GLORIA

GEOMAR Library Ocean Research Information Access

Your email was sent successfully. Check your inbox.

An error occurred while sending the email. Please try again.

Proceed reservation?

Export
Filter
Material
Language
Years
  • 1
    In: Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Vol. 380, No. 6643 ( 2023-04-28)
    Abstract: A major challenge in genomics is discerning which bases among billions alter organismal phenotypes and affect health and disease risk. Evidence of past selective pressure on a base, whether highly conserved or fast evolving, is a marker of functional importance. Bases that are unchanged in all mammals may shape phenotypes that are essential for organismal health. Bases that are evolving quickly in some species, or changed only in species that share an adaptive trait, may shape phenotypes that support survival in specific niches. Identifying bases associated with exceptional capacity for cellular recovery, such as in species that hibernate, could inform therapeutic discovery. RATIONALE The power and resolution of evolutionary analyses scale with the number and diversity of species compared. By analyzing genomes for hundreds of placental mammals, we can detect which individual bases in the genome are exceptionally conserved (constrained) and likely to be functionally important in both coding and noncoding regions. By including species that represent all orders of placental mammals and aligning genomes using a method that does not require designating humans as the reference species, we explore unusual traits in other species. RESULTS Zoonomia’s mammalian comparative genomics resources are the most comprehensive and statistically well-powered produced to date, with a protein-coding alignment of 427 mammals and a whole-genome alignment of 240 placental mammals representing all orders. We estimate that at least 10.7% of the human genome is evolutionarily conserved relative to neutrally evolving repeats and identify about 101 million significantly constrained single bases (false discovery rate 〈 0.05). We cataloged 4552 ultraconserved elements at least 20 bases long that are identical in more than 98% of the 240 placental mammals. Many constrained bases have no known function, illustrating the potential for discovery using evolutionary measures. Eighty percent are outside protein-coding exons, and half have no functional annotations in the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) resource. Constrained bases tend to vary less within human populations, which is consistent with purifying selection. Species threatened with extinction have few substitutions at constrained sites, possibly because severely deleterious alleles have been purged from their small populations. By pairing Zoonomia’s genomic resources with phenotype annotations, we find genomic elements associated with phenotypes that differ between species, including olfaction, hibernation, brain size, and vocal learning. We associate genomic traits, such as the number of olfactory receptor genes, with physical phenotypes, such as the number of olfactory turbinals. By comparing hibernators and nonhibernators, we implicate genes involved in mitochondrial disorders, protection against heat stress, and longevity in this physiologically intriguing phenotype. Using a machine learning–based approach that predicts tissue-specific cis - regulatory activity in hundreds of species using data from just a few, we associate changes in noncoding sequence with traits for which humans are exceptional: brain size and vocal learning. CONCLUSION Large-scale comparative genomics opens new opportunities to explore how genomes evolved as mammals adapted to a wide range of ecological niches and to discover what is shared across species and what is distinctively human. High-quality data for consistently defined phenotypes are necessary to realize this potential. Through partnerships with researchers in other fields, comparative genomics can address questions in human health and basic biology while guiding efforts to protect the biodiversity that is essential to these discoveries. Comparing genomes from 240 species to explore the evolution of placental mammals. Our new phylogeny (black lines) has alternating gray and white shading, which distinguishes mammalian orders (labeled around the perimeter). Rings around the phylogeny annotate species phenotypes. Seven species with diverse traits are illustrated, with black lines marking their branch in the phylogeny. Sequence conservation across species is described at the top left. IMAGE CREDIT: K. MORRILL
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 0036-8075 , 1095-9203
    RVK:
    RVK:
    Language: English
    Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
    Publication Date: 2023
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 128410-1
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2066996-3
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2060783-0
    SSG: 11
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 2
    In: G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics, Oxford University Press (OUP), Vol. 5, No. 5 ( 2015-05-01), p. 719-740
    Abstract: The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, ~80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manually improved the sequence and annotated the genes on the D. erecta, D. mojavensis, and D. grimshawi F elements and euchromatic domains from the Muller D element. We find that F elements have greater transposon density (25–50%) than euchromatic reference regions (3–11%). Among the F elements, D. grimshawi has the lowest transposon density (particularly DINE-1: 2% vs. 11–27%). F element genes have larger coding spans, more coding exons, larger introns, and lower codon bias. Comparison of the Effective Number of Codons with the Codon Adaptation Index shows that, in contrast to the other species, codon bias in D. grimshawi F element genes can be attributed primarily to selection instead of mutational biases, suggesting that density and types of transposons affect the degree of local heterochromatin formation. F element genes have lower estimated DNA melting temperatures than D element genes, potentially facilitating transcription through heterochromatin. Most F element genes (~90%) have remained on that element, but the F element has smaller syntenic blocks than genome averages (3.4–3.6 vs. 8.4–8.8 genes per block), indicating greater rates of inversion despite lower rates of recombination. Overall, the F element has maintained characteristics that are distinct from other autosomes in the Drosophila lineage, illuminating the constraints imposed by a heterochromatic milieu.
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 2160-1836
    Language: English
    Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
    Publication Date: 2015
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2629978-1
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 3
    In: JAMA, American Medical Association (AMA), Vol. 326, No. 17 ( 2021-11-02), p. 1690-
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 0098-7484
    RVK:
    Language: English
    Publisher: American Medical Association (AMA)
    Publication Date: 2021
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2958-0
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2018410-4
    SSG: 5,21
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 4
    In: The Astrophysical Journal, American Astronomical Society, Vol. 948, No. 2 ( 2023-05-01), p. 71-
    Abstract: Flare frequency distributions represent a key approach to addressing one of the largest problems in solar and stellar physics: determining the mechanism that counterintuitively heats coronae to temperatures that are orders of magnitude hotter than the corresponding photospheres. It is widely accepted that the magnetic field is responsible for the heating, but there are two competing mechanisms that could explain it: nanoflares or Alfvén waves. To date, neither can be directly observed. Nanoflares are, by definition, extremely small, but their aggregate energy release could represent a substantial heating mechanism, presuming they are sufficiently abundant. One way to test this presumption is via the flare frequency distribution, which describes how often flares of various energies occur. If the slope of the power law fitting the flare frequency distribution is above a critical threshold, α = 2 as established in prior literature, then there should be a sufficient abundance of nanoflares to explain coronal heating. We performed 〉 600 case studies of solar flares, made possible by an unprecedented number of data analysts via three semesters of an undergraduate physics laboratory course. This allowed us to include two crucial, but nontrivial, analysis methods: preflare baseline subtraction and computation of the flare energy, which requires determining flare start and stop times. We aggregated the results of these analyses into a statistical study to determine that α = 1.63 ± 0.03. This is below the critical threshold, suggesting that Alfvén waves are an important driver of coronal heating.
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 0004-637X , 1538-4357
    RVK:
    Language: Unknown
    Publisher: American Astronomical Society
    Publication Date: 2023
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2207648-7
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 1473835-1
    SSG: 16,12
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 5
    In: Microbiology Resource Announcements, American Society for Microbiology, Vol. 11, No. 5 ( 2022-05-19)
    Abstract: Here, the full genome sequences of 22 T1-like bacteriophages isolated from wastewater are reported. Eight (BlueShadow, Brooksby, Devorator, ElisaCorrea, Reinasaurus, SorkZaugg, Supreme284, ZeroToHero) were isolated on Citrobacter , six on Klebsiella (Chell, FairDinkum, HazelMika, Opt-817, P528, PeteCarol), and eight on Escherichia (Fulano1, Mishu, Opt-719, PhleaSolo, Punny, Poky, Phunderstruck, Sadiya).
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 2576-098X
    Language: English
    Publisher: American Society for Microbiology
    Publication Date: 2022
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2968655-6
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 6
    In: Plant Health Progress, Scientific Societies, Vol. 21, No. 4 ( 2020-01-01), p. 238-247
    Abstract: Annual reductions in corn (Zea mays L.) yield caused by diseases were estimated by university Extension-affiliated plant pathologists in 26 corn-producing states in the United States and in Ontario, Canada, from 2016 through 2019. Estimated loss from each disease varied greatly by state or province and year. Gray leaf spot (caused by Cercospora zeae-maydis Tehon & E.Y. Daniels) caused the greatest estimated yield loss in parts of the northern United States and Ontario in all years except 2019, and Fusarium stalk rot (caused by Fusarium spp.) also greatly reduced yield. Tar spot (caused by Phyllachora maydis Maubl.), a relatively new disease in the United States, was estimated to cause substantial yield loss in 2018 and 2019 in several northern states. Gray leaf spot and southern rust (caused by Puccinia polysora Underw.) caused the most estimated yield losses in the southern United States. Unfavorable wet and delayed harvest conditions in 2018 resulted in an estimated 2.5 billion bushels (63.5 million metric tons) of grain contaminated with mycotoxins. The estimated mean economic loss due to reduced yield caused by corn diseases in the United States and Ontario from 2016 to 2019 was US$55.90 per acre (US$138.13 per hectare). Results from this survey provide scientists, corn breeders, government agencies, and educators with data to help inform and prioritize research, policy, and educational efforts in corn pathology and disease management.
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 1535-1025
    Language: English
    Publisher: Scientific Societies
    Publication Date: 2020
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2115009-6
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 7
    In: Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Vol. 380, No. 6643 ( 2023-04-28)
    Abstract: Thousands of genetic variants have been associated with human diseases and traits through genome-wide association studies (GWASs). Translating these discoveries into improved therapeutics requires discerning which variants among hundreds of candidates are causally related to disease risk. To date, only a handful of causal variants have been confirmed. Here, we leverage 100 million years of mammalian evolution to address this major challenge. RATIONALE We compared genomes from hundreds of mammals and identified bases with unusually few variants (evolutionarily constrained). Constraint is a measure of functional importance that is agnostic to cell type or developmental stage. It can be applied to investigate any heritable disease or trait and is complementary to resources using cell type– and time point–specific functional assays like Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx). RESULTS Using constraint calculated across placental mammals, 3.3% of bases in the human genome are significantly constrained, including 57.6% of coding bases. Most constrained bases (80.7%) are noncoding. Common variants (allele frequency ≥ 5%) and low-frequency variants (0.5% ≤ allele frequency 〈 5%) are depleted for constrained bases (1.85 versus 3.26% expected by chance, P 〈 2.2 × 10 −308 ). Pathogenic ClinVar variants are more constrained than benign variants ( P 〈 2.2 × 10 −16 ). The most constrained common variants are more enriched for disease single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)–heritability in 63 independent GWASs. The enrichment of SNP-heritability in constrained regions is greater (7.8-fold) than previously reported in mammals and is even higher in primates (11.1-fold). It exceeds the enrichment of SNP-heritability in nonsynonymous coding variants (7.2-fold) and fine-mapped expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL)–SNPs (4.8-fold). The enrichment peaks near constrained bases, with a log-linear decrease of SNP-heritability enrichment as a function of the distance to a constrained base. Zoonomia constraint scores improve functionally informed fine-mapping. Variants at sites constrained in mammals and primates have greater posterior inclusion probabilities and higher per-SNP contributions. In addition, using both constraint and functional annotations improves polygenic risk score accuracy across a range of traits. Finally, incorporating constraint information into the analysis of noncoding somatic variants in medulloblastomas identifies new candidate driver genes. CONCLUSION Genome-wide measures of evolutionary constraint can help discern which variants are functionally important. This information may accelerate the translation of genomic discoveries into the biological, clinical, and therapeutic knowledge that is required to understand and treat human disease. Using evolutionary constraint in genomic studies of human diseases. ( A ) Constraint was calculated across 240 mammal species, including 43 primates (teal line). ( B ) Pathogenic ClinVar variants ( N = 73,885) are more constrained across mammals than benign variants ( N = 231,642; P 〈 2.2 × 10 −16 ). ( C ) More-constrained bases are more enriched for trait-associated variants (63 GWASs). ( D ) Enrichment of heritability is higher in constrained regions than in functional annotations (left), even in a joint model with 106 annotations (right). ( E ) Fine-mapping (PolyFun) using a model that includes constraint scores identifies an experimentally validated association at rs1421085. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. BMI, body mass index; LF, low frequency; PIP, posterior inclusion probability.
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 0036-8075 , 1095-9203
    RVK:
    RVK:
    Language: English
    Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
    Publication Date: 2023
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 128410-1
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2066996-3
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2060783-0
    SSG: 11
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 8
    In: Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Vol. 380, No. 6643 ( 2023-04-28)
    Abstract: Diverse phenotypes, including large brains relative to body size, group living, and vocal learning ability, have evolved multiple times throughout mammalian history. These shared phenotypes may have arisen repeatedly by means of common mechanisms discernible through genome comparisons. RATIONALE Protein-coding sequence differences have failed to fully explain the evolution of multiple mammalian phenotypes. This suggests that these phenotypes have evolved at least in part through changes in gene expression, meaning that their differences across species may be caused by differences in genome sequence at enhancer regions that control gene expression in specific tissues and cell types. Yet the enhancers involved in phenotype evolution are largely unknown. Sequence conservation–based approaches for identifying such enhancers are limited because enhancer activity can be conserved even when the individual nucleotides within the sequence are poorly conserved. This is due to an overwhelming number of cases where nucleotides turn over at a high rate, but a similar combination of transcription factor binding sites and other sequence features can be maintained across millions of years of evolution, allowing the function of the enhancer to be conserved in a particular cell type or tissue. Experimentally measuring the function of orthologous enhancers across dozens of species is currently infeasible, but new machine learning methods make it possible to make reliable sequence-based predictions of enhancer function across species in specific tissues and cell types. RESULTS To overcome the limits of studying individual nucleotides, we developed the Tissue-Aware Conservation Inference Toolkit (TACIT). Rather than measuring the extent to which individual nucleotides are conserved across a region, TACIT uses machine learning to test whether the function of a given part of the genome is likely to be conserved. More specifically, convolutional neural networks learn the tissue- or cell type–specific regulatory code connecting genome sequence to enhancer activity using candidate enhancers identified from only a few species. This approach allows us to accurately associate differences between species in tissue or cell type–specific enhancer activity with genome sequence differences at enhancer orthologs. We then connect these predictions of enhancer function to phenotypes across hundreds of mammals in a way that accounts for species’ phylogenetic relatedness. We applied TACIT to identify candidate enhancers from motor cortex and parvalbumin neuron open chromatin data that are associated with brain size relative to body size, solitary living, and vocal learning across 222 mammals. Our results include the identification of multiple candidate enhancers associated with brain size relative to body size, several of which are located in linear or three-dimensional proximity to genes whose protein-coding mutations have been implicated in microcephaly or macrocephaly in humans. We also identified candidate enhancers associated with the evolution of solitary living near a gene implicated in separation anxiety and other enhancers associated with the evolution of vocal learning ability. We obtained distinct results for bulk motor cortex and parvalbumin neurons, demonstrating the value in applying TACIT to both bulk tissue and specific minority cell type populations. To facilitate future analyses of our results and applications of TACIT, we released predicted enhancer activity of 〉 400,000 candidate enhancers in each of 222 mammals and their associations with the phenotypes we investigated. CONCLUSION TACIT leverages predicted enhancer activity conservation rather than nucleotide-level conservation to connect genetic sequence differences between species to phenotypes across large numbers of mammals. TACIT can be applied to any phenotype with enhancer activity data available from at least a few species in a relevant tissue or cell type and a whole-genome alignment available across dozens of species with substantial phenotypic variation. Although we developed TACIT for transcriptional enhancers, it could also be applied to genomic regions involved in other components of gene regulation, such as promoters and splicing enhancers and silencers. As the number of sequenced genomes grows, machine learning approaches such as TACIT have the potential to help make sense of how conservation of, or changes in, subtle genome patterns can help explain phenotype evolution. Tissue-Aware Conservation Inference Toolkit (TACIT) associates genetic differences between species with phenotypes. TACIT works by generating open chromatin data from a few species in a tissue related to a phenotype, using the sequences underlying open and closed chromatin regions to train a machine learning model for predicting tissue-specific open chromatin and associating open chromatin predictions across dozens of mammals with the phenotype. [Species silhouettes are from PhyloPic]
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 0036-8075 , 1095-9203
    RVK:
    RVK:
    Language: English
    Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
    Publication Date: 2023
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 128410-1
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2066996-3
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2060783-0
    SSG: 11
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 9
    In: JAMA Network Open, American Medical Association (AMA), Vol. 6, No. 7 ( 2023-07-13), p. e2323349-
    Abstract: Current data identifying COVID-19 risk factors lack standardized outcomes and insufficiently control for confounders. Objective To identify risk factors associated with COVID-19, severe COVID-19, and SARS-CoV-2 infection. Design, Setting, and Participants This secondary cross-protocol analysis included 4 multicenter, international, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled, COVID-19 vaccine efficacy trials with harmonized protocols established by the COVID-19 Prevention Network. Individual-level data from participants randomized to receive placebo within each trial were combined and analyzed. Enrollment began July 2020 and the last data cutoff was in July 2021. Participants included adults in stable health, at risk for SARS-CoV-2, and assigned to the placebo group within each vaccine trial. Data were analyzed from April 2022 to February 2023. Exposures Comorbid conditions, demographic factors, and SARS-CoV-2 exposure risk at the time of enrollment. Main Outcomes and Measures Coprimary outcomes were COVID-19 and severe COVID-19. Multivariate Cox proportional regression models estimated adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) and 95% CIs for baseline covariates, accounting for trial, region, and calendar time. Secondary outcomes included severe COVID-19 among people with COVID-19, subclinical SARS-CoV-2 infection, and SARS-CoV-2 infection. Results A total of 57 692 participants (median [range] age, 51 [18-95] years; 11 720 participants [20.3%] aged ≥65 years; 31 058 participants [53.8%] assigned male at birth) were included. The analysis population included 3270 American Indian or Alaska Native participants (5.7%), 7849 Black or African American participants (13.6%), 17 678 Hispanic or Latino participants (30.6%), and 40 745 White participants (70.6%). Annualized incidence was 13.9% (95% CI, 13.3%-14.4%) for COVID-19 and 2.0% (95% CI, 1.8%-2.2%) for severe COVID-19. Factors associated with increased rates of COVID-19 included workplace exposure (high vs low: aHR, 1.35 [95% CI, 1.16-1.58]; medium vs low: aHR, 1.41 [95% CI, 1.21-1.65] ; P   & amp;lt; .001) and living condition risk (very high vs low risk: aHR, 1.41 [95% CI, 1.21-1.66]; medium vs low risk: aHR, 1.19 [95% CI, 1.08-1.32] ; P   & amp;lt; .001). Factors associated with decreased rates of COVID-19 included previous SARS-CoV-2 infection (aHR, 0.13 [95% CI, 0.09-0.19]; P   & amp;lt; .001), age 65 years or older (aHR vs age & amp;lt;65 years, 0.57 [95% CI, 0.50-0.64]; P   & amp;lt; .001) and Black or African American race (aHR vs White race, 0.78 [95% CI, 0.67-0.91]; P  = .002). Factors associated with increased rates of severe COVID-19 included race (American Indian or Alaska Native vs White: aHR, 2.61 [95% CI, 1.85-3.69]; multiracial vs White: aHR, 2.19 [95% CI, 1.50-3.20] ; P   & amp;lt; .001), diabetes (aHR, 1.54 [95% CI, 1.14-2.08]; P  = .005) and at least 2 comorbidities (aHR vs none, 1.39 [95% CI, 1.09-1.76]; P  = .008). In analyses restricted to participants who contracted COVID-19, increased severe COVID-19 rates were associated with age 65 years or older (aHR vs & amp;lt;65 years, 1.75 [95% CI, 1.32-2.31]; P   & amp;lt; .001), race (American Indian or Alaska Native vs White: aHR, 1.98 [95% CI, 1.38-2.83]; Black or African American vs White: aHR, 1.49 [95% CI, 1.03-2.14] ; multiracial: aHR, 1.81 [95% CI, 1.21-2.69]; overall P  = .001), body mass index (aHR per 1-unit increase, 1.03 [95% CI, 1.01-1.04]; P  = .001), and diabetes (aHR, 1.85 [95% CI, 1.37-2.49]; P   & amp;lt; .001). Previous SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with decreased severe COVID-19 rates (aHR, 0.04 [95% CI, 0.01-0.14]; P   & amp;lt; .001). Conclusions and Relevance In this secondary cross-protocol analysis of 4 randomized clinical trials, exposure and demographic factors had the strongest associations with outcomes; results could inform mitigation strategies for SARS-CoV-2 and viruses with comparable epidemiological characteristics.
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 2574-3805
    Language: English
    Publisher: American Medical Association (AMA)
    Publication Date: 2023
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2931249-8
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 10
    In: Molecular Biology and Evolution, Oxford University Press (OUP), Vol. 40, No. 5 ( 2023-05-02)
    Abstract: Horizontal transfer of transposable elements (TEs) is an important mechanism contributing to genetic diversity and innovation. Bats (order Chiroptera) have repeatedly been shown to experience horizontal transfer of TEs at what appears to be a high rate compared with other mammals. We investigated the occurrence of horizontally transferred (HT) DNA transposons involving bats. We found over 200 putative HT elements within bats; 16 transposons were shared across distantly related mammalian clades, and 2 other elements were shared with a fish and two lizard species. Our results indicate that bats are a hotspot for horizontal transfer of DNA transposons. These events broadly coincide with the diversification of several bat clades, supporting the hypothesis that DNA transposon invasions have contributed to genetic diversification of bats.
    Type of Medium: Online Resource
    ISSN: 0737-4038 , 1537-1719
    Language: English
    Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
    Publication Date: 2023
    detail.hit.zdb_id: 2024221-9
    SSG: 12
    Location Call Number Limitation Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
Close ⊗
This website uses cookies and the analysis tool Matomo. More information can be found here...