Colony fission affects kinship in a social insect

Establishment of new groups is an important step in the life history of a social species. Fissioning is a common mode not only in group proliferation, for instance, as a regular part of the life cycle in the honey bee, but also when multiple females reproduce in the same group, as in multiple-queen ant societies. We studied the genetic consequences of fissioning in the ant Proformica longiseta, based on DNA microsatellites. In P. longiseta, new nests arise by fissioning from the old ones when they grow large, and the daughter nests consist of workers and queens or queen pupae but never both. Our results show that fissioning is not entirely random with respect to kinship. Workers tend to segregate along kin lines, but only when the initial relatedness in the parental nests is low. Workers in a daughter nest also tend to be associated with closely related adult queens, whereas such an association is not detected between workers and queen pupae. Most queens and workers are carried to the daughter nest by a specialized group of transporting workers, suggesting active kin discrimination by them. Fissioning pattern in P. longiseta is different from that found in other social insects with regular fission (e.g., the honey bee, swarm-founding wasps), where no fissioning along kin lines has been found. It does, however, resemble fissioning in another group of social animals: primates.     

硫化镉量子点与常规硫化镉对小鼠遗传毒性的比较研究

为比较硫化镉量子点(CdS quantum dots,CdSQDs)与常规硫化镉(CdS)对小鼠的遗传毒性作用,将30只昆明种健康雄性小鼠随机分为对照组、CdSQDs组和常规CdS组,通过经口灌胃法进行染毒,其中CdSQDs组和常规CdS组染毒剂量为100mg·kg-1,对照组为等体积的生理盐水.染毒35d后将小鼠处死,通过单细胞凝胶电泳观察外周血淋巴细胞DNA损伤情况,取小鼠一侧附睾观察精子畸形率,并取双侧肾脏做组织病理学检验.结果表明,与对照组小鼠比较,CdSQDs组和常规CdS组小鼠DNA损伤和精子畸形率均显著升高(p<0.05);CdSQDs组小鼠DNA损伤程度及精子畸形率均显著低于常规CdS组(p<0.05);组织病理切片观察显示,两种材料均可引起小鼠肾脏病变,但CdSQDs组小鼠病变程度明显轻于常规CdS组.以上结果提示,CdSQDs和常规CdS均会对小鼠产生一定程度的遗传毒性作用,但CdSQDs毒性低于相同剂量的常规CdS.     

Profiling of the assembly of RecA nucleofilaments implies a potential target for environmental factors to disturb DNA repair

Double-strand breaks (DSBs), one class of the most harmful DNA damage forms that bring elevated health risks, need to be repaired timely and effectively. However, an increasing number of environmental pollutants have been identified to impair DSB repair from various mechanisms. Our previous work indicated that the formation of unsaturated RecA nucleofilaments plays an essential role in homology recombination (HR) pathway which can accurately repair DSBs. In this study, by developing a benzonase cutting protection assay and combining it with traditional electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) analysis, we further investigated the assembly patterns of four RecA mutants that display differential DSB repair ability and ATPase activity. We observed that the mutants (G204S and S69G) possessing both ATP hydrolysis and DSB repair activities form unsaturated nucleofilaments similar to that formed by the wild type RecA, whereas the other two ATP hydrolysis-deficient mutants (K72R and E96D) that fail to mediate HR form more compacted nucleofilaments in the presence of ATP. These results establish a coupling of ATPase activity and effective DSB repair ability via the assembly status of RecA nucleofilaments. This linkage provides a potential target for environmental factors to disturb the essential HR pathway for DSB repair by suppressing the ATPase activity and altering the assembly pattern of nucleofilaments.     

Monohalogenated acetamide-induced cellular stress and genotoxicity are related to electrophilic softness and thiol/thiolate reactivity

Haloacetamides(HAMs) are cytotoxic, genotoxic, and mutagenic byproducts of drinking water disinfection. They are soft electrophilic compounds that form covalent bonds with the free thiol/thiolate in cysteine residues through an S_N2 reaction mechanism.Toxicity of the monohalogenated HAMs(iodoacetamide, IAM; bromoacetamide, BAM;or chloroacetamide, CAM) varied depending on the halogen substituent. The aim of this research was to investigate how the halogen atom affects the reactivity and toxicological properties of HAMs, measured as induction of oxidative/electrophilic stress response and genotoxicity. Additionally, we wanted to determine how well in silico estimates of electrophilic softness matched thiol/thiolate reactivity and in vitro toxicological endpoints.Each of the HAMs significantly induced nuclear Rad51 accumulation and ARE signaling activity compared to a negative control. The rank order of effect was IAM BAM CAM for Rad51, and BAM ≈ IAM CAM for ARE. In general, electrophilic softness and in chemico thiol/thiolate reactivity provided a qualitative indicator of toxicity, as the softer electrophiles IAM and BAM were more thiol/thiolate reactive and were more toxic than CAM.     

河口盐度梯度下溶解态核酸的微生物可利用性

核酸物质(DNA和RNA)作为自然水体中重要的溶解有机质组分之一,是水生微生物食物网的重要物质基础,因此核酸的微生物可利用性具有重要研究意义.2012年春季从长江口不同盐度区域采集水样,并分别添加鱼类DNA和酵母RNA进行培养,考察了其微生物可利用性.结果表明,在溶解态核酸添加至不同盐度的培养体系时,添加的DNA大约有20%～50%从溶解态快速转变至颗粒态,转化率随盐度增加而增加,而添加的RNA仅有约10%从溶解态转变至颗粒态,受盐度影响不大.在各培养体系中,溶解态核酸的微生物利用动力学曲线均符合Sigmoid方程,先有30～80 h不等的延滞期,而后进入快速利用期,最后为停止期,其中海水微生物对核酸的最大利用速率比河口/淡水微生物更快.当溶解态核酸进入河口水体后,分为微生物可利用的(自由溶解态/酶可水解的)、胶体结合态和颗粒态,其中RNA中微生物可利用形态百分比(80%～90%)显著高于DNA,且随盐度变化不大,而DNA中微生物可利用形态百分比随盐度升高而从78%逐渐降低至50%.因此,河口盐度梯度下的DNA和RNA赋存形态分布特征和微生物可利用性具有显著差异.     

农药毒死蜱对小鼠脑细胞氧化损伤的研究

毒死蜱是一种高效、低毒、广谱的有机磷杀虫杀螨剂.为研究其对生物体的氧化损伤,以昆明小鼠为受试体,毒死蜱按3、6和12 mg·kg-13个剂量水平灌胃染毒小鼠7d,以脑组织匀浆测定活性氧(Reactive oxygen species,ROS)、还原型谷胱甘肽(Glutathione,GSH)和丙二醛(Malondialdehyde,MDA)的含量,以脑细胞测定DNA-蛋白质交联(DNA-protein Crosslink,DPC)系数.实验结果表明,随着毒死蜱染毒剂量的升高,ROS和MDA含量及DPC系数逐渐上升,GSH含量逐渐降低,各指标呈一定的剂量-效应关系.染毒剂量为6 mg·kg-1时,与对照组相比,DPC有显著差异(p＜0.05),MDA有极显著差异(P＜0.01);染毒剂量为12 mg·kg-1时,与对照组相比,ROS和DPC有显著差异(p＜0.05),GSH和MDA有极显著差异(p＜0.01).说明较高剂量的毒死蜱可造成小鼠脑组织的氧化损伤和DNA-蛋白质交联作用增强.     

Association patterns and kinship in female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) of southeastern Australia

Kinship has been shown to be an important correlate of group membership and associations among many female mammals. In this study, we investigate association patterns in female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) inhabiting an embayment in southeastern Australia. We combine the behavioral data with microsatellite DNA and mitochondrial DNA data to test the hypotheses that genetic relatedness and maternal kinship correlate with associations and social clusters. Mean association between females was not significantly different from a random mean, but the standard deviation was significantly higher than a random standard deviation, indicating the presence of nonrandom associates in the dataset. A neighbor-joining tree, based on the distance of associations between females, identified four main social clusters in the area. Mean genetic relatedness between pairs of frequent female associates was significantly higher than that between pairs of infrequent associates. There was also a significant correlation between mtDNA haplotype sharing and the degree of female association. However, the mean genetic relatedness of female pairs within and between social clusters and the proportion of female pairs with the same and different mtDNA haplotypes within and between clusters were not significantly different. This study demonstrates that kinship correlates with associations among female bottlenose dolphins, but that kinship relations are not necessarily a prerequisite for membership in social clusters. We hypothesize that different forces acting on female bottlenose dolphin sociality appear to promote the formation of flexible groups which include both kin and nonkin.