scholarly journals Rapid Evolution of HERC6 and Duplication of a Chimeric HERC5/6 Gene in Rodents and Bats Suggest an Overlooked Role of HERCs in Mammalian Immunity

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphanie Jacquet ◽  
Dominique Pontier ◽  
Lucie Etienne

Studying the evolutionary diversification of mammalian antiviral defenses is of main importance to better understand our innate immune repertoire. The small HERC proteins are part of a multigene family, including HERC5 and HERC6, which have probably diversified through complex evolutionary history in mammals. Here, we performed mammalian-wide phylogenetic and genomic analyses of HERC5 and HERC6, using 83 orthologous sequences from bats, rodents, primates, artiodactyls, and carnivores—the top five representative groups of mammalian evolution. We found that HERC5 has been under weak and differential positive selection in mammals, with only primate HERC5 showing evidences of pathogen-driven selection. In contrast, HERC6 has been under strong and recurrent adaptive evolution in mammals, suggesting past and widespread genetic arms-races with viral pathogens. Importantly, the rapid evolution of mammalian HERC6 spacer domain suggests that it might be a host-pathogen interface, targeting viral proteins and/or being the target of virus antagonists. Finally, we identified a HERC5/6 chimeric gene that arose from independent duplication in rodent and bat lineages and encodes for a conserved HERC5 N-terminal domain and divergent HERC6 spacer and HECT domains. This duplicated chimeric gene highlights adaptations that potentially contribute to rodent and bat immunity. Our findings open new research avenues on the functions of HERC6 and HERC5/6 in mammals, and on their implication in antiviral innate immunity.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphanie Jacquet ◽  
Dominique Pontier ◽  
Lucie Etienne

AbstractThe antiviral innate immunity in mammals has evolved very rapidly in response to pathogen selective pressure. Studying the evolutionary diversification of mammalian antiviral defenses is of main importance to better understand our innate immune repertoire. The small HERC proteins are part of a multigene family including interferon-inducible antiviral effectors. Notably, HERC5 inhibits divergent viruses through the conjugation of ISG15 to diverse proteins-termed as ISGylation. Though HERC6 is the most closely-related protein of HERC5, it lacks the ISGylation function in humans. Interestingly, HERC6 is the main E3-ligase of ISG15 in mice, suggesting adaptive changes in HERC6 with implications in the innate immunity. Therefore, HERC5 and HERC6 have probably diversified through complex evolutionary history in mammals, and such characterization would require an extensive survey of mammalian evolution. Here, we performed mammalian-wide and lineage-specific phylogenetic and genomic analyses of HERC5 and HERC6. We used 83 orthologous sequences from bats, rodents, primates, artiodactyls and carnivores – the top five representative groups of mammalian evolution and the main hosts of viral diversity. We found that mammalian HERC5 has been under weak and differential positive selection in mammals, with only primate HERC5 showing evidences of pathogen-driven selection. In contrast, HERC6 has been under strong and recurrent adaptive evolution in mammals, suggesting past genetic arms-races with viral pathogens. Importantly, we found accelerated evolution in the HERC6 spacer domain, suggesting that it might be a pathogen-mammal interface, targeting a viral protein and/or being the target of virus antagonists. Finally, we identified a HERC5/6 chimeric gene that arose from independent duplication in rodent and bat lineages and encodes for a conserved HERC5 N-terminal domain and divergent HERC6 spacer and HECT domains. This duplicated chimeric gene highlights adaptations that potentially contribute to rodent and bat antiviral innate immunity. Altogether, we found major genetic innovations in mammalian HERC5 and HERC6. Our findings open new research avenues on the functions of HERC6 and HERC5/6 in mammals, and on their implication in antiviral innate immunity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (18) ◽  
pp. 8941-8949 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan W. Bailey ◽  
Sonia Pascoal ◽  
Fernando Montealegre-Z

The mechanisms underlying rapid macroevolution are controversial. One largely untested hypothesis that could inform this debate is that evolutionary reversals might release variation in vestigial traits, which then facilitates subsequent diversification. We evaluated this idea by testing key predictions about vestigial traits arising from sexual trait reversal in wild field crickets. In Hawaiian Teleogryllus oceanicus, the recent genetic loss of sound-producing and -amplifying structures on male wings eliminates their acoustic signals. Silence protects these “flatwing” males from an acoustically orienting parasitoid and appears to have evolved independently more than once. Here, we report that flatwing males show enhanced variation in vestigial resonator morphology under varied genetic backgrounds. Using laser Doppler vibrometry, we found that these vestigial sound-producing wing features resonate at highly variable acoustic frequencies well outside the normal range for this species. These results satisfy two important criteria for a mechanism driving rapid evolutionary diversification: Sexual signal loss was accompanied by a release of vestigial morphological variants, and these could facilitate the rapid evolution of novel signal values. Widespread secondary trait losses have been inferred from fossil and phylogenetic evidence across numerous taxa, and our results suggest that such reversals could play a role in shaping historical patterns of diversification.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Péter Telek ◽  
Béla Illés ◽  
Christian Landschützer ◽  
Fabian Schenk ◽  
Flavien Massi

Nowadays, the Industry 4.0 concept affects every area of the industrial, economic, social and personal sectors. The most significant changings are the automation and the digitalization. This is also true for the material handling processes, where the handling systems use more and more automated machines; planning, operation and optimization of different logistic processes are based on many digital data collected from the material flow process. However, new methods and devices require new solutions which define new research directions. In this paper we describe the state of the art of the material handling researches and draw the role of the UMi-TWINN partner institutes in these fields. As a result of this H2020 EU project, scientific excellence of the University of Miskolc can be increased and new research activities will be started.


2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Bellows ◽  
Giuseppe Gagliardi ◽  
Lorenzo Bacigalupo

Abstract New research has addressed many of the early concerns of Computed Tomographic colonography (CTC) and these studies are now beginning to shape clinical practices. A review of the literature demonstrates that the sensitivity of CTC in screening for large polyps (≥ 1cm) or cancers in the large intestine is as high as that of conventional optical colonoscopy, however, the sensitivity decreases with the diameter of the polyp. Despite this, CTC is well tolerated, more acceptable to patients than optical colonoscopy and therefore may improve colorectal cancer screening compliance. This review not only describes the diagnostic accuracy and sensitivity of CTC, and the evolving role of CTC as a primary colon cancer screening option, but also the recent studies that have demonstrated the additional value of CTC utilization for practicing clinicians.


This book critically assesses the expanding field of global health. It brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to address the medical, social, political, and economic dimensions of the global health enterprise through vivid case studies and bold conceptual work. The book demonstrates the crucial role of ethnography as an empirical lantern in global health, arguing for a more comprehensive, people-centered approach. Topics include the limits of technological quick fixes in disease control, the moral economy of global health science, the unexpected effects of massive treatment rollouts in resource-poor contexts, and how right-to-health activism coalesces with the increased influence of the pharmaceutical industry on health care. The chapters explore the altered landscapes left behind after programs scale up, break down, or move on. We learn that disease is really never just one thing, technology delivery does not equate with care, and biology and technology interact in ways we cannot always predict. The most effective solutions may well be found in people themselves, who consistently exceed the projections of experts and the medical-scientific, political, and humanitarian frameworks in which they are cast. This book sets a new research agenda in global health and social theory and challenges us to rethink the relationships between care, rights, health, and economic futures.


Author(s):  
I-Chieh Michelle Yang

This conceptual paper proposes a new research agenda in travel risk research by understanding the role of affect. Extant scholarship tends to focus on travel risk perception or assessment as a cognitive psychological process. However, despite the phenomenal growth of the tourism industry globally, research related to travel risk perception remains stagnant with no significant breakthrough. Drawing on the existing empirical evidences in risk-related research, this paper asserts that affect plays a potent role in influencing travel risk perception – positive affect leads to more positive travel risk perception, vice versa. In this paper, existing empirical evidences and theories are presented to provide support for this proposition.


Author(s):  
Carrie Figdor

Chapter 10 provides a summary of the argument of the book. It elaborates some of the benefits of Literalism, such as less conceptual confusion and an expanded range of entities for research that might illuminate human cognition. It motivates distinguishing the questions of whether something has a cognitive capacity from whether it is intuitively like us. It provides a conceptual foundation for the social sciences appropriate for the increasing role of modeling in these sciences. It also promotes convergence in terms of the roles of internal and external factors in explaining both human and nonhuman behavior. Finally, it sketches some of the areas of new research that it supports, including group cognition and artificial intelligence.


Author(s):  
Peter Voswinckel ◽  
Nils Hansson

Abstract Purpose This article presents new research on the role of the renowned German physician Ernst von Leyden (1832–1910) in the emergence of oncology as a scientific discipline. Methods The article draws on archival sources from the archive of the German Society of Haematology and primary and secondary literature. Results Leyden initiated two important events in the early history of oncology: the first international cancer conference, which took place in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1906, and the founding of the first international association for cancer research (forerunner of today's UICC) in Berlin in 1908. Unfortunately, these facts are not mentioned in the most recent accounts. Both had a strong impact on the professionalization of oncology as a discipline in its own right. Conclusion Although not of Jewish origin, von Leyden was considered by the National Socialists to be “Jewish tainted”, which had a lasting effect on his perception at home and abroad.


Open Medicine ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1003-1011
Author(s):  
Guanyu Zhang ◽  
Yiran Li ◽  
Jiasheng Xu ◽  
Zhenfang Xiong

AbstractOsteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary malignant tumor of the skeletal system in the clinic. It mainly occurs in adolescent patients and the pathogenesis of the disease is very complicated. The distant metastasis may occur in the early stage, and the prognosis is poor. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs of about 18–25 nt in length that are involved in post-transcriptional regulation of genes. miRNAs can regulate target gene expression by promoting the degradation of target mRNAs or inhibiting the translation process, thereby the proliferation of OS cells can be inhibited and the apoptosis can be promoted; in this way, miRNAs can affect the metabolism of OS cells and can also participate in the occurrence, invasion, metastasis, and recurrence of OS. Some miRNAs have already been found to be closely related to the prognosis of patients with OS. Unlike other reviews, this review summarizes the miRNA molecules closely related to the development, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of OS in recent years. The expression and influence of miRNA molecule on OS were discussed in detail, and the related research progress was summarized to provide a new research direction for early diagnosis and treatment of OS.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002200272110130
Author(s):  
Kristine Eck ◽  
Courtenay R. Conrad ◽  
Charles Crabtree

The police are often key actors in conflict processes, yet there is little research on their role in the production of political violence. Previous research provides us with a limited understanding of the part the police play in preventing or mitigating the onset or escalation of conflict, in patterns of repression and resistance during conflict, and in the durability of peace after conflicts are resolved. By unpacking the role of state security actors and asking how the state assigns tasks among them—as well as the consequences of these decisions—we generate new research paths for scholars of conflict and policing. We review existing research in the field, highlighting recent findings, including those from the articles in this special issue. We conclude by arguing that the fields of policing and conflict research have much to gain from each other and by discussing future directions for policing research in conflict studies.


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