Deleterious mutations and the evolution of sexual reproduction

The origin and maintenance of sexual reproduction continues to be an important problem in evolutionary biology. If the deleterious mutation rate per genome per generation is greater than 1, then the greater efficiency of selection against these mutations in sexual populations may be responsible for the evolution of sex and related phenomena. In modern human populations detrimental mutations with small individual effects are probably accumulating faster than they are being eliminated by selection.     

颗粒级配对水泥基材料有害孔隙率的影响

水泥基材料的硬化浆体中含有大量的孔隙 ,其中的有害孔隙直接影响到耐久性 .依据所建立的微粒级配模型 ,采用粉煤灰、硅灰等球形颗粒掺合料及纳米纤维红粉 (NR)掺合料 ,设计球形颗粒紧密堆积体系与纳米纤维增强紧密堆积体系 ,讨论 2种混合体系内部的总孔隙率与有害孔隙率之间的关系 ,确定活性NR粉在水泥基材料中的作用 .研究表明 ,NR粉能够增加体系密实度 ,水泥混合体系硬化后期的总孔隙率与有害孔隙率之间服从对数关系 ,通过微粒级配模型可预知体系有害孔隙率及颗粒级配的合理性 .     

Effect of alkyl substitutions on self-assembly

The self-assemblies of 4-hexadecyloxybenzoic acid and 3,4,5-trihexadecyloxybenzoic acid have been studied by using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The well-ordered assemblies with different arrangement have been investigated. The structural change is attributed to the different number of substituted alkyl chains on periphery.     

Molecular evolution of scorpion a-toxins----Accelerated substitutions and functional divergence

Scorpion a-toxins are a family of toxic proteins with similar scaffold, but possess divergent pharmacological properties. Analysis of cDNA sequences reveals that the numbers of nucleotide substitutions per site ( K ) for 5' and 3' UTRs are smaller than those per synonymous site ( Ks) for the mature peptide-coding sequences, whereas the numbers of nucleotide substitutions per nonsynonymous site (-Ka) are close to or larger than Ks values for relevant pairs of cDNAs. These results, together with phylogenetic analysis, indicate that scorpion a-toxins have evolved by accelerated substitutions in the mature toxin regions. In addition, the 15 amino acids, absolutely conserved in all the scorpion a-toxins described so far. are mostly located in molecular interior, which may be involved in structural constraints for stabilizing the CSa(3 fold in evolution of these molecules. Four hot spot mutation sites in the molecular surface are found to distribute in the putative functional regions of a-toxins. suggesting that positive Darwinian selection drives the accelerated evolution of scorpion a-toxins. These findings reasonably explain the relationship between three-dimensional structure conservation and functional divergence of scorpion a-toxins and are of important value in guiding us in our engineering experiments to obtain higher affinity ligands to Na+ channels.     

人类和黑猩猩染色体同义和非同义替代的非平行累积(英文)

为了揭示灵长类染色体的进化动态,以小鼠和狗作为外群,使用比较基因组学和生物信息学的方法,详细分析了人-小鼠、人-狗、黑猩猩-小鼠、黑猩猩-狗中的16427,15161,15802和14559同源基因.结果表明,人类和黑猩猩染色体16,19,21和22上的基因具有显著高的同义替代速率(dS).分析人类-小鼠-狗和黑猩猩-小鼠-狗的同源基因,发现不同系谱基因碱基的同义和非同义替代速率(dN)是相似的,揭示了这些物种基因的碱基替代速率经历着相似的进化选择压力.此外,结果也表明局部染色质环境(GC含量和基因密度)和染色体重组速率对人类染色体碱基替代的累积也有显著影响.     

Detection of single base substitutions in total genomic DNA

Certain single base substitutions causing genetic diseases or resulting in polymorphisms linked to mutant alleles, alter a restriction enzyme cleavage site and can therefore be detected in total genomic DNA using DNA blots. Many base substitutions do not lead to an altered restriction site, but these can be detected using synthetic oligonucleotides as hybridization probes if the DNA sequence surrounding the base substitution is known. In the case of beta-thalassaemia, where 22 different single base mutations have been identified, a large number of probes would be required for diagnosis. An approach which was used to detect mutations in viral DNA involves the S1 nuclease treatment of heteroduplexes formed between wild-type and mutant DNA. Although certain single base mismatches are cleaved by S1 nuclease (ref. 11 and T. Shenk, personal communication), many other mismatches examined by this procedure are not cleaved (B. Seed, personal communication; R.M.M., unpublished data). Heteroduplexes between mutant and wild-type subgenomic fragments of double-stranded reovirus RNA migrate slower than the corresponding homoduplexes in polyacrylamide gels containing 7 M urea, but it is not known whether this method is applicable to DNA heteroduplexes containing single base mismatches. Here we describe a procedure that involves the electrophoretic separation of DNA heteroduplexes in a well-characterized gel system. We show that four different human beta-thalassaemia alleles with known single base mutations can be detected with as little as 5 micrograms of total genomic DNA. The method should be useful in the localization and diagnosis of mutations associated with genetic diseases.     

水质中“有毒”与“无毒”氰化物的检测方法探讨

分析水质中氰化物的多种存在形式和毒性差别,探讨不同处理方法和检测方法的适用性.结果表明：水质处理前后＂有毒＂与＂无毒＂氰化物含量存在巨大差异,只有区别对待并选用适当的检测方法,才能保证测定结果的准确性.     

Some remarks on invertible substitutions on three letter alphabet

By introducing the notion of “prime substitution” it is shown that the set of invertible substitutions over an alphabet of more than three letters is not finitely generated. Some examples are given.     

Single amino acid substitutions in influenza haemagglutinin change receptor binding specificity

The haemagglutinin (HA) glycoproteins of influenza virus membranes are responsible for binding viruses to cells by interacting with membrane receptor molecules which contain sialic acid (for review see ref. 1). This interaction is known to vary in detailed specificity for different influenza viruses (see, for example, refs 2-4) and we have attempted to identify the sialic acid binding site of the haemagglutinin by comparing the amino acid sequences of haemagglutinins with different binding specificities. We present here evidence that haemagglutinins which differ in recognizing either NeuAc alpha 2 leads to 3Gal- or NeuAc alpha 2 leads to 6Gal- linkages in glycoproteins also differ at amino acid 226 of HA1. This residue is located in a pocket on the distal tip of the molecule, an area previously proposed from considerations of the three-dimensional structure of the haemagglutinin to be involved in receptor binding.     

Reverse hydrophobic effects relieved by amino-acid substitutions at a protein surface

It is rare for amino-acid substitutions on the surface of proteins to have large stabilizing or destabilizing effects. Nevertheless, one substitution of this type, the Tyr 26----Cys mutation in lambda Cro, increases the melting temperature of the protein by 11 degrees C and the stability by 2.2 kcal mol-1. Here we show that the stability of Cro can be increased by many different amino-acid substitutions at position 26, with increasing stability showing a good correlation with decreasing side-chain hydrophobicity. As Tyr 26 is hyper-exposed to solvent in the Cro crystal structure, we suggest that wild-type and variant proteins with other hydrophobic side chains at position 26 are destabilized as a result of a reverse hydrophobic effect caused by the side chain being more exposed to solvent in the native than in the denatured state.     

Production of translocation by crossing two different alien substitutions in wheat

The translocation frequency up to 3.7% has been obtained by crossing aTriticum-Thinopyrum substitution with aTriticum-Haynaldia substitution. The pattern of translocations includes not only wheat-alien Robertson translocations but also inserting translocations involvingThinopyrum chromatin andHaynaldia chromatin. The result indicates that it may be a new method of producing translocations to make two different wheat-alien substitution cross with each other.