition requires functional GABA signaling. Hence, grasshopper sound production is controlled by processing of information in the lower division of the central body which is subject to modulation by nitric oxide released from neurons in the upper division

Metagenomic binning of a marine sponge microbiome reveals unity in defense but metabolic specialization

Marine sponges are ancient metazoans that are populated by distinct and highly diverse microbial communities. In order to obtain deeper insights into the functional gene repertoire of the Mediterranean sponge Aplysina aerophoba, we combined Illumina short-read and PacBio long-read sequencing followed by un-targeted metagenomic binning. We identified a total of 37 high-quality bins representing 11 bacterial phyla and two candidate phyla. Statistical comparison of symbiont genomes with selected reference genomes revealed a significant enrichment of genes related to bacterial defense (restriction-modification systems, toxin-antitoxin systems) as well as genes involved in host colonization and extracellular matrix utilization in sponge symbionts. A within-symbionts genome comparison revealed a nutritional specialization of at least two symbiont guilds, where one appears to metabolize carnitine and the other sulfated polysaccharides, both of which are abundant molecules in the sponge extracellular matrix. A third guild of symbionts may be viewed as nutritional generalists that perform largely the same metabolic pathways but lack such extraordinary numbers of the relevant genes. This study characterizes the genomic repertoire of sponge symbionts at an unprecedented resolution and it provides greater insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying microbial-sponge symbiosis