8 research outputs found
Hidden breakpoints in genome alignments
During the course of evolution, an organism's genome can undergo changes that
affect the large-scale structure of the genome. These changes include gene
gain, loss, duplication, chromosome fusion, fission, and rearrangement. When
gene gain and loss occurs in addition to other types of rearrangement,
breakpoints of rearrangement can exist that are only detectable by comparison
of three or more genomes. An arbitrarily large number of these "hidden"
breakpoints can exist among genomes that exhibit no rearrangements in pairwise
comparisons.
We present an extension of the multichromosomal breakpoint median problem to
genomes that have undergone gene gain and loss. We then demonstrate that the
median distance among three genomes can be used to calculate a lower bound on
the number of hidden breakpoints present. We provide an implementation of this
calculation including the median distance, along with some practical
improvements on the time complexity of the underlying algorithm.
We apply our approach to measure the abundance of hidden breakpoints in
simulated data sets under a wide range of evolutionary scenarios. We
demonstrate that in simulations the hidden breakpoint counts depend strongly on
relative rates of inversion and gene gain/loss. Finally we apply current
multiple genome aligners to the simulated genomes, and show that all aligners
introduce a high degree of error in hidden breakpoint counts, and that this
error grows with evolutionary distance in the simulation. Our results suggest
that hidden breakpoint error may be pervasive in genome alignments.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
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Two new portable survey instruments: the field phoswich detector and the Wee Pee Pee
As part of a continuing program to upgrade the health physics survey instrumentation at Los Alamos, we have recently developed two new portable instruments. The first is a fully portable phoswich detector for low energy photons from small amounts of plutonium and americium in the field. The instrument has a background that is 2 to 3 times lower than an equivalent thin NaI detector. The instrument features an aural popper, analogue rate meter, and timer/scaler with liquid crystal display. The second instrument, called the ''Wee Pee Wee,'' is an alpha air proportional probe with complete electronics and readout package mounted on the probe itself. The entire package has a mass of 0.66 kg (1.45 lb) and is carried and operated in one hand. For monitoring shoes and other places where it is difficult to read the count-rate meter, the meter is made detachable for clipping to a shirt pocket, etc. An audio popper, range scales to 100 K cpm, and visual checks for high voltage and battery levels are also included
Optimal design of feedback control by inhibition
The local stability of unbranched biosynthetic pathways is examined by mathematical analysis and computer simulation using a novel nonlinear formalism that appears to accurately describe biochemical systems. Four factors affecting the stability are examined: strength of feedback inhibition, equalization of the values among the corresponding kinetic parameters for the reactions of the pathway, pathway length, and alternative patterns of feedback interaction. The strength of inhibition and the pattern of feedback interactions are important determinants of steady-state behavior. The simple pattern of end-product inhibition in unbranched pathways may have evolved because it optimizes the steady-state behavior and is temporally most responsive to change. Stability in these simple systems is achieved by shortening pathway length either physically or, in the case of necessarily long pathways, kinetically by a wide divergence in the values of the corresponding kinetic parameters for the reactions of the pathway. These conclusions are discussed in the light of available experimental evidence.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/48053/1/239_2005_Article_BF01741242.pd