ALBERT

Description: Freshwater input into Texas estuaries is critical to maintaining habitat, and foraminiferal populations can provide a means for assessing the effects of natural inflow as well as mandated releases. Nueces Bay receives freshwater from the Nueces River, which enters on the southwest shore. From 2002-2007 foraminifera were sampled on a mid-bay, north-south transect at five different stations. The populations were sampled during periods of low inflow (2002), high inflow (2003), and then low/moderate inflow (2007). During low inflow, the Central Power and Lighting Plant (CPL) was in operation at the south shore, pumping heated, more saline coolant water into the bay. Salinities were nearly constant, ranging from 23-27 at the stations, population densities were low, and there was a high incidence of shell dissolution. The high-inflow samples were taken after the CPL closed and the area received abundant precipitation, with salinities in the bay varying from 12 at the south shore to 21 at the north shore. Foraminiferal abundance was 6-98x greater than it was during low inflow, and there was a low percentage of shell dissolution. With lowmoderate inflow, salinities were from 21-30, densities were somewhat higher than those observed during low inflow, and shell dissolution again increased. Statistical analysis of all three discharge periods shows that population density varies with flow regime. At low and low/moderate discharge there are pronounced density differences among the stations, with higher densities near river input. At high discharge, population density is high at each station. This study establishes the receptivity of foraminifera to relatively short-term changes in freshwater inflow, and highlights their value for monitoring the effects of inflow on biota in Texas estuaries. The unique geographic distribution of each species may be a characteristic that imparts species resilience through time.

Description: Copy number variants (CNVs) account for a major proportion of human genetic polymorphism and have been predicted to have an important role in genetic susceptibility to common disease. To address this we undertook a large, direct genome-wide study of association between CNVs and eight common human diseases. Using a purpose-designed array we typed approximately 19,000 individuals into distinct copy-number classes at 3,432 polymorphic CNVs, including an estimated approximately 50% of all common CNVs larger than 500 base pairs. We identified several biological artefacts that lead to false-positive associations, including systematic CNV differences between DNAs derived from blood and cell lines. Association testing and follow-up replication analyses confirmed three loci where CNVs were associated with disease-IRGM for Crohn's disease, HLA for Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes, and TSPAN8 for type 2 diabetes-although in each case the locus had previously been identified in single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based studies, reflecting our observation that most common CNVs that are well-typed on our array are well tagged by SNPs and so have been indirectly explored through SNP studies. We conclude that common CNVs that can be typed on existing platforms are unlikely to contribute greatly to the genetic basis of common human diseases.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892339/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892339/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium -- Craddock, Nick -- Hurles, Matthew E -- Cardin, Niall -- Pearson, Richard D -- Plagnol, Vincent -- Robson, Samuel -- Vukcevic, Damjan -- Barnes, Chris -- Conrad, Donald F -- Giannoulatou, Eleni -- Holmes, Chris -- Marchini, Jonathan L -- Stirrups, Kathy -- Tobin, Martin D -- Wain, Louise V -- Yau, Chris -- Aerts, Jan -- Ahmad, Tariq -- Andrews, T Daniel -- Arbury, Hazel -- Attwood, Anthony -- Auton, Adam -- Ball, Stephen G -- Balmforth, Anthony J -- Barrett, Jeffrey C -- Barroso, Ines -- Barton, Anne -- Bennett, Amanda J -- Bhaskar, Sanjeev -- Blaszczyk, Katarzyna -- Bowes, John -- Brand, Oliver J -- Braund, Peter S -- Bredin, Francesca -- Breen, Gerome -- Brown, Morris J -- Bruce, Ian N -- Bull, Jaswinder -- Burren, Oliver S -- Burton, John -- Byrnes, Jake -- Caesar, Sian -- Clee, Chris M -- Coffey, Alison J -- Connell, John M C -- Cooper, Jason D -- Dominiczak, Anna F -- Downes, Kate -- Drummond, Hazel E -- Dudakia, Darshna -- Dunham, Andrew -- Ebbs, Bernadette -- Eccles, Diana -- Edkins, Sarah -- Edwards, Cathryn -- Elliot, Anna -- Emery, Paul -- Evans, David M -- Evans, Gareth -- Eyre, Steve -- Farmer, Anne -- Ferrier, I Nicol -- Feuk, Lars -- Fitzgerald, Tomas -- Flynn, Edward -- Forbes, Alistair -- Forty, Liz -- Franklyn, Jayne A -- Freathy, Rachel M -- Gibbs, Polly -- Gilbert, Paul -- Gokumen, Omer -- Gordon-Smith, Katherine -- Gray, Emma -- Green, Elaine -- Groves, Chris J -- Grozeva, Detelina -- Gwilliam, Rhian -- Hall, Anita -- Hammond, Naomi -- Hardy, Matt -- Harrison, Pile -- Hassanali, Neelam -- Hebaishi, Husam -- Hines, Sarah -- Hinks, Anne -- Hitman, Graham A -- Hocking, Lynne -- Howard, Eleanor -- Howard, Philip -- Howson, Joanna M M -- Hughes, Debbie -- Hunt, Sarah -- Isaacs, John D -- Jain, Mahim -- Jewell, Derek P -- Johnson, Toby -- Jolley, Jennifer D -- Jones, Ian R -- Jones, Lisa A -- Kirov, George -- Langford, Cordelia F -- Lango-Allen, Hana -- Lathrop, G Mark -- Lee, James -- Lee, Kate L -- Lees, Charlie -- Lewis, Kevin -- Lindgren, Cecilia M -- Maisuria-Armer, Meeta -- Maller, Julian -- Mansfield, John -- Martin, Paul -- Massey, Dunecan C O -- McArdle, Wendy L -- McGuffin, Peter -- McLay, Kirsten E -- Mentzer, Alex -- Mimmack, Michael L -- Morgan, Ann E -- Morris, Andrew P -- Mowat, Craig -- Myers, Simon -- Newman, William -- Nimmo, Elaine R -- O'Donovan, Michael C -- Onipinla, Abiodun -- Onyiah, Ifejinelo -- Ovington, Nigel R -- Owen, Michael J -- Palin, Kimmo -- Parnell, Kirstie -- Pernet, David -- Perry, John R B -- Phillips, Anne -- Pinto, Dalila -- Prescott, Natalie J -- Prokopenko, Inga -- Quail, Michael A -- Rafelt, Suzanne -- Rayner, Nigel W -- Redon, Richard -- Reid, David M -- Renwick -- Ring, Susan M -- Robertson, Neil -- Russell, Ellie -- St Clair, David -- Sambrook, Jennifer G -- Sanderson, Jeremy D -- Schuilenburg, Helen -- Scott, Carol E -- Scott, Richard -- Seal, Sheila -- Shaw-Hawkins, Sue -- Shields, Beverley M -- Simmonds, Matthew J -- Smyth, Debbie J -- Somaskantharajah, Elilan -- Spanova, Katarina -- Steer, Sophia -- Stephens, Jonathan -- Stevens, Helen E -- Stone, Millicent A -- Su, Zhan -- Symmons, Deborah P M -- Thompson, John R -- Thomson, Wendy -- Travers, Mary E -- Turnbull, Clare -- Valsesia, Armand -- Walker, Mark -- Walker, Neil M -- Wallace, Chris -- Warren-Perry, Margaret -- Watkins, Nicholas A -- Webster, John -- Weedon, Michael N -- Wilson, Anthony G -- Woodburn, Matthew -- Wordsworth, B Paul -- Young, Allan H -- Zeggini, Eleftheria -- Carter, Nigel P -- Frayling, Timothy M -- Lee, Charles -- McVean, Gil -- Munroe, Patricia B -- Palotie, Aarno -- Sawcer, Stephen J -- Scherer, Stephen W -- Strachan, David P -- Tyler-Smith, Chris -- Brown, Matthew A -- Burton, Paul R -- Caulfield, Mark J -- Compston, Alastair -- Farrall, Martin -- Gough, Stephen C L -- Hall, Alistair S -- Hattersley, Andrew T -- Hill, Adrian V S -- Mathew, Christopher G -- Pembrey, Marcus -- Satsangi, Jack -- Stratton, Michael R -- Worthington, Jane -- Deloukas, Panos -- Duncanson, Audrey -- Kwiatkowski, Dominic P -- McCarthy, Mark I -- Ouwehand, Willem -- Parkes, Miles -- Rahman, Nazneen -- Todd, John A -- Samani, Nilesh J -- Donnelly, Peter -- 061858/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- 083948/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- 089989/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- 090532/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- 17552/Arthritis Research UK/United Kingdom -- CZB/4/540/Chief Scientist Office/United Kingdom -- ETM/137/Chief Scientist Office/United Kingdom -- ETM/75/Chief Scientist Office/United Kingdom -- G0000934/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0400874/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0500115/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0501942/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0600329/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0600705/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0700491/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0701003/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0701420/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0701810/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0701810(85517)/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0800383/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0800509/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G0800759/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G19/9/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G90/106/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- G9521010/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- MC_UP_A390_1107/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom -- RG/09/012/28096/British Heart Foundation/United Kingdom -- Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- England -- Nature. 2010 Apr 1;464(7289):713-20. doi: 10.1038/nature08979.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20360734" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Effective chromosome organization is central to the functioning of any cell. In bacteria, this organization is achieved through the concerted activity of multiple nucleoid-associated proteins. These proteins are not, however, universally conserved, and different groups of bacteria have distinct subsets that contribute to chromosome architecture. Here, we describe the characterization of a novel actinobacterial-specific protein in Streptomyces coelicolor . We show that sIHF (SCO1480) associates with the nucleoid and makes important contributions to chromosome condensation and chromosome segregation during Streptomyces sporulation. It also affects antibiotic production, suggesting an additional role in gene regulation. In vitro, sIHF binds DNA in a length-dependent but sequence-independent manner, without any obvious structural preferences. It does, however, impact the activity of topoisomerase, significantly altering DNA topology. The sIHF–DNA co-crystal structure reveals sIHF to be composed of two domains: a long N-terminal helix and a C-terminal helix-two turns-helix domain with two separate DNA interaction sites, suggesting a potential role in bridging DNA molecules.

Description: Reconstructions of subtropical southwest Pacific climate variability over the Pleistocene were derived from coupled planktic foraminiferal δ18O-Mg/Ca measurements taken from a southern Coral Sea sediment core. A clear shift from ∼40 kyr to ∼100 kyr modes of reconstructed glacial-interglacial sea surface temperature (SST) variability is seen over the mid-Pleistocene transition, and these fluctuations are shown to have remained coherent with the orbital obliquity cycle across the transition. The likely origin of this strong obliquity signal in subtropical southwest Pacific SST is shown to be the southern high latitudes, and comparison with existing SST reconstructions from the equatorial Pacific is consistent with the communication of the signal occurring principally by greenhouse gas forcing. In contrast to the SST reconstruction, regional hydrological cycle variability (based on the calculated local component of δ18Osw change) does not show significant coherence with obliquity after ∼1000 ka. The decoupling of the SST and hydrological cycle responses over the mid-Pleistocene transition allows constraints to be placed on the evolution and extent of orbitally paced fluctuations within the coupled low-latitude ocean-atmosphere system.

Description: Energy & Fuels DOI: 10.1021/ef302017m