The trophic fingerprint of marine fisheries

Biodiversity indicators provide a vital window on the state of the planet, guiding policy development and management. The most widely adopted marine indicator is mean trophic level (MTL) from catches, intended to detect shifts from high-trophic-level predators to low-trophic-level invertebrates and plankton-feeders. This indicator underpins reported trends in human impacts, declining when predators collapse ("fishing down marine food webs") and when low-trophic-level fisheries expand ("fishing through marine food webs"). The assumption is that catch MTL measures changes in ecosystem MTL and biodiversity. Here we combine model predictions with global assessments of MTL from catches, trawl surveys and fisheries stock assessments and find that catch MTL does not reliably predict changes in marine ecosystems. Instead, catch MTL trends often diverge from ecosystem MTL trends obtained from surveys and assessments. In contrast to previous findings of rapid declines in catch MTL, we observe recent increases in catch, survey and assessment MTL. However, catches from most trophic levels are rising, which can intensify fishery collapses even when MTL trends are stable or increasing. To detect fishing impacts on marine biodiversity, we recommend greater efforts to measure true abundance trends for marine species, especially those most vulnerable to fishing.     

RNA aptamers as reversible antagonists of coagulation factor IXa

Many therapeutic agents are associated with adverse effects in patients. Anticoagulants can engender acute complications such as significant bleeding that increases patient morbidity and mortality. Antidote control provides the safest means to regulate drug action. For this reason, despite its known limitations and toxicities, heparin use remains high because it is the only anticoagulant that can be controlled by an antidote, the polypeptide protamine. To date, no generalizable strategy for developing drug-antidote pairs has been described. We investigated whether drug-antidote pairs could be rationally designed by taking advantage of properties inherent to nucleic acids to make antidote-controlled anticoagulant agents. Here we show that protein-binding oligonucleotides (aptamers) against coagulation factor IXa are potent anticoagulants. We also show that oligonucleotides complementary to these aptamers can act as antidotes capable of efficiently reversing the activity of these new anticoagulants in plasma from healthy volunteers and from patients who cannot tolerate heparin. This generalizable strategy for rationally designing a drug-antidote pair thus opens up the way for developing safer regulatable therapeutics.     

Dystrophic heart failure blocked by membrane sealant poloxamer

Dystrophin deficiency causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in humans, an inherited and progressive disease of striated muscle deterioration that frequently involves pronounced cardiomyopathy. Heart failure is the second leading cause of fatalities in DMD. Progress towards defining the molecular basis of disease in DMD has mostly come from studies on skeletal muscle, with comparatively little attention directed to cardiac muscle. The pathophysiological mechanisms involved in cardiac myocytes may differ significantly from skeletal myofibres; this is underscored by the presence of significant cardiac disease in patients with truncated or reduced levels of dystrophin but without skeletal muscle disease. Here we show that intact, isolated dystrophin-deficient cardiac myocytes have reduced compliance and increased susceptibility to stretch-mediated calcium overload, leading to cell contracture and death, and that application of the membrane sealant poloxamer 188 corrects these defects in vitro. In vivo administration of poloxamer 188 to dystrophic mice instantly improved ventricular geometry and blocked the development of acute cardiac failure during a dobutamine-mediated stress protocol. Once issues relating to optimal dosing and long-term effects of poloxamer 188 in humans have been resolved, chemical-based membrane sealants could represent a new therapeutic approach for preventing or reversing the progression of cardiomyopathy and heart failure in muscular dystrophy.     

Functional metagenomic profiling of nine biomes

Microbial activities shape the biogeochemistry of the planet and macroorganism health. Determining the metabolic processes performed by microbes is important both for understanding and for manipulating ecosystems (for example, disruption of key processes that lead to disease, conservation of environmental services, and so on). Describing microbial function is hampered by the inability to culture most microbes and by high levels of genomic plasticity. Metagenomic approaches analyse microbial communities to determine the metabolic processes that are important for growth and survival in any given environment. Here we conduct a metagenomic comparison of almost 15 million sequences from 45 distinct microbiomes and, for the first time, 42 distinct viromes and show that there are strongly discriminatory metabolic profiles across environments. Most of the functional diversity was maintained in all of the communities, but the relative occurrence of metabolisms varied, and the differences between metagenomes predicted the biogeochemical conditions of each environment. The magnitude of the microbial metabolic capabilities encoded by the viromes was extensive, suggesting that they serve as a repository for storing and sharing genes among their microbial hosts and influence global evolutionary and metabolic processes.     

环境变化对几个树种在北方田间条件下气体交换的影响

1994年和1995年夏季在加拿大Saskatchewa n省Prince Albert市北部森林测定环境条件对欧洲杨(Populus tremuloides Michx.), 胶杨(Populus balsamifera L.),榛子(Corylus cornuta Marsh.),短叶松(Pin us banksiana Lamb.)和黑云杉(Picea mariana (Mill) BSP)气体交换的影响.气体交换率的测定使用便携式气体交换系统(LI-6200).结果表明光合作用光流动量(PPFD)、气温(Ta)、蒸气压差(VPD)和体内二氧化碳浓度(Ci)均对气体交换有显著影响,但对不同树种影响程度不同.在大气二氧化碳浓度(Ca)和相对稳定的气温和蒸气压差下,欧洲杨比短叶松和黑云杉有较高光饱和点、同化量子产量(Φ)、在饱和PPFD下最高同化率(Pm)和较低的光补偿点(LCP).对欧洲杨树,幼龄树比老龄树有较高光合能力,且生长季早期光合能力比后期高.欧洲杨和短叶松的气孔导度(gs)随PPFD增加而增加.但黑云杉gs不受PPFD影响.在高光强下(PPFD>1 000 μmol*m-2s-1),欧洲杨幼树被光叶片比曝光叶片表现较低的净二氧化碳同化率(A)、gs和暗呼吸(Rd).短叶松和黑云杉Pm、Φ和Rd没有统计上差异.在高光强下,当气温从15℃增至35℃时,欧洲杨A和gs增加,黑云杉的降低,而短叶松没有明显变化.欧洲杨A和gs最高值的适宜的气温是24℃～29℃,短叶松是22℃～28 ℃,黑云杉是21℃～27℃.VPD明显影响欧洲杨、短叶松和黑云杉的气体交换,A和gs 均随VPD降低而增高.短叶松和黑云杉当年生树枝A通常比一年龄和二年龄树枝低.两个针叶树种一年龄和二年龄树枝的气体交换没有明显差异.A-Ci反应的斜率(即羧化效率(CE))取决于PPFD、树种和树龄.一般情况下,CE遵循以下模式:欧洲杨>胶杨>榛子>短叶松, 欧洲杨幼树>老树.总的结果表明尽管Ci、Ta和VPD改变光合作用效率,但光是最主要的因子 .在高光强下,影响气体交换的环境因子是气温和蒸气压差.