Threat by marine heatwaves to adaptive large marine ecosystems in an eddy-resolving model.

Marine heatwaves (MHWs), episodic periods of abnormally high sea surface temperature (SST), severely affect marine ecosystems. Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) cover ~22% of the global ocean but account for 95% of global fisheries catches. Yet how climate change affects MHWs over LMEs remains unknown, because such LMEs are confined to the coast where low-resolution climate models are known to have biases. Here, using a high-resolution Earth system model and applying a "future threshold" that considers MHWs as anomalous warming above the long-term mean warming of SSTs, we find that future intensity and annual days of MHWs over majority of the LMEs remain higher than in the present-day climate. Better resolution of ocean mesoscale eddies enables simulation of more realistic MHWs than low-resolution models. These increases in MHWs under global warming poses a serious threat to LMEs, even if resident organisms could adapt fully to the long-term mean warming

Functional Shifts in Insect microRNA Evolution

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short endogenous RNA molecules that regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level and have been shown to play critical roles during animal development. The identification and comparison of miRNAs in metazoan species are therefore paramount for our understanding of the evolution of body plans. We have characterized 203 miRNAs from the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum by deep sequencing of small RNA libraries. We can conclude, from a single study, that the Tribolium miRNA set is at least 15% larger than that in the model insect Drosophila melanogaster (despite tens of high-throughput sequencing experiments in the latter). The rate of birth and death of miRNAs is high in insects. Only one-third of the Tribolium miRNA sequences are conserved in D. melanogaster, and at least 18 Tribolium miRNAs are conserved in vertebrates but lost in Drosophila. More than one-fifth of miRNAs that are conserved between Tribolium and Drosophila exhibit changes in the transcription, genomic organization, and processing patterns that lead to predicted functional shifts. For example, 13% of conserved miRNAs exhibit seed shifting, and we describe arm-switching events in 11% of orthologous pairs. These shifts fundamentally change the predicted targets and therefore function of orthologous miRNAs. In general, Tribolium miRNAs are more representative of the insect ancestor than Drosophila miRNAs and are more conserved in vertebrates

Empathy Manipulation Impacts Music-Induced Emotions: A Psychophysiological Study on Opera

This study investigated the effects of voluntarily empathizing with a musical performer (i.e., cognitive empathy) on music-induced emotions and their underlying physiological activity. N = 56 participants watched video-clips of two operatic compositions performed in concerts, with low or high empathy instructions. Heart rate and heart rate variability, skin conductance level (SCL), and respiration rate (RR) were measured during music listening, and music-induced emotions were quantified using the Geneva Emotional Music Scale immediately after music listening. Listening to the aria with sad content in a high empathy condition facilitated the emotion of nostalgia and decreased SCL, in comparison to the low empathy condition. Listening to the song with happy content in a high empathy condition also facilitated the emotion of power and increased RR, in comparison to the low empathy condition. To our knowledge, this study offers the first experimental evidence that cognitive empathy influences emotion psychophysiology during music listening

Sequence Relationships among C. elegans, D. melanogaster and Human microRNAs Highlight the Extensive Conservation of microRNAs in Biology

microRNAs act in a prevalent and conserved post-transcriptional gene regulatory mechanism that impacts development, homeostasis and disease, yet biological functions for the vast majority of miRNAs remain unknown. Given the power of invertebrate genetics to promote rapid evaluation of miRNA function, recently expanded miRNA identifications (miRBase 10.1), and the importance of assessing potential functional redundancies within and between species, we evaluated miRNA sequence relationships by 5′ end match and overall homology criteria to compile a snapshot overview of miRNA families within the C. elegans and D. melanogaster genomes that includes their identified human counterparts. This compilation expands literature documentation of both the number of families and the number of family members, within and between nematode and fly models, and highlights sequences conserved between species pairs or among nematodes, flies and humans. Themes that emerge include the substantial potential for functional redundancy of miRNA sequences within species (84/139 C. elegans miRNAs and 70/152 D. melanogaster miRNAs share significant homology with other miRNAs encoded by their respective genomes), and the striking extent to which miRNAs are conserved across species—over half (73/139) C. elegans miRNAs share sequence homology with miRNAs encoded also in both fly and human genomes. This summary analysis of mature miRNA sequence relationships provides a quickly accessible resource that should facilitate functional and evolutionary analyses of miRNAs and miRNA families

Overlapping functions of microRNAs in control of apoptosis during Drosophila embryogenesis

Regulation of apoptosis is crucial for tissue homeostasis under normal development and environmental stress. In Drosophila, cell death occurs in different developmental processes including embryogenesis. Here, we report that two members of the miR-2 seed family of microRNAs, miR-6 and miR-11, function together to limit the level of apoptosis during Drosophila embryonic development. Mutants lacking both miR-6 and miR-11 show embryonic lethality and defects in the central nervous system (CNS). We provide evidence that miR-6/11 functions through regulation of the proapoptotic genes, reaper (rpr), head involution defective (hid), grim and sickle (skl). Upregulation of these proapoptotic genes is responsible for the elevated apoptosis and the CNS defects in the mutants. These findings demonstrate that the activity of the proapoptotic genes is kept in check by miR-6/11 to ensure normal development

A Common CNR1 (Cannabinoid Receptor 1) Haplotype Attenuates the Decrease in HDL Cholesterol That Typically Accompanies Weight Gain

We have previously shown that genetic variability in CNR1 is associated with low HDL dyslipidemia in a multigenerational obesity study cohort of Northern European descent (209 families, median  = 10 individuals per pedigree). In order to assess the impact of CNR1 variability on the development of dyslipidemia in the community, we genotyped this locus in all subjects with class III obesity (body mass index >40 kg/m2) participating in a population-based biobank of similar ancestry. Twenty-two haplotype tagging SNPs, capturing the entire CNR1 gene locus plus 15 kb upstream and 5 kb downstream, were genotyped and tested for association with clinical lipid data. This biobank contains data from 645 morbidly obese study subjects. In these subjects, a common CNR1 haplotype (H3, frequency 21.1%) is associated with fasting TG and HDL cholesterol levels (p = 0.031 for logTG; p = 0.038 for HDL-C; p = 0.00376 for log[TG/HDL-C]). The strength of this relationship increases when the data are adjusted for age, gender, body mass index, diet and physical activity. Mean TG levels were 160±70, 155±70, and 120±60 mg/dL for subjects with 0, 1, and 2 copies of the H3 haplotype. Mean HDL-C levels were 45±10, 47±10, and 48±9 mg/dL, respectively. The H3 CNR1 haplotype appears to exert a protective effect against development of obesity-related dyslipidemia