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Delta opioid peptide [D-ala2,D-leU5]enkephalin (DADLE) induces hibernation in summer ground squirrels, and enhances preservation and survival of isolated or transplanted lungs and hearts. In the present study,...
Synaptic plasticity associated with an important wave of gene transcription and protein synthesis underlies long-term memory processes. Calcium (Ca2+) plays an important role in a variety of neuronal functions an...
Aggressive behavior in animals is important for survival and reproduction. Identifying the underlying genes and environmental contexts that affect aggressive behavior is important for understanding the evoluti...
Marine molluscs, as is the case with most aquatic animals, rely heavily on olfactory cues for survival. In the mollusc Aplysia californica, mate-attraction is mediated by a blend of water-borne protein pheromones...
The beating or fanning movements of three pairs of maxilliped flagella in crabs and crayfish modify exhalent gill currents while drawing water over chemoreceptors on the head. They play an integral part both i...
Prions are self-perpetuating, infectious, aggregated proteins that are associated with several neurodegenerative diseases in mammals and heritable traits in yeast. Sup35p, the protein determinant of the yeast ...
Neuronal migration is a crucial process that allows neurons to reach their correct target location to allow the nervous system to function properly. AP-2α is a transcription factor essential for neural crest c...
We previously showed that mice lacking the high mobility group A1 gene (Hmga1-knockout mice) developed a type 2-like diabetic phenotype, in which cell-surface insulin receptors were dramatically reduced (below 10...
Nonsense-mediated decay is a mechanism that degrades mRNAs with a premature termination codon. That some exons have premature termination codons at fixation is paradoxical: why make a transcript if it is only ...
Antimicrobial peptides are found in all kingdoms of life. During the evolution of multicellular organisms, antimicrobial peptides were established as key elements of innate immunity. Most antimicrobial peptide...
Gene gain and subsequent retention or loss during evolution may be one of the underlying mechanisms involved in generating the diversity of metazoan nervous systems. However, the causal relationships acting th...
The expansion of genome sequencing projects has produced accumulating evidence for lateral transfer of genes between prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes. However, it remains controversial whether these genes ar...
In Drosophila, all the 64 clonally derived spermatocytes differentiate in syncytium inside two somatic-origin cyst cells. They elongate to form slender spermatids, which are individualized and then released into ...
Allopolyploid speciation requires rapid evolutionary reconciliation of two diverged genomes and gene regulatory networks. Here we describe global patterns of gene expression accompanying genomic merger and dou...
The parathyroid calcium receptor determines parathyroid hormone secretion and the response of parathyroid hormone gene expression to serum Ca2+ in the parathyroid gland. Serum Ca2+ regulates parathyroid hormone g...
Immunological analyses of wild populations can increase our understanding of how vertebrate immune systems respond to 'natural' levels of exposure to diverse infections. A major recent advance in immunology ha...
The Thecostraca are arguably the most morphologically and biologically variable group within the Crustacea, including both suspension feeders (Cirripedia: Thoracica and Acrothoracica) and parasitic forms (Cirr...
In the fall, Eastern North American monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) undergo a magnificent long-range migration. In contrast to spring and summer butterflies, fall migrants are juvenile hormone deficient, w...
Ectomycorrhizae (ECM) are symbioses formed by polyphyletic assemblages of fungi (mostly Agaricomycetes) and plants (mostly Pinaceae and angiosperms in the rosid clade). Efforts to reconstruct the evolution of ...
Aphids possess bacteriocytes, which are cells specifically differentiated to harbour the obligate mutualist Buchnera aphidicola (γ-Proteobacteria). Buchnera has lost many of the genes that appear to be essential ...
Gut microbiota contribute to the health of their hosts, and alterations in the composition of this microbiota can lead to disease. Previously, we demonstrated that indigenous gut bacteria were required for the...
Sexual reproduction entails the encounter of the sexes and the multiplicity of rituals is parallel to the diversity of mating systems. Evolutionary mechanisms such as sexual selection and sexual conflict have ...
Microfossils are not only useful for elucidating biological macro- and microevolution but also the biogeochemical history of our planet. Pyritization is the most important and extensive mode of preservation of...
Current cell-based drug screening technologies utilize randomly integrated reporter genes to index transcriptional activity of an endogenous gene of interest. In this context, reporter expression is controlled...
In mammals, the members of the tripartite motif (TRIM) protein family are involved in various cellular processes including innate immunity against viral infection. Viruses exert strong selective pressures on t...
Rickettsia are intracellular symbionts of eukaryotes that are best known for infecting and causing serious diseases in humans and other mammals. All known vertebrate-associated Rickettsia are vectored by arthrop...
Protein bodies (PBs) are natural endoplasmic reticulum (ER) or vacuole plant-derived organelles that stably accumulate large amounts of storage proteins in seeds. The proline-rich N-terminal domain derived fro...
The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an environment-friendly method used in area-wide pest management of the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann; Diptera: Tephritidae). Ionizing radiation used ...
Methods for assigning strains to bacterial species are cumbersome and no longer fit for purpose. The concatenated sequences of multiple house-keeping genes have been shown to be able to define and circumscribe...
Host-symbiont co-speciation and reductive genome evolution have been commonly observed among obligate endocellular insect symbionts, while such examples have rarely been identified among extracellular ones, th...
Microarray analysis and 454 cDNA sequencing were used to investigate a centuries-old problem in regenerative biology: the basis of nerve-dependent limb regeneration in salamanders. Innervated (NR) and denervat...
Past studies in the legume family (Fabaceae) have uncovered several evolutionary trends including differential mutation and diversification rates across varying taxonomic levels. The legume tribe Psoraleeae is...
Tropical rain forests are the most diverse terrestrial ecosystems on the planet. How this diversity evolved remains largely unexplained. In Africa, rain forests are situated in two geographically isolated regi...
Avoidance of noxious stimuli is essential for the survival of an animal in its natural habitat. Some avoidance responses require polymodal sensory neurons, which sense a range of diverse stimuli, whereas other...
In red blood cells, protein 4.1 (4.1R) is an 80 kDa protein that stabilizes the spectrin-actin network and anchors it to the plasma membrane through its FERM domain. While the expression pattern of 4.1R in mat...
Immune response pathways have been relatively well-conserved across animal species, with similar systems in both mammals and invertebrates. Interestingly, honey bees have substantially reduced numbers of genes...
In recent years, the maturation of microarray technology has allowed the genome-wide analysis of gene expression patterns to identify tissue-specific and ubiquitously expressed ('housekeeping') genes. We have ...
The mammary gland undergoes a sophisticated programme of developmental changes during pregnancy/lactation. However, little is known about processes involving initiation of apoptosis at involution following wea...
Given the costs of signalling, why do males often advertise their fighting ability to rivals using several signals rather than just one? Multiple signalling theories have developed largely in studies of sexual...
Theory predicts that lower dispersal, and associated gene flow, leads to decreased genetic diversity in small isolated populations, which generates adverse consequences for fitness, and subsequently for demogr...
The phylogeography of the Y chromosome in Asia previously suggested that modern humans of African origin initially settled in mainland southern East Asia, and about 25,000–30,000 years ago, migrated northward,...
Fossorial mammals face natural selection pressures that differ from those acting on surface dwelling animals, and these may lead to reduced visual system development. We have studied eye development in a speci...
Persistent infections with mutualistic intracellular bacteria (endosymbionts) are well represented in insects and are considered to be a driving force in evolution. However, while pathogenic relationships have...
Chemoreceptor proteins mediate the first step in the transduction of environmental chemical stimuli, defining the breadth of detection and conferring stimulus specificity. Animal genomes contain families of ge...
Many insects jump by storing and releasing energy in elastic structures within their bodies. This allows them to release large amounts of energy in a very short time to jump at very high speeds. The fastest of...
Transgenic animals are widely used in biomedical research and biotechnology. Multicistronic constructs, in which several proteins are encoded by a single messenger RNA, are commonly used in genetically enginee...
The transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, otherwise known as prion diseases, occur following the conversion of the cellular prion protein (PrPC) to an alternatively folded, disease-associated isoform (PrPSc)...
In pathogens, certain genes encoding proteins that directly interact with host defences coevolve with their host and are subject to positive selection. In the lepidopteran host-wasp parasitoid system, one of t...
Erythropoietin (EPO) improves cognition of human subjects in the clinical setting by as yet unknown mechanisms. We developed a mouse model of robust cognitive improvement by EPO to obtain the first clues of ho...
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