Limiting opportunities for cheating stabilizes virulence in insect parasitic nematodes

Cooperative secretion of virulence factors by pathogens can lead to social conflict when cheating mutants exploit collective secretion, but do not contribute to it. If cheats outcompete cooperators within hosts, this can cause loss of virulence. Insect parasitic nematodes are important biocontrol tools that secrete a range of significant virulence factors. Critically, effective nematodes are hard to maintain without live passage, which can lead to virulence attenuation. Using experimental evolution, we tested whether social cheating might explain unstable virulence in the nematode Heterorhabditis floridensis by manipulating relatedness via multiplicity of infection (MOI), and the scale of competition. Passage at high MOI, which should reduce relatedness, led to loss of fitness: virulence and reproductive rate declined together and all eight independent lines suffered premature extinction. As theory predicts, relatedness treatments had more impact under stronger global competition. In contrast, low MOI passage led to more stable virulence and increased reproduction. Moreover, low MOI lineages showed a trade-off between virulence and reproduction, particularly for lines under stronger between-host competition. Overall, this study indicates that evolution of virulence theory is valuable for the culture of biocontrol agents: effective nematodes can be improved and maintained if passage methods mitigate possible social conflicts

Early life exposure to low levels of AHR agonist PCB126 (3,3’,4,4’,5- pentachlorobiphenyl) reprograms gene expression in adult brain

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here under a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license granted to WHOI. It is made available for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Toxicological Sciences 160 (2017): 386-397, doi:10.1093/toxsci/kfx192.Early life exposure to environmental chemicals can have long-term consequences that are not always apparent until later in life. We recently demonstrated that developmental exposure of zebrafish to low, non-embryotoxic levels of 3,3’,4,4’,5-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB126) did not affect larval behavior, but caused changes in adult behavior. The objective of this study was to investigate the underlying molecular basis for adult behavioral phenotypes resulting from early life exposure to PCB126. We exposed zebrafish embryos to PCB126 during early development and measured transcriptional profiles in whole embryos, larvae and adult male brains using RNA-sequencing. Early life exposure to 0.3 nM PCB126 induced cyp1a transcript levels in 2-dpf embryos, but not in 5-dpf larvae, suggesting transient activation of aryl hydrocarbon receptor with this treatment. No significant induction of cyp1a was observed in the brains of adults exposed as embryos to PCB126. However, a total of 2209 and 1628 genes were differentially expressed in 0.3 nM and 1.2 nM PCB126-exposed groups, respectively. KEGG pathway analyses of upregulated genes in the brain suggest enrichment of calcium signaling, MAPK and notch signaling, and lysine degradation pathways. Calcium is an important signaling molecule in the brain and altered calcium homeostasis could affect neurobehavior. The downregulated genes in the brain were enriched with oxidative phosphorylation and various metabolic pathways, suggesting that the metabolic capacity of the brain is impaired. Overall, our results suggest that PCB exposure during sensitive periods of early development alters normal development of the brain by reprogramming gene expression patterns, which may result in alterations in adult behavior

A number theoretic characterization of EE-smooth and (FRS) morphisms: estimates on the number of Z/pkZ\mathbb{Z}/p^{k}\mathbb{Z}-points

We provide uniform estimates on the number of $\mathbb{Z}/p^{k}\mathbb{Z}$-points lying on fibers of flat morphisms between smooth varieties whose fibers have rational singularities, termed (FRS) morphisms. For each individual fiber, the estimates were known by work of Avni and Aizenbud, but we render them uniform over all fibers. The proof technique for individual fibers is based on Hironaka's resolution of singularities and Denef's formula, but breaks down in the uniform case. Instead, we use recent results from the theory of motivic integration. Our estimates are moreover equivalent to the (FRS) property, just like in the absolute case by Avni and Aizenbud. In addition, we define new classes of morphisms, called $E$-smooth morphisms ($E\in\mathbb{N}$), which refine the (FRS) property, and use the methods we developed to provide uniform number-theoretic estimates as above for their fibers. Similar estimates are given for fibers of $\varepsilon$-jet flat morphisms, improving previous results by the last two authors.Comment: 27 pages, comments welcome; v2: the new notion of E-smooth morphisms was added, and uniform estimates on the number of points lying on the fibers of $E$-smooth and $\varepsilon$-jet flat morphisms are given (Theorems 4.11 and 4.12

Sperm competition in mated first generation hermaphrodite females of the HP 88 strain of Heterorhabditis (Nematoda : Heterorhabditidae) and progeny sex ratios in mated and unmated females

Nous avons utilisé un mutant "obèse" pour étudier le processus de la fécondation chez #Heterorhabditis. Nous avons observé que, chez les femelles hermaphrodites de première génération inséminées, les spermatozoïdes provenant du mâle possèdent un avantage dans leur compétition avec les spermatozoïdes provenant de la femelle hermaphrodite elle-même. Les observations en microscopie optique ont montré qu'il n'y a pas de spermathèque chez les femelles hermaphrodites de première génération et que les spermatozoïdes introduits sont stockés dans la partie proximale de l'ovotestis où ils se mélangent avec les spermatozoïdes d'origine hermaphrodite. Les spermatozoïdes introduits ont des pseudopodes bien développés et paraissent plus actifs que les spermatozoïdes d'origine hermaphrodite. Les femelles amphimictiques de deuxième génération possèdent une spermathèque où sont stockés les spermatozoïdes introduits, et non dans la partie proximale de l'ovaire ou de l'utérus. La proportion des sexes dans la descendance croisée de femelles tant hermaphrodites qu'amphimictiques varie de 2,2 à 6,6 mâles pour mille descendants, chiffres très différents du rapport 1/1 qui aurait pu être attendu dans la descendance croisée de mâles hétérogamiques. Des mâles, en proportion 20 à 30 fois supérieure, ont été observés dans la descendance d'hermaphrodites autofécondés. Ainsi, l'origine des spermatozoïdes, suivant qu'ils proviennent de mâles ou d'individus hermaphrodites, influencent nettement la proportion des sexes de la descendance chez la souche HP 88 d'#Heterorhabditis. (Résumé d'auteur