The bubble snails (Gastropoda, Heterobranchia) of Mozambique: an overlooked biodiversity hotspot

This first account, dedicated to the shallow water marine heterobranch gastropods of Mozambique is presented with a focus on the clades Acteonoidea and Cephalaspidea. Specimens were obtained as a result of sporadic sampling and two dedicated field campaigns between the years of 2012 and 2015, conducted along the northern and southern coasts of Mozambique. Specimens were collected by hand in the intertidal and subtidal reefs by snorkelling or SCUBA diving down to a depth of 33 m. Thirty-two species were found, of which 22 are new records to Mozambique and five are new for the Western Indian Ocean. This account raises the total number of shallow water Acteonoidea and Cephalaspidea known in Mozambique to 39 species, which represents approximately 50 % of the Indian Ocean diversity and 83 % of the diversity of these molluscs found in the Red Sea. A gap in sampling was identified in the central swamp/mangrove bio-region of Mozambique, and therefore, we suggest that future research efforts concentrate on or at least consider this region.publishedVersio

Breed and adaptive response modulate bovine peripheral blood cells’ transcriptome

Background: Adaptive response includes a variety of physiological modifications to face changes in external or internal conditions and adapt to a new situation. The acute phase proteins (APPs) are reactants synthesized against environmental stimuli like stress, infection, inflammation. Methods: To delineate the differences in molecular constituents of adaptive response to the environment we performed the whole-blood transcriptome analysis in Italian Holstein (IH) and Italian Simmental (IS) breeds. For this, 663 IH and IS cows from six commercial farms were clustered according to the blood level of APPs. Ten extreme individuals (five APP+ and APP- variants) from each farm were selected for the RNA-seq using the Illumina sequencing technology. Differentially expressed (DE) genes were analyzed using dynamic impact approach (DIA) and DAVID annotation clustering. Milk production data were statistically elaborated to assess the association of APP+ and APP- gene expression patterns with variations in milk parameters. Results: The overall de novo assembly of cDNA sequence data generated 13,665 genes expressed in bovine blood cells. Comparative genomic analysis revealed 1,152 DE genes in the comparison of all APP+ vs. all APP- variants; 531 and 217 DE genes specific for IH and IS comparison respectively. In all comparisons overexpressed genes were more represented than underexpressed ones. DAVID analysis revealed 369 DE genes across breeds, 173 and 73 DE genes in IH and IS comparison respectively. Among the most impacted pathways for both breeds were vitamin B6 metabolism, folate biosynthesis, nitrogen metabolism and linoleic acid metabolism. Conclusions: Both DIA and DAVID approaches produced a high number of significantly impacted genes and pathways with a narrow connection to adaptive response in cows with high level of blood APPs. A similar variation in gene expression and impacted pathways between APP+ and APP- variants was found between two studied breeds. Such similarity was also confirmed by annotation clustering of the DE genes. However, IH breed showed higher and more differentiated impacts compared to IS breed and such particular features in the IH adaptive response could be explained by its higher metabolic activity. Variations of milk production data were significantly associated with APP+ and APP- gene expression patterns

Notes for genera: basal clades of Fungi (including Aphelidiomycota, Basidiobolomycota, Blastocladiomycota, Calcarisporiellomycota, Caulochytriomycota, Chytridiomycota, Entomophthoromycota, Glomeromycota, Kickxellomycota, Monoblepharomycota, Mortierellomycota, Mucoromycota, Neocallimastigomycota, Olpidiomycota, Rozellomycota and Zoopagomycota)

Compared to the higher fungi (Dikarya), taxonomic and evolutionary studies on the basal clades of fungi are fewer in number. Thus, the generic boundaries and higher ranks in the basal clades of fungi are poorly known. Recent DNA based taxonomic studies have provided reliable and accurate information. It is therefore necessary to compile all available information since basal clades genera lack updated checklists or outlines. Recently, Tedersoo et al. (MycoKeys 13:1--20, 2016) accepted Aphelidiomycota and Rozellomycota in Fungal clade. Thus, we regard both these phyla as members in Kingdom Fungi. We accept 16 phyla in basal clades viz. Aphelidiomycota, Basidiobolomycota, Blastocladiomycota, Calcarisporiellomycota, Caulochytriomycota, Chytridiomycota, Entomophthoromycota, Glomeromycota, Kickxellomycota, Monoblepharomycota, Mortierellomycota, Mucoromycota, Neocallimastigomycota, Olpidiomycota, Rozellomycota and Zoopagomycota. Thus, 611 genera in 153 families, 43 orders and 18 classes are provided with details of classification, synonyms, life modes, distribution, recent literature and genomic data. Moreover, Catenariaceae Couch is proposed to be conserved, Cladochytriales Mozl.-Standr. is emended and the family Nephridiophagaceae is introduced

Function spaces for conditionally positive definite operator-valued kernels.

The correspondence between reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces and positive definite kernels is well understood since Aronszajn’s work of the 1940s. The analog relation is less clear for conditionally positive definite kernels. The latter are widely used in approximation methods for scattered data, geostatistics, and machine learning. We consider this relation and provide two ways to construct a reproducing kernel Pontryagin space for operator-valued kernels

Kernel-based methods for vector-valued data with correlated components.

This paper concerns kernel-based interpolation methods for vector data with correlated components. It gives conditions for a matrix kernel to be conditionally positive definite in an appropriate sense. The conditions allow construction of matrix kernels from nonsymmetric mixtures and scalings of scalar kernels. In particular the kernel used to model the influence of component i on component j can be different from that used to model the influence of component j on component i. The vector modeling techniques considered are particularly appropriate when there are relatively few measurements of one quantity and relatively many of another "correlated" quantity. The paper concludes with some numerical tests on model problems

Investigation of general and cytoskeletal markers to estimate numbers and proportions of neurons in the human intestine

An important requirement in pathological diagnostics in the human enteric nervous system (ENS) is the estimation of the total numbers of neurons and of proportions of distinct subpopulations. In this study, we compared the suitability of two suggested panneuronal markers, cuprolinic blue (CB) and anti-Hu-protein (HU), for staining and counting human myenteric neurons in wholemounts, derived from small and large intestinal samples. Furthermore, the proportional expression of three cytoskeletal intermediate filaments, a-internexin (IN), neurofilament 200 (NF) and peripherin (PE), was correlated with both CB and HU. In 8 CB- and HUstained wholemounts, 93.3% of all neurons were double labeled, 3.3% of neurons were stained only with CB whereas 3.3% were immuno-stained only for HU. Thus, both markers were comparably reliable in representing the putative total human myenteric neuron population in our material. The wholemounts double stained for IN/CB or IN/HU revealed between 56.2 and 71.5% of neurons to be IN-reactive. Between 42.8 and 50.9% of neurons were immunoreactive for NF whereas 53.9 to 62.4% of neurons were reactive for PE. Although our sample number was too small to allow final conclusions, we suggest that the variations in proportions of intermediate filament expression we observed may be due to individual circumstances rather than to correlation with age or region. The proportions of neurons positive for IN, NF or PE but unstained by CB histochemical or HU immunohistochemical techniques was between 0 and 2.2%. We conclude that both CB and HU techniques are suitable methods for representation of almost all myenteric neurons in the human gut and that the differential expression of the cytoskeletal proteins investigated has to be included in the classification of enteric neurons in pathological diagnostics of human gastrointestinal diseases