A bioinformatics approach to identifying Wolbachia infections in arthropods

Wolbachia is the most widespread endosymbiont, infecting >20% of arthropod species, and capable of drastically manipulating the host’s reproductive mechanisms. Conventionally, diagnosis has relied on PCR amplification; however, PCR is not always a reliable diagnostic technique due to primer specificity, strain diversity, degree of infection and/or tissue sampled. Here, we look for evidence of Wolbachia infection across a wide array of arthropod species using a bioinformatic approach to detect the Wolbachia genes ftsZ, wsp, and the groE operon in next-generation sequencing samples available through the NCBI Sequence Read Archive. For samples showing signs of infection, we attempted to assemble entire Wolbachia genomes, and in order to better understand the relationships between hosts and symbionts, phylogenies were constructed using the assembled gene sequences. Out of the 34 species with positively identified infections, eight species of arthropod had not previously been recorded to harbor Wolbachia infection. All putative infections cluster with known representative strains belonging to supergroup A or B, which are known to only infect arthropods. This study presents an efficient bioinformatic approach for post-sequencing diagnosis and analysis of Wolbachia infection in arthropods

Differing instructional needs for children of similar reading achievement grades two, four, and six

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

The Practice of Assistants in Nursing: A study of resource distribution at the bedside in nursing homes

The provision of residential care to elderly people in Australia has received much attention since the introduction of aged care reform in 1997. In Australia, as in most parts of the world, increasing numbers of people are likely to enter aged care because of the increasing percentage of populations approaching the age bracket of 65 years and over, particularly within the next 20 years. Focus on the quality and cost of provision of care, particularly in nursing homes, which until recent times has remained mostly invisible, is continually scrutinised and highlighted in the current public arena. Issues such as the standard of care, appropriateness of staffing levels and costs associated with the delivery of care have been reflected in policy development and the advent of aged care structural reform. As macro policy aims to balance the social issues of nursing home care equally against the cost of provision of such care, the 'trickle down effect' on the quality and type of care delivered to residents at the micro-level of the bedside has not been explored. This study is primarily concerned with the micro-level of care experienced at the bedside in Australian residential care and, as a consequence, it examines the practice of assistants in nursing (AINs) employed in Australian nursing homes. In particular, it identifies and examines AINs' notions of equality and, in turn, how these are influenced by contextual factors within the nursing home industry, in terms of their distribution of resources at the bedside. This issue is significant, given that the majority of employees in nursing homes who deliver bedside care are AINs. How they distribute resources impacts upon the type and quality of care that is delivered, and the quality of life that older persons experience in nursing homes on a day-to-day basis

11,664 kilometers across the sea: Bridging the student support gap to the Pacific Islands

Presentation for the 2013 International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers (IAMSLIC) Conference. This presentation discusses the LEAP program at UNT and bridging the student support gap to the Pacific Islands

A community study of the effect of particulate matter on blood measures of inflammation and thrombosis in an elderly population

BACKGROUND: The mechanism behind the triggering effect of fine particulate matter (PM) air pollution on cardiovascular events remains elusive. We postulated that elevated levels of PM would be associated with increased blood levels of inflammatory and thrombotic markers in elderly individuals. We also hypothesized that elevated PM would increase levels of cytokines in individuals with heart disease. METHODS: We measured these blood markers in 47 elderly individuals with (23) and without (16 COPD and 8 healthy) cardiovascular disease (CVD) on 2 or 3 mornings over a 5 or 10-day period between February 2000 and March 2002. Blood measures were paired with residence level outdoor PM measured by nephelometry. Analyses determined the within-individual effect of 24-hour averaged outdoor PM on blood measures. RESULTS: Analyses found no statistically significant effect of a same day 10 ug/m(3 )increase in fine PM on log transformed levels of CRP 1.21 fold-rise [95% CI: 0.86, 1.70], fibrinogen 1.02 fold-rise [95% CI: 0.98, 1.06], or D-dimer 1.02 fold-rise [95% CI: 0.88, 1.17] in individuals with CVD. One-day lagged analyses in the CVD subgroup found similar null results. These same models found no change in these blood markers at the same-day or 1-day lag in the group without CVD. In 21 individuals with CVD, a 10 μg/m(3 )increase in same-day PM was associated with a 1.3 fold-rise [95% CI: 1.1, 1.7] in the level of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1. CONCLUSION: We did not find consistent effects of low ambient levels of PM on blood measures of inflammation or thrombosis in elderly individuals

A Dominant Mutation in mediator of paramutation2, One of Three Second-Largest Subunits of a Plant-Specific RNA Polymerase, Disrupts Multiple siRNA Silencing Processes

Paramutation involves homologous sequence communication that leads to meiotically heritable transcriptional silencing. We demonstrate that mop2 (mediator of paramutation2), which alters paramutation at multiple loci, encodes a gene similar to Arabidopsis NRPD2/E2, the second-largest subunit of plant-specific RNA polymerases IV and V. In Arabidopsis, Pol-IV and Pol-V play major roles in RNA–mediated silencing and a single second-largest subunit is shared between Pol-IV and Pol-V. Maize encodes three second-largest subunit genes: all three genes potentially encode full length proteins with highly conserved polymerase domains, and each are expressed in multiple overlapping tissues. The isolation of a recessive paramutation mutation in mop2 from a forward genetic screen suggests limited or no functional redundancy of these three genes. Potential alternative Pol-IV/Pol-V–like complexes could provide maize with a greater diversification of RNA–mediated transcriptional silencing machinery relative to Arabidopsis. Mop2-1 disrupts paramutation at multiple loci when heterozygous, whereas previously silenced alleles are only up-regulated when Mop2-1 is homozygous. The dramatic reduction in b1 tandem repeat siRNAs, but no disruption of silencing in Mop2-1 heterozygotes, suggests the major role for tandem repeat siRNAs is not to maintain silencing. Instead, we hypothesize the tandem repeat siRNAs mediate the establishment of the heritable silent state—a process fully disrupted in Mop2-1 heterozygotes. The dominant Mop2-1 mutation, which has a single nucleotide change in a domain highly conserved among all polymerases (E. coli to eukaryotes), disrupts both siRNA biogenesis (Pol-IV–like) and potentially processes downstream (Pol-V–like). These results suggest either the wild-type protein is a subunit in both complexes or the dominant mutant protein disrupts both complexes. Dominant mutations in the same domain in E. coli RNA polymerase suggest a model for Mop2-1 dominance: complexes containing Mop2-1 subunits are non-functional and compete with wild-type complexes