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The position of the dentition in the mandible and its possible relation to orthodontic abnormalities.

A method used to study human evolution has compared different positions of the lower dentition in relation to the position of the mandibular condyle in the sagittal plane. The method is modified here and, with data from the Burlington Growth Study, used to describe a normal range of positions for the human lower dentition in relation to the condyle from the ages of 4 to 20 years. Measurements of a randomly selected group of orthodontically treated patients showed that in about one half of them the lower dentition was outside the normal range before treatment. The effect of treatment was to move the dentition randomly toward or away from a normal position. It is concluded that the new cephalometric measurement described here could help in the diagnosis and treatment of orthodontic patients.

Adolescent

[Comparison of blood pressure profiles with flunitrazepam/fentanyl/nitrous oxide vs cervical epidural anesthesia in surgery of the carotid artery].

A study was carried out to compare the evolution of arterial blood pressure during carotid endarterectomy performed under either general anaesthesia (GA) or cervical epidural anaesthesia (CEA). 20 patients were randomly assigned to two equal groups. In the CEA group, 15 ml of 0.375% bupivacaine and 150 micrograms fentanyl were injected into the epidural space at C7-D1 level. In the GA group, patients were anaesthetized with 0.2 mg.kg-1 flunitrazepam and 5 micrograms.kg-1 fentanyl; intubation was carried out using 0.08 mg.kg-1 vecuronium, and the patients were ventilated with a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen (50% of each). Further injections, every 30 min, of 2 micrograms.kg-1 fentanyl were given to the patients in group GA. Blood pressure was monitored continuously, up to 4 h postoperatively, with a radial arterial catheter. Per- or postoperative hypertension was defined as a rise in systolic arterial blood pressure (Pasys) over 180 mmHg for greater than 3 min; this was treated with 20 mg nifedipine intranasally (group CEA) or 100 micrograms fentanyl with 0.5 mg flunitrazepam with or without nifedipine (group GA). Per- or postoperative hypotension was defined as a fall in Pasys below 100 mmHg and or a 30% fall in mean arterial blood pressure for greater than 3 min; this was treated, in both groups, with an intravenous bolus of 3 mg ephedrine. Patients in group CEA experienced more frequent episodes of peroperative hypertension (8/2; p less than 0.02) and postoperative hypotension (5/1) than group GA.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aged

Differences in P element population dynamics between the sibling species Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans.

Patterns of P element establishment and evolution were compared in populations of D. melanogaster and D. simulans. For each species, mixed populations were initiated with M strain flies lacking P elements together with P strain flies having similar P element copy numbers and phenotypes. The mixed populations were subsequently maintained under similar environmental conditions. On the basis of gonadal sterility assays, P elements tended to be significantly more active in D. melanogaster than in D. simulans populations. This activity difference between the two species was positively associated with P element copy number, determined by restriction enzyme analysis, and transposition frequency, as determined by a transposition assay. Host factors are the most likely explanation for the observed species variation. Difficulty of establishment may be a factor determining the absence of P elements in natural populations of D. simulans.

Animals

Evolution of the tenascin family--implications for function of the C-terminal fibrinogen-like domain.

The three members of the tenascin (TN) family, TN-C, TN-R, and TN-X, are apparently conserved in all vertebrates and therefore must have functions that contribute to survival. One specific domain of tenascins, the fibrinogen-like terminal knob, can be argued to have an essential function. Its position at the C-terminus makes it most vulnerable to loss through mutation or deletion, and it should have been eliminated in evolution if there were no selective pressure to maintain it. The epidermal growth factor and fibronectin III domains probably play an important role as spacers, placing the terminal knob at the end of the tribrachion or hexabrachion arms. In addition to functioning as spacers, at least some of these domains may have additional functional interactions. The conservation of these domains in evolution is comparable to that of some growth factors, consistent with this possibility. A phylogenetic tree of all known fibrinogen-related domains, including those in tenascins, is presented.

Animals

Parallel evolutionary trajectories rewire enteropathogenic Escherichia coli adhesion to restore host attachment.

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) causes disease in children, presenting as chronic diarrhea that can impair physical and cognitive development. The attachment of typical EPEC (tEPEC) to the gut epithelium via bundle-forming pili (BFP) is a key factor in its virulence. Yet, infections by atypical EPEC (aEPEC), which lack BFP, have become increasingly common. To investigate how aEPEC recover host-attachment in the absence of BFP, we performed experimental evolution using a non-adherent E. coli, constructed to mimic the ancestor of aEPEC, and selected adherent progeny. Highly adherent variants evolved through phase-variable activation of type I fimbriae (T1F), followed by two alternative trajectories: bacterial filamentation, which increases T1F avidity, or point mutations in the T1F adhesin FimH that enhance ligand affinity. Extending our analysis to the genomes of 327 aEPEC strains isolated from infected patients revealed that similar FimH mutations are common. We further demonstrated experimentally that these naturally occurring variants often increase epithelial-attachment. Our findings implicate T1F in aEPEC pathogenesis and suggest it may be clinically relevant for anti-adhesion therapy. More broadly, these results indicate that impaired host-attachment can be rapidly compensated by upregulating and optimizing an alternative adhesin, and that combining experimental evolution with comparative genomics can reveal evolutionary trajectories occurring in nature.

Bacterial Adhesion

Annotated genome assemblies of two temperate North American dung beetles, Canthon chalcites and Phanaeus vindex.

Dung beetles serve as cultivators of their natural habitats, improving soil health and functions in both natural and anthropogenic environments. Despite their ecological importance, whole genome sequences for Scarabaeinae are limited. Here, we present the draft annotated genome assemblies for 2 temperate species of North American dung beetles collected from eastern Tennessee: Canthon chalcites and Phanaeus vindex. Both genome assemblies were generated from PacBio long reads and have high completeness, with BUSCO scores of 98.1% and 98.6% for C. chalcites and P. vindex, respectively. For C. chalcites, the BRAKER3 pipeline predicted 12,799 genes, and the gene set was 93.7% complete. For P. vindex, the BRAKER3 predicted 12,252 genes, and the gene set was 94.9% complete. From the annotated gene sets, orthologous protein sequence analyses among C. chalcites, P. vindex, the dung beetle species Onthophagus taurus, and the more evolutionarily distant beetle Tribolium castaneum indicated that there are 260 unique protein clusters for C. chalcites and 210 unique protein clusters for P. vindex. These 2 draft genomes provide valuable data for comparative genomics, evolution, and phylogenic studies for dung beetle species.

Animals

Reference genomes of Japanese raccoon dog (Nyctereutes viverrinus) and a Japanese red fox (Vulpes vulpes japonica).

We established primary fibroblast cultures from a Japanese raccoon dog (Nyctereutes viverrinus) and a Japanese red fox (Vulpes vulpes japonica) and generated highly contiguous reference genome assemblies using Oxford Nanopore Technologies PromethION long-read sequencing. The Japanese raccoon dog assembly spanned 2.69 Gb in 813 scaffolds, with a scaffold N50 of 52 Mb and a Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) completeness score of 98.2%. The Japanese red fox assembly spanned 2.47 Gb in 903 scaffolds, with a scaffold N50 of 139 Mb and a BUSCO completeness score of 97.5%. Phylogenomic analysis placed the Japanese raccoon dog in a lineage distinct from the continental raccoon dog, supporting its evolutionary differentiation within Nyctereutes. The Japanese red fox formed a distinct lineage within the red fox clade, consistent with its recognized regional differentiation. These genome assemblies and associated fibroblast cultures provide resources for studies of canid systematics, population history, local adaptation, comparative genome evolution, and conservation genetics.

Canidae

Primary structure of yeast mitochondrial DNA-coded phenylalanine-tRNA.

Mitochondrial tRNAPhe from Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis was sequenced by fingerprinting uniformly labeled 32 P-tRNA as well as by 5'-end postlabeling techniques. Its sequence was found to be: pG-C-U-U-U-U-A-U-A-G-C-U-U-A-G-D-G-G-D-A-A-A-G-C-m22G-A-U-A-A-A-phi-U-G-A-A-m1G-A-phi-U-U-A-U-U-U-A-C-A-U-G-U-A-G-U-phi-C-G-A-U-U-C-U-C-A-U-U-A-A-G-G-G-C-A-C-C-A. The secondary structure we propose, in order to maximize base pairing in the phiC stem and to allow tertiary interaction between G15 and C46, excludes U50 from base pairing giving a bulge in the phiC stem. No conclusion can be drawn concerning the endosymbiotic theory of mitochondria evolution by comparing the primary structure of mt. tRNAPhe with other sequenced tRNAsPhe. This mt.tRNAPhe lacks some of the structural elements reported to be involved in the yeast cytoplasmic phenylalanyl-tRNA ligase recognition site and cannot be aminoacylated by purified yeast cytoplasmic phenylalanyl-tRNA ligase.

Base Sequence

Comparison of mandelate dehydrogenases from various strains of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus: similarity of natural and 'evolved' forms.

In previous work it had been shown that Acinetobacter calcoaceticus wild-type strain NCIB 8250 had only an L-mandelate deydrogenase but it could give rise to mutants that contained an evolved D-mandelate dehydrogenase; conversely, wild-type strain EBF 65/65 had only a D-mandelate dehydrogenase but gave rise to mutants that possessed an evolved L-mandelate dehydrogenase. Several other wild-type strains of A. calcoaceticus have now been shown to grow on both enantiomers of mandelate. In every case the L-mandelate dehydrogenases were found to be much more heat-stable and insensitive to inhibition by p-chloromercuribenzoate than were the D-mandelate dehydrogenases when measured in bacterial extracts. All the D-mandelate dehydrogenases in the wild-type strains were inactivated to about the same extent by an antiserum that had been raised in a rabbit against an evolved D-mandelate dehydrogenase. An evolved D-mandelate deydrogenase (from a mutant strain derived from strain NCIB 8250) and an original D-mandelate dehydrogenase (from a mutant strain derived from strain EBF 65/65) were purified to homogeneity by the same procedure and were indistinguishable as judged by immunological cross-reactivity of the native and the sodium-dodecyl-sulphate-denatured enzymes, solubility in cholate, net charge at pH 7.5, pI value, salting-out properties, Mr value, apparent K(m) value for D-mandelate, heat-stability and sensitivity to p-chloromercuribenzoate. The most likely explanation for the appearance of evolved mandelate dehydrogenases in strains of A. calcoaceticus is that cryptic genes become expressed.

Acinetobacter

Presymptomatic primary biliary cirrhosis.

Clinical, laboratory and follow-up results in 13 patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) collected during the last 10 years in a well defined population of 250,000 inhabitants are presented. The mean observation time was 5.5 years. 77 percent of these patients have been asymptomatic for many years. Characteristic laboratory features in asymptomatic patients are high alkaline phosphatases and glutamyl transpeptidases and very high levels of polyclonal IgM. ESR is often increased. Signs of active cell destruction are slight and functioning cell mass is well preserved. High titers of mitochondrial antibodies are consistently present. Needle biopsy is seldom sufficient for diagnosis but permits staging of the disease. There is no correlation between clinical features and histological evolution stage. Compared with a preceding 10-year period, the incidence of PBC has risen threefold. This increase can be fully explained by the extended use of laboratory facilities, resulting in the detection of asymptomatic patients.

Adult

Structural organization of the proopiomelanocortin gene in Xenopus laevis. 5'-end homologies within the toad and mammalian genes.

This study reports the isolation and characterization of the entire proopiomelanocortin (POMC) gene of the amphibian Xenopus laevis. The Xenopus POMC gene consists of three exons of which the main exon 3 codes for all of the bioactive domains of the precursor protein. Intron A (2.6 kb) separates the segments encoding the 5'-untranslated mRNA region and intron B (2.5 kb) interrupts the protein-coding sequence near the signal peptide coding region. In that this structural organization of the Xenopus POMC gene is similar to those of the mammalian genes, apparently the POMC gene has been remarkably stable during 350 million years of vertebrate evolution. A comparative analysis of the 5'-flanking sequences of the Xenopus and mammalian POMC genes reveals the presence of several conserved regions. One of these regions is homologous with sequences located upstream of the capping sites of other glucocorticoid-regulated genes and another region contains a segment reminiscent of a viral enhancer consensus sequence.

Animals

Two CENH3 paralogs in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii have a redundantly essential function and associate with ZeppL-LINE1 elements.

Centromeres in eukaryotes are defined by the presence of histone H3 variant CENP-A/CENH3. Chlamydomonas encodes two predicted CENH3 paralogs, CENH3.1 and CENH3.2, that have not been previously characterized. We generated peptide antibodies to unique N-terminal epitopes for each of the two predicted Chlamydomonas CENH3 paralogs as well as an antibody against a shared CENH3 epitope. All three CENH3 antibodies recognized proteins of the expected size on immunoblots and had punctate nuclear immunofluorescence staining patterns. These results are consistent with both paralogs being expressed and localized to centromeres. CRISPR-Cas9-mediated insertional mutagenesis was used to generate predicted null mutations in either CENH3.1 or CENH3.2. Single mutants were viable but cenh3.1 cenh3.2 double mutants were not recovered, confirming that the function of CENH3 is essential. We sequenced and assembled two chromosome-scale Chlamydomonas genomes from strains CC-400 and UL-1690 (a derivative of CC-1690) with complete centromere sequences for 17/17 and 14/17 chromosomes respectively, enabling us to compare centromere evolution across four isolates with near complete assemblies. These data revealed significant changes across isolates between homologous centromeres including mobility and degeneration of ZeppL-LINE1 (ZeppL) transposons that comprise the major centromere repeat sequence in Chlamydomonas. We used cleavage under targets and tagmentation (CUT&Tag) to purify and map CENH3-bound genomic sequences and found enrichment of CENH3-binding almost exclusively at predicted centromere regions. An interesting exception was chromosome 2 in UL-1690, which had enrichment at its genetically mapped centromere repeat region as well as a second, distal location, centered around a single recently acquired ZeppL insertion. The CENH3-bound regions of the 17 Chlamydomonas centromeres ranged from 63.5 kb (average lower estimate) to 175 kb (average upper estimate). The relatively small size of its centromeres suggests that Chlamydomonas may be a useful organism for testing and deploying artificial chromosome technologies.

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Experimental myocardial infarction. XIII. Sequential changes in left ventricular pressure-length relationships in the acute phase.

Diastolic pressure-length relationships of an ischemic region of the canine left ventricle were measured over a six-hour period following left anterior descending coronary artery ligation, and their evolution was compared with the extent of systolic aneurysmal bulging. Normalized ischemic segment length excursion, which after coronary artery ligation may be taken as a measure of systolic aneurysmal bulging, increased during the first hour after ligation but thereafter declined toward control values. Concurrently, reciprocal changes were demonstrated in the slope of the end-diastolic pressure-length curves obtained during transient pressure loading of the left ventricle. These data show that the magnitude of acute systolic aneurysmal bulging followed experimental coronary artery ligation is determined not only by loss of contractile function, but also by changes in passive pressure-length relationships of the myocardium. Moreover, the results indicate that development of akinesis in experimental ischemia, heretofore demonstrated only in the chronic phase of infarction, may begin within hours of the onset of myocardial ischemia.

Acute Disease

Spontaneous changes in left ventricular function over the first 24 hours of acute myocardial infarction: implications for evaluating early therapeutic interventions.

The spontaneous changes in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) during the first 24 hours of a first transmural infarction were assessed in 34 patients by serial gated cardiac blood pool imaging. Major therapeutic interventions with a view to limit infarct size were not used. Four determinations of LVEF were performed. Study 1 was performed as soon as possible after admission to the hospital. Studies 2 and 3 were performed 2 and 4 hours, respectively, after study 1. Twenty-four patients (70%) had study 1 within 6 hours after the onset of acute chest pain and 10 had it 6-12 hours after the onset of chest pain. Study 4 was performed 24 hours after the onset of chest pain. Compared with study 1, 19 of 34 patients (56%) had spontaneous changes in LVEF in at least one of the subsequent studies, exceeding the expected variability in stable patients. The changes ranged from a 32% increase to 14% absolute decrease. LVEF improved in 11 patients and deteriorated in eight. These spontaneous changes in left ventricular performance indicate that a single assessment of LVEF during the early hours of transmural myocardial infarction may not properly characterize cardiac performance in an individual patient and may not be the most appropriate reference against which to compare subsequent evolution of left ventricular function. These data may have implications for studies of the effects of early therapeutic interventions on LVEF.

Adult

Aphasia outcome in stroke: a clinical neuroradiological correlation.

Fourteen aphasic patients with acute onset of thromboembolic cerebrovascular insults demonstrable by angiography or radioscintigrams who were available for long-term follow-up have been studied. Their aphasia evolution was compared with acute angiographical and radioisotopic findings, and the lesions shown by follow-up computerized axial tomography (CT). Angiographical site of occlusion, evidence of early reopening of occluded vessels, and radioisotopic flow asymmetries including the "hot-stroke" luxury perfusion failed to correlate with aphasia outcome. Radioisotopic static images were more helpful by depicting lesion location and number but lacked the definition seen on the CT scan. The long-term CT scan by showing the size, location and number of lesions had a good correlation with aphasia outcome. Those patients with large dominant hemisphere involvements, either one large or many smaller lesions, fared poorly while those with lesser lesions did better. Bilateral lesions, at times evasive clinically, helped to account for significant aphasia residuals.

Adult

Uncovering the early and conserved molecular mechanisms of root nitrogen foraging in model and crops.

BACKGROUND: Nitrogen (N) foraging, the ability of plants to promote preferential root growth in N-rich patches of soil, is fundamental to the competitiveness and wellbeing of plants. A unique “split-root” system, where a heterogenous N environment stimulates root foraging, provides a powerful experimental model to study the mechanisms underlying root foraging in model (Arabidopsis) and/or crop plants. RESULTS: We used the split-root set up to capture early molecular events involved in systemic N-signaling after exposure to a heterogeneous N signal, through time-course transcriptomic analysis across shoots and roots of Arabidopsis. We found that a histone methyltransferase, SET DOMAIN GROUP 8 (SDG8), is necessary for root N-foraging, suggesting a previously unknown role for chromatin regulation in mediating the preferential root growth response to colonize N-rich patches. To determine if the underlying molecular mechanism is conserved in evolution, we compared the root foraging behavior from model-to-crop (Arabidopsis, tomato and maize). Our analysis showed the model and crop species shared a root N-foraging growth response, with some variation among specific genotypes. Interestingly, we observed both shared and distinct transcriptional responses to heterogenous N environments among these three species. CONCLUSIONS: Our study has generated insights into the molecular basis of root N-foraging, with the potential to improve nutrient use efficiency in crop plants in a heterogeneous field environment.

Crops, Agricultural

Genomic Identification and Comparative Characterization of Chemosensory Genes in Two Walnut Pests.

Conogethes punctiferalis (generalist) and Atrijuglans aristata (specialist) are important pests of walnut fruits. Chemosensory genes play critical roles in host location and mating, making them promising candidates for pest management research. However, genome-wide identification of these gene families has not yet been performed for either species, and cross-species comparisons are often confounded by differences in annotation quality and methodology. Here, we employed a unified pipeline for genome annotation and gene family identification to systematically characterize the odorant receptor (OR), gustatory receptor (GR), odorant-binding protein (OBP), and chemosensory protein (CSP) genes of both species and further analyzed their physicochemical properties, chromosomal distribution, and phylogeny. Genome annotation identified 13,236 and 14,083 protein-coding genes in C. punctiferalis and A. aristata, respectively, with BUSCO completeness of 94.6% and 94.5%. We identified 121 candidate chemosensory genes in C. punctiferalis (46 ORs, 23 GRs, 32 OBPs, and 20 CSPs) and 137 in A. aristata (65 ORs, 26 GRs, 28 OBPs, and 18 CSPs). Notably, A. aristata possesses more OR genes (65) than C. punctiferalis (46). Both species possess a single conserved ORco, with three and four pheromone receptor (PR) genes in C. punctiferalis and A. aristata, respectively. Chemosensory genes were either dispersed or tandemly arrayed on chromosomes, with each family clustering into conserved functional branches. This study provides a reliable foundation for comparative chemosensory evolution studies and a catalog of candidate genes for future functional validation.

Atrijuglans aristata

Cerebral distress in full-term newborns and its prognostic value. A follow-up study of 90 infants.

The history of 90 full-term infants with neonatal cerebral distress was examined. Informations concerning pregnancy, delivery, neonatal status, clinical and laboratory evolution were compared with final outcome in each case. It was then possible to distinguish certain clinical features significantly associated with poor prognosis. After statistical analysis, different adverse criteria were selected, such as severe neonatal asphyxia, associated respiratory disorders, acute anemia, and especially neurological signs with regard to their chronology. This part of the study has resulted in a classification of the neurological signs and has permitted the description of both malignant and benign cerebral distress syndromes.

Anemia, Neonatal