水稻的起源与驯化——来自基因组学的证据

 水稻是世界上最重要的粮食作物, 约1 万年前开始被驯化。由于水稻与其祖先野生种存在一定的遗传分化, 水稻的起源和驯化问题长期存在争议。本文综述了水稻起源和驯化方面的研究成果, 特别是近年来基因组学方面的证据, 认为水稻2 个亚种独立起源于野生祖先种内很早就分化的不同类群, 但一些驯化基因--控制重要农艺性状的基因, 可能首先在一个亚种中被驯化, 然后通过基因渐渗, 扩散到另一个亚种中。因此, 水稻驯化的关键是研究驯化基因的起源和扩散方式。随着大规模基因组测序技术的发展和相应数据分析方法的建立, 在全基因组水平对水稻及其祖先进行大规模分析, 已成为揭示水稻起源与驯化之谜的必由之路。     

Observational evidence for the accretion-disk origin for a radio jet in an active galaxy

Accretion of gas onto black holes is thought to power the relativistic jets of material ejected from active galactic nuclei (AGN) and the 'microquasars' located in our Galaxy. In microquasars, superluminal radio-emitting features appear and propagate along the jet shortly after sudden decreases in the X-ray fluxes. This establishes a direct observational link between the black hole and the jet: the X-ray dip is probably caused by the disappearance of a section of the inner accretion disk as it falls past the event horizon, while the remainder of the disk section is ejected into the jet, creating the appearance of a superluminal bright spot. No such connection has hitherto been established for AGN, because of insufficient multi-frequency data. Here we report the results of three years of monitoring the X-ray and radio emission of the galaxy 3C120. As has been observed for microquasars, we find that dips in the X-ray emission are followed by ejections of bright superluminal knots in the radio jet. The mean time between X-ray dips appears to scale roughly with the mass of the black hole, although there are at present only a few data points.     

Three new types of viral oncogene of cellular origin specific for haematopoietic cell transformation.

The RNAs of seven replication-defective leukaemia virus (DLV) strains contain three types of unique sequences, which correlate with the capacity of a given virus strain to transform erythroblasts, macrophage-like cells and myeloblasts, respectively. These sequences, termed erb, mac and myb, have their counterparts in the normal DNA of avian and mammalian species. Our results indicate that DLVs represent recombinants between a common 'vector' related to a chicken endogenous virus and one of three types of cellular gene possibly involved in haematopoietic differentiation.     

历届中国共产党全国代表大会党章总纲的演变

党章总纲是党章的基础和灵魂。中国共产党的历届全国代表大会几乎都对党章总纲进行了修改。党章总纲的发展史,基本上就是党章建设史。探讨党章总纲内容的修改过程,对党章和党的建设有着重大的理论和现实意义。     

Crystallography: crystallographic evidence for deviating C3b structure

Activation of the protein C3 into C3b in the complement pathway is a crucial step in the complement immune response against pathogenic, immunogenic and apoptotic particles. Ajees et al. describe a crystal structure for C3b that deviates from the one reported by Janssen et al. and by Wiesmann et al.. We have reanalysed the data deposited by Ajees et al. and have discovered features that are inconsistent with the known physical properties of macromolecular structures and their diffraction data. Our findings therefore call into question the crystal structure for C3b reported by Ajees et al..     

Y-chromosome evidence for no independent origin of modern human in China

East Asia is one of the few regions in the world where a large number of human fossils have been unearthed. The continuity of hominid fossils in East Asia, particularly in China has been presented as strong evidence supporting an independent origin of modern humans in this area. To search for such evidence of a possible independent origin of modern humans in China, a total of 9988 male individuals were sampled across China. Three Y-chromosome biallelic markers (M89, M130 and YAP), which were located at the non-recombinant region of Y-chromosome, were typed among the samples. Our result showed that all the individuals carry a mutation at one of the three loci. The three mutations (M89T, M130T, YAP⁺) coalesce to another mutation (M168T), which was originally derived from Africa about 31000 to 79000 years ago. In other words, all Y-chromosome samples from China, with no exception, were originally derived from a lineage of African origin. Hence, we conclude that even a very minor contribution ofin situ hominid origin in China cannot be supported by the Y-chromosome evidence.     

Re-Os isotopic evidence for a lower crustal origin of massif-type anorthosites

Massif-type anorthosites are large igneous complexes of Proterozoic age. They are almost monomineralic, representing vast accumulations of plagioclase with subordinate pyroxene or olivine and Fe-Ti oxides--the 930-Myr-old Rogaland anorthosite province in southwest Norway represents one of the youngest known expressions of such magmatism. The source of the magma and geodynamic setting of massif-type anorthosites remain long-standing controversies in Precambrian geology, with no consensus existing as to the nature of the parental magmas or whether these magmas primarily originate in the Earth's mantle or crust. At present, massif-type anorthosites are believed to have crystallized from either crustally contaminated mantle-derived melts that have fractionated olivine and pyroxenes at depth or primary aluminous gabbroic to jotunitic melts derived from the lower continental crust. Here we report rhenium and osmium isotopic data from the Rogaland anorthosite province that strongly support a lower crustal source for the parental magmas. There is no evidence of significantly older crust in southwest Scandinavia and models invoking crustal contamination of mantle-derived magmas fail to account for the isotopic data from the Rogaland province. Initial osmium and neodymium isotopic values testify to the melting of mafic source rocks in the lower crust with an age of 1,400-1,550 Myr.     

Evolutionary biology: lamprey Hox genes and the origin of jaws

The development of jaws was a critical event in vertebrate evolution because it ushered in a transition to a predatory lifestyle, but how this innovation came about has been a mystery. In the embryos of jawed vertebrates (gnathostomes), the jaw cartilage develops from the mandibular arch, where none of the Hox genes is expressed; if these are expressed ectopically, however, jaw development is inhibited. Here I show that in the lamprey, a primitively jawless (agnathan) fish that is a sister group to the gnathostomes, a Hox gene is expressed in the mandibular arch of developing embryos. This finding, together with outgroup comparisons, suggests that loss of Hox expression from the mandibular arch of gnathostomes may have facilitated the evolution of jaws.