CSF-induced and HIV-1–mediated Distinct Regulation of Hck and C/EBPβ Represent a Heterogeneous Susceptibility of Monocyte-derived Macrophages to M-tropic HIV-1 Infection

Granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)–induced monocyte-derived macrophages (GM-MΦ) are permissive to M-tropic HIV-1 entry, but inhibit viral replication at posttranscriptional and translational levels, whereas M-CSF-induced macrophages (M-MΦ) produce a large amount of HIV-1. M-MΦ express a high level of Hck and a large isoform of C/EBPβ, and HIV-1 infection increases the expression of Hck but not of C/EBPβ. GM-MΦ express a high level of C/EBPβ and a low level of Hck, and HIV-1 infection drastically increases the expression of a short isoform of C/EBPβ but decreases that of Hck

Mff is an essential factor for mitochondrial recruitment of Drp1 during mitochondrial fission in mammalian cells

Localization of the dynamin-related GTPase Drp1 to mitochondria relies on the mitochondrial fission factor Mff

What makes a cyanobacterial bloom disappear? A review of the abiotic and biotic cyanobacterial bloom loss factors

Cyanobacterial blooms present substantial challenges to managers and threaten ecological and public health. Although the majority of cyanobacterial bloom research and management focuses on factors that control bloom initiation, duration, toxicity, and geographical extent, relatively little research focuses on the role of loss processes in blooms and how these processes are regulated. Here, we define a loss process in terms of population dynamics as any process that removes cells from a population, thereby decelerating or reducing the development and extent of blooms. We review abiotic (e.g., hydraulic flushing and oxidative stress/UV light) and biotic factors (e.g., allelopathic compounds, infections, grazing, and resting cells/programmed cell death) known to govern bloom loss. We found that the dominant loss processes depend on several system specific factors including cyanobacterial genera-specific traits, in situ physicochemical conditions, and the microbial, phytoplankton, and consumer community composition. We also address loss processes in the context of bloom management and discuss perspectives and challenges in predicting how a changing climate may directly and indirectly affect loss processes on blooms. A deeper understanding of bloom loss processes and their underlying mechanisms may help to mitigate the negative consequences of cyanobacterial blooms and improve current management strategies

Widespread deoxygenation of temperate lakes

The concentration of dissolved oxygen in aquatic systems helps to regulate biodiversity, nutrient biogeochemistry, greenhouse gas emissions, and the quality of drinking water. The long-term declines in dissolved oxygen concentrations in coastal and ocean waters have been linked to climate warming and human activity, but little is known about the changes in dissolved oxygen concentrations in lakes. Although the solubility of dissolved oxygen decreases with increasing water temperatures, long-term lake trajectories are difficult to predict. Oxygen losses in warming lakes may be amplified by enhanced decomposition and stronger thermal stratification8,9 or oxygen may increase as a result of enhanced primary production. Here we analyse a combined total of 45,148 dissolved oxygen and temperature profiles and calculate trends for 393 temperate lakes that span 1941 to 2017. We find that a decline in dissolved oxygen is widespread in surface and deep-water habitats. The decline in surface waters is primarily associated with reduced solubility under warmer water temperatures, although dissolved oxygen in surface waters increased in a subset of highly productive warming lakes, probably owing to increasing production of phytoplankton. By contrast, the decline in deep waters is associated with stronger thermal stratification and loss of water clarity, but not with changes in gas solubility. Our results suggest that climate change and declining water clarity have altered the physical and chemical environment of lakes. Declines in dissolved oxygen in freshwater are 2.75 to 9.3 times greater than observed in the world’s oceans and could threaten essential lake ecosystem services

Otsego Lake Water Quality Constant Monitoring System

This report was prepared for the New York State Water Resources Institute (NYSWRI) with support from the U.S. Geological Survey under Grant/ Cooperative Agreement No. G16AP00072High resolution, 24/7 water quality monitoring on Otsego Lake, Otsego County, NY was initiated with deployment of light and temperature loggers on a chain suspended from a marker buoy. It was subsequently upgraded to a full featured constant lake monitoring data buoy with real time data transmission capability, while the loggers are still used during winter for continuous data collection under ice. With NYSWRI support, we successfully established reliable field protocols for swapping of the logger chain with the data buoy at ice-out, maintenance of the data buoy throughout the open water season, and winterization of the data buoy anchoring system and attachment of the data logger chain after complete lake mixing. Real time data on select weather and water quality parameters from the data buoy have been made available to the public through the Otsego Lake Association web site as well as co-PI Yokota’s web page. Otsego Lake became a member site of the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), and recent data sets from the constant monitoring have been used in various GLEON research projects aiming to understand regional and global patterns in how lakes respond to changing climate and other anthropogenic influences

Lake Phytoplankton Assemblage Altered by Irregularly Shaped PLA Body Wash Microplastics but Not by PS Calibration Beads

Microplastics are an emerging environmental pollutant, whose global ubiquity is becoming increasingly evident. Conventional wastewater treatment does not completely remove them, and there are growing concerns about microplastics in source water and post-treatment drinking water. Microplastics have been reported to alter the development, physiology, and behavior of various aquatic organisms; however, limited knowledge exists on their effect on natural phytoplankton communities. Many studies also use uniformly spherical plastic beads, while most scrub particles in consumer products and secondary microplastics in the environment have various shapes and sizes. We tested the effects of two types of microplastics, 50 µm polystyrene (PS) calibration beads and polylactic acid (PLA) plastic body wash scrub particles, and one type of plant-derived body wash scrub particle on a natural phytoplankton assemblage through a 7-day incubation experiment in a temperate, mesotrophic lake. The calibration beads and the plant-derived particles generally did not alter the taxonomic composition of the phytoplankton in the mesocosms, while the PLA body wash microplastics eliminated cryptophytes (p < 0.001) and increased chrysophytes (p = 0.041). Our findings demonstrate differential effects of irregularly shaped PLA body wash microplastics vs. PS calibration beads on lake phytoplankters and empirically support potential bottom-up alteration of the aquatic food web by secondary microplastics