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The inheritance of female preference functions in a mate recognition system.

Mate recognition systems (MRSs) play a major role in sexual selection and speciation, yet few studies have analysed both male and female components in detail. Here, female preference functions have been characterized for the tettigoniid bushcricket Ephippiger ephippiger, and the inheritance of male song and female preference functions followed in crosses between subspecies. Songs are disproportionately determined by sex-linked genes. However, there is no evidence for a role of maternally derived sex-linked genes in female preference or of maternal effects. At the genetic level, there is a mismatch between peak preferences and male song, consistent with an evolutionary history of persistent directional preferences. Such a pattern of inheritance could contribute to the process of speciation via the evolution of new MRSs.

Animals↗

Evidence of sex-linked effects on the inheritance of human longevity: a population-based study in the Valserine valley (French Jura), 18-20th centuries.

A long-standing puzzle in gerontology is the sex dependence of human longevity and its inheritance. We have analysed the sex-linked pattern of inheritance of longevity from 643 nuclear families on the historical population register of a French valley. We have focused on mean conditional life expectancy at a minimum age of 50 years, thus, in the present study, longevity refers to late or post-reproductive survival. A comparison of parents' and offspring's longevity has shown the existence of a heritable component of late survival in this population. We have found that the heritable component was substantially larger for daughters compared to sons. Moreover, this result appeared to be specific to late survival, that is, when only post-reproductive mortality for parental and offspring generations is taken into account. The stronger resemblance of parents to their daughters was no longer observed when considering younger ages at death for the offspring. This observation explains the hitherto unaccountable diversity of data in previous studies.

Female↗

The evolution of signal form: effects of learned versus inherited recognition.

Organisms can learn by individual experience to recognize relevant stimuli in the environment or they can genetically inherit this ability from their parents. Here, we ask how these two modes of acquisition affect signal evolution, focusing in particular on the exaggeration and cost of signals. We argue first, that faster learning by individual receivers cannot be a driving force for the evolution of exaggerated and costly signals unless signal senders are related or the same receiver and sender meet repeatedly. We argue instead that biases in receivers' recognition mechanisms can promote the evolution of costly exaggeration in signals. We provide support for this hypothesis by simulating coevolution between senders and receivers, using artificial neural networks as a model of receivers' recognition mechanisms. We analyse the joint effects of receiver biases, signal cost and mode of acquisition, investigating the circumstances under which learned recognition gives rise to more exaggerated signals than inherited recognition. We conclude the paper by discussing the relevance of our results to a number of biological scenarios.

Animals↗

Silencers are required for inheritance of the repressed state in yeast.

Transcriptional silencers in the yeast Saccharomyces induce position-specific, sequence-independent repression by promoting formation of a heterochromatin-like structure across sequences adjacent to them. We have examined the role of silencers in maintenance and inheritance of repression at the silent mating-type cassettes in yeast by monitoring the expression state of one of these cassettes following in vivo deletion of the adjacent silencer. Our experiments indicate that although silencer sequences are dispensable for the maintenance of repression in the absence of cell-cycle progression, silencers are required for the stable inheritance of a repressed state. That is, silenced loci from which the silencer is deleted most often become derepressed within one generation of losing the silencer. Thus, the heritability of a repressed state is not intrinsic to a silenced locus or to the chromatin encompassing it; rather, heritability of repression appears to be a property of the silencer itself.

DNA Nucleotidyltransferases↗

Inheritance of Polycomb-dependent chromosomal interactions in Drosophila.

Maintenance of cell identity is a complex task that involves multiple layers of regulation, acting at all levels of chromatin packaging, from nucleosomes to folding of chromosomal domains in the cell nucleus. Polycomb-group (PcG) and trithorax-group (trxG) proteins maintain memory of chromatin states through binding at cis-regulatory elements named PcG response elements or cellular memory modules. Fab-7 is a well-defined cellular memory module involved in regulation of the homeotic gene Abdominal-B (Abd-B). In addition to its action in cis, we show here by three-dimensional FISH that the Fab-7 element leads to association of transgenes with each other or with the endogenous Fab-7, even when inserted in different chromosomes. These long-distance interactions enhance PcG-mediated silencing. They depend on PcG proteins, on DNA sequence homology, and on developmental progression. Once long-distance pairing is abolished by removal of the endogenous Fab-7, the derepressed chromatin state induced at the transgene locus can be transmitted through meiosis into a large fraction of the progeny, even after reintroduction of the endogenous Fab-7. Strikingly, meiotic inheritance of the derepressed state involves loss of pairing between endogenous and transgenic Fab-7. This suggests that transmission of nuclear architecture through cell division might contribute to inheritance of chromatin states in eukaryotes.

Animals↗

Chloroplast DNA methylation and inheritance in Chlamydomonas.

When Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells mate, a zygotic maturation program is activated, part of which leads to destruction of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) from the mating type minus (mt-) parent, and, therefore, to uniparental inheritance of mating type plus (mt+) cpDNA. A long-standing model that explains the selective destruction of mt(-) cpDNA in zygotes invokes a methylation-restriction system. We tested this model by using the potent methylation inhibitor 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (5adc) to hypomethylate parental cpDNA and found that the pattern of cpDNA inheritance is altered by 5adc in a manner that is consistent with the model. Surprisingly, however, hypomethylated mt+ cpDNA is not destroyed in zygotes as the methylation-restriction model predicts it should be. Destruction of mt- cpDNA is also unaffected when the parental mt+ cpDNA is hypomethylated. Instead, loss of methylation affects the relative rates of replication of residual mt- cpDNA and mt+ cpDNA in germinating zygotes. The mode of action for 5adc on cpDNA replication in germinating zygotes may be via hypomethylation of mt+ cpDNA, but is also consistent with its action as a DNA-damaging agent. Interestingly, 5adc causes reduced cpDNA replication only in germinating zygotes, not in vegetatively grown cells, indicating that cpDNA replication is qualitatively different in these two stages of the life cycle. Our results demonstrate that methylation is not necessary for protection of the mt+ cpDNA in early zygotes and uncover a novel stage of the Chlamydomonas life cycle when replication of cpDNA is highly susceptible to perturbation. Our data support a model in which differential cpDNA replication in germinating zygotes is used as a mechanism to selectively amplify intact and properly methylated cpDNA molecules.

Animals↗

The mechanism of fission yeast mating-type interconversion: evidence for two types of epigenetically inherited chromosomal imprinted events.

Mating types of the fission yeast S. pombe interchange such that only one cell among four granddaughters of a cell ever switches, and the sister of the newly switched cell switches efficiently in consecutive cell divisions, thereby producing chains of recurrent switching. The developmental program is known to be mediated through specific parental chromosomal DNA-strand inheritance at the mating-type locus (mat1). A heritable DNA strand- and sequence-specific imprinting event was previously postulated to be required to cleave the chromosome at mat1 to initiate recombination required for switching. The pedigree analysis presented here demonstrates that swi1, swi3, and swi7 genes are required for the DNA cleavage step directly, and not for the imprinting function, since mutations in these genes reduce the efficiency of initial (i.e., switching of one in four granddaughters) and recurrent switching equally. However, when the mat1 gene sequence is placed adjacent to the indigenous mat1 locus, apparently it is imprinted inefficiently, since recurrent switches of the inserted locus occur nearly five times more often than the initial switches. This "runaway switching" is the first evidence formally demonstrating both the existence of and the requirement for an imprinted mat1 DNA, making it cleavable and consequently swichable. Second, the double-stranded break constitutes another imprinted event as it is evidenced to be inherited from the parental cell.

Chromosomes, Fungal↗

Inheritable genetic algorithm for biobjective 0/1 combinatorial optimization problems and its applications.

In this paper, we formulate a special type of multiobjective optimization problems, named biobjective 0/1 combinatorial optimization problem BOCOP, and propose an inheritable genetic algorithm IGA with orthogonal array crossover (OAX) to efficiently find a complete set of nondominated solutions to BOCOP. BOCOP with n binary variables has two incommensurable and often competing objectives: minimizing the sum r of values of all binary variables and optimizing the system performance. BOCOP is NP-hard having a finite number C(n, r) of feasible solutions for a limited number r. The merits of IGA are threefold as follows: 1) OAX with the systematic reasoning ability based on orthogonal experimental design can efficiently explore the search space of C(n, r); 2) IGA can efficiently search the space of C(n, r+/-1) by inheriting a good solution in the space of C(n, r); and 3) The single-objective IGA can economically obtain a complete set of high-quality nondominated solutions in a single run. Two applications of BOCOP are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm: polygonal approximation problem (PAP) and the problem of editing a minimum reference set for nearest neighbor classification (MRSP). It is shown empirically that IGA is efficient in finding complete sets of nondominated solutions to PAP and MRSP, compared with some existing methods.

Journal Article↗

Of genes and antigens: the inheritance of psoriasis.

Psoriasis is one of a number of autoimmune diseases that display significant HLA associations. In particular, individuals with onset of disease prior to 40 years of age display striking associations with HLA-Cw6 and are much more likely to have a positive family for psoriasis. However, only about 10% of Cw6-positive individuals develop disease, suggesting that other genetic and/or environmental factors must be involved. Several compelling lines of epidemiologic evidence indicate that psoriasis susceptibility is inherited, albeit not in a simple monogenic fashion, and that genetic, rather than environmental, factors are primarily responsible for the variability in inheritance of psoriasis. Taken together, these observations suggest that one or more loci in addition to HLA are necessary for the development of psoriasis. The number of additional loci is likely to be small, because i) the disease is very common ii) substantial excess risk of psoriasis is observed in first degree relatives, and iii) nevoid variants of psoriasis have been reported, suggestive of somatic mutation of a single gene during development. The substantial homogeneity of the psoriatic phenotype and the clear evidence for increased HLA association and heritability in juvenile onset disease indicate that despite its complexity, psoriasis is a common disease whose etiology is amendable to elucidation through the techniques of modern molecular genetics.

Age of Onset↗

Inherited iron overload.

Several inherited forms of iron overload have been described. It is now accepted that HC, usually regarded as a disease of adult life, is an inherited disorder, hence all first degree relatives must be presumed to be at increased risk of developing iron overload and the diagnosis is now frequently made in young relatives. The combination of serum iron, transferrin saturation and serum ferritin determination will detect iron overload in an early, precirrhotic stage. Liver biopsy and the determination of hepatic iron concentration provide the definitive proof. Where HC is recognized sufficiently early to permit adequate removal of iron before cirrhosis has developed, the prognosis is excellent. Thus haemochromatosis as a clinical disease should be preventable in a large proportion of patients. Severe iron overload has been described in juveniles and also in neonates. These conditions are familial but whether they are HLA-related has not been determined. Cardiac and endocrine disorders are frequently the presenting manifestations of parenchymal iron overload in the young and, at least in neonates, the condition is usually fatal in early infancy. It is not possible at present, to say whether these rare juvenile and neonatal forms of haemochromatosis are related to the much more common adult form. Identification of the gene for HC may assist in answering this question.

Adolescent↗

Prenatal diagnosis for severe inherited skin disorders: 25 years' experience.

BACKGROUND: Over the last 25 years there have been major advances in methods for prenatal testing of inherited skin disorders. Since 1979, our group at the St John's Institute of Dermatology has performed 269 prenatal diagnoses, using a variety of approaches, including fetal skin biopsy (FSB), chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to review the clinical indications, testing procedures and laboratory analyses for all prenatal tests conducted at St John's over this period. METHODS: FSBs were examined for morphological and, when relevant or feasible, immunohistochemical abnormalities. The DNA-based tests involved screening by nucleotide sequencing, restriction enzyme digests or, in a few cases, by linkage analysis. Results Of the 269 tests, 191 were FSB, 76 were CVS and two were PGD. The major indications for FSB were epidermolysis bullosa (EB) (138 cases, including 88 junctional and 48 dystrophic), ichthyoses (37 cases, including 22 tests for harlequin ichthyosis) and oculocutaneous albinism (12 cases). Of the CVS procedures, 75 were for EB (40 junctional, 35 dystrophic) and one was for the EEC (ectrodactyly, ectodermal dysplasia, clefting) syndrome. Both of the PGD procedures were for the skin fragility-ectodermal dysplasia syndrome. All tests provided accurate diagnoses and the fetal loss rate was approximately 1% for both FSB and CVS. CONCLUSIONS: The development of prenatal testing has proved to be of great benefit for individuals or couples at risk of having children with severe inherited skin disorders and, in the absence of a cure, prenatal testing along with appropriate counselling has become an important translational benefit of basic research and an integral part of clinical management.

Biopsy↗

Type IIB von Willebrand's disease with probable autosomal recessive inheritance and presenting as thrombocytopenia in infancy.

von Willebrand's disease (vWD) is a congenital bleeding disorder that exists in two main forms. In the classic form, type I, the concentration of the von Willebrand factor (vWF) in plasma is decreased. In type II vWD, the vWF is structurally altered. Type II can be further divided into at least six subtypes (A, B, C, D, E and F). In type IIB the vWF, in contrast to other variants of vWD, shows an increased affinity for platelets. IIB vWD is generally believed to be inherited in an autosomal dominant manner. We describe two families with three affected children in whom an autosomal recessive inheritance is more likely. Thrombocytopenia, constant or variable, was present from early infancy in all three cases. Type IIB vWD should thus be included in the differential diagnosis of congenital thrombocytopenia.

Antigens↗

Association of inherited dysfibrinogenaemia and protein C deficiency in two unrelated families.

An inherited association of dysfibrinogenaemia and protein C deficiency was found in three members of the same family. The propositus was a 48-year-old man who suffered from severe and rapidly complicated atherosclerosis of the aorta and lower limbs arteries, which perhaps suggests that the association of these two molecular abnormalities may have enhanced the thrombotic process. The abnormal fibrinogen had a reduced ability to bind thrombin which may be thrombogenic. We found the same inherited association of dysfibrinogenaemia and protein C deficiency in a patient with venous thrombosis. The functional abnormality of the fibrinogen, which could have been responsible for thrombosis, was delayed proteolysis by plasmin. Not only fibrinogen, but also fibrin clots were resistant to plasmic degradation. These observations raise two questions: (1) Is the association of a protein C deficiency with a dysfibrinogenaemia fortuitous or the result of a common mechanism? (2) Is there a link between an increased thrombotic tendency and either both of the defects of haemostasis that we have found, or only one of them?

Adult↗

Congenital spherocytosis, B19 parvovirus infection and inherited interstitial deletion of the short arm of chromosome 8.

We report two siblings with congenital spherocytosis, multiple phenotypic abnormalities and an inherited interstitial deletion of the short arm of chromosome 8 (8p). The propositus came to our attention with acute bone marrow hypoplasia secondary to B19 parvovirus infection. The bone marrow trephine biopsy appearances of intranuclear eosinophilic degeneration in the erythroblasts may be pathognomonic of B19 parvovirus induced acute bone marrow aplasia. The presence of B19 parvovirus DNA was demonstrated in erythroblasts by in situ hybridization. Chromosome analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes from both siblings showed an interstitial deletion of the short arm of chromosome 8, del (8) (p11p21). This abnormal chromosome was inherited from their mother, who showed this deletion as well as a small fragment representing the deleted 8p chromosome portion, del (8) (p11p21), +f. Centromeric material from chromosome 8 was detected in this chromosome fragment by in situ hybridization using an alpha satellite probe (pJM 128), but not by C banding. Chromosome analysis of skin fibroblasts from the mother and a third sibling with a similar karyotype showed the deleted fragment in over 80% of cells. Cells in which the fragment was absent exhibited the deleted 8p, suggesting there was no mosaicism. The mother and the third sibling were phenotypically normal without spherocytosis. A fourth sibling and the father were normal. The chromosome abnormality was not observed in five of the mother's siblings, suggesting that it arose de novo in the mother. Our findings strongly support a locus for congenital spherocytosis on the short arm of chromosome 8. The frequency of defects at this locus is unknown.

Adolescent↗

Target proteins in inherited and acquired blistering skin disorders.

Maintenance of an intact epidermis depends on secure adhesion between adjacent keratinocytes, and between basal keratinocytes and the underlying epidermal basement membrane. The major adhesion units that achieve this are the hemidesmosomes and desmosomes, but when these structures are disrupted, e.g., by gene mutations or autoantibodies, the resilience of the epidermis is lost and blisters develop. Recently, there have been considerable advances in our knowledge of the proteins and glycoproteins that contribute to maintaining keratinocyte adhesion via hemidesmosomes and desmosomes, as well as new insights into the molecular pathogenesis of several inherited and autoimmune blistering skin diseases. These new basic scientific data are clinically relevant, helping to improve patient management and to provide a rationale for developing better and more specific treatments for patients with inherited or acquired blistering skin diseases. In addition, there have also been improvements in our understanding of the organization and assembly of these adhesion structures, and their involvement in signalling pathways, intricately linked to skin development, wound healing and tumour invasion. This review provides an update on the structure and organization of hemidesmosomes and desmosomes, and on the molecular pathology of their various components that result in bullous skin diseases.

Autoimmune Diseases↗

Variant CD45R expression with autosomal dominant inheritance affects both helper/inducer (CD4+) and suppressor/cytotoxic (CD8+) T cell populations.

The differential expression of various membrane CD45R isoforms by normal lymphocyte populations is known to be closely associated with distinct immunoregulatory functions. Abnormal patterns of CD45R expression have been reported in patients with common variable immunodeficiency and HIV infection, and recent evidence has suggested the possibility that one type of variant CD45R expression may be inheritable. By multiple colour flow cytometry, we studied the immunological characteristics of CD4+ helper/inducer and CD8+ suppressor/cytotoxic T cells in a family with variant CD45R expression over three generations. This variant pattern of CD45R expression was shown to affect both CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocyte populations in individual family members and was immunologically characterized by a failure of the normal reciprocal expression of the CD45RA and CD45RO isoforms. Family studies also revealed that this trait had an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance and, in the heterozygous state, appeared not to be associated with major clinical abnormalities. The different isoforms of CD45 show distinct patterns of expression during lymphocyte ontogeny and activation, and these patterns appear to closely reflect function. Despite their diverse immunological roles, our finding that both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in affected family members showed the same defect suggests a common regulatory mechanism(s) for both these lymphocyte populations. The recognition of this abnormality, particularly in homozygous individuals, will be of great importance in understanding the role of these molecules in immune function and disease.

Adolescent↗

Autosomal inheritance of sideroblastic anaemia.

Inherited sideroblastic anaemia is usually transmitted as an X-linked disorder (Losowsky & Hall 1965). We report a patient in whom family studies indicated autosomal inheritance, with direct transmission from father to son. The severe nature of the sideroblastic abnormality in the proband may be due to interaction between the sideroblastic trait and a single allele for idiopathic haemochromatosis.

Adult↗

Elevated thyroxine-binding globulin with X-chromosome linked inheritance.

A new kindred with elevated levels of serum thyroxine-binding globulin (TBG) as an inherited trait has been reported. Of the twenty-four family members tested, three males and nine females had elevated serum TBG. The pedigree was consistent with an X-chromosome linked mode of inheritance.

Adolescent↗