Genetic determinants of ulcerative colitis include the ECM1 locus and five loci implicated in Crohn's disease

We report results of a nonsynonymous SNP scan for ulcerative colitis and identify a previously unknown susceptibility locus at ECM1. We also show that several risk loci are common to ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease (IL23R, IL12B, HLA, NKX2-3 and MST1), whereas autophagy genes ATG16L1 and IRGM, along with NOD2 (also known as CARD15), are specific for Crohn's disease. These data provide the first detailed illustration of the genetic relationship between these common inflammatory bowel diseases.     

Recommendations of the 2006 Human Variome Project meeting

Lists of variations in genomic DNA and their effects have been kept for some time and have been used in diagnostics and research. Although these lists have been carefully gathered and curated, there has been little standardization and coordination, complicating their use. Given the myriad possible variations in the estimated 24,000 genes in the human genome, it would be useful to have standard criteria for databases of variation. Incomplete collection and ascertainment of variants demonstrates a need for a universally accessible system. These and other problems led to the World Heath Organization-cosponsored meeting on June 20-23, 2006 in Melbourne, Australia, which launched the Human Variome Project. This meeting addressed all areas of human genetics relevant to collection of information on variation and its effects. Members of each of eight sessions (the clinic and phenotype, the diagnostic laboratory, the research laboratory, curation and collection, informatics, relevance to the emerging world, integration and federation and funding and sustainability) developed a number of recommendations that were then organized into a total of 96 recommendations to act as a foundation for future work worldwide. Here we summarize the background of the project, the meeting and its recommendations.     

Rotatory dispersion curves of some decalones of microbiological origin

Zusammenfassung Die Rotationsdispersionskurven einiger optisch aktiver Dekalonderivate sind gemessen worden. Ihre Amplituden (a) und die Amplitudenbeiträge (a) der Substituenten werden im Rahmen der Oktantenregel diskutiert.

---

---

Paper V of the series Optical Rotatory Dispersion. For Paper IV seeC. Djerassi andW. Klyne, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Washington, in press (1962).     

Generation time and temporal scaling of bird population dynamics

Theoretical studies have shown that variation in density regulation strongly influences population dynamics, yet our understanding of factors influencing the strength of density dependence in natural populations still is limited. Consequently, few general hypotheses have been advanced to explain the large differences between species in the magnitude of population fluctuations. One reason for this is that the detection of density regulation in population time series is complicated by time lags induced by the life history of species that make it difficult to separate the relative contributions of intrinsic and extrinsic factors to the population dynamics. Here we use population time series for 23 bird species to estimate parameters of a stochastic density-dependent age-structured model. We show that both the strength of total density dependence in the life history and the magnitude of environmental stochasticity, including transient fluctuations in age structure, increase with generation time. These results indicate that the relationships between demographic and life-history traits in birds translate into distinct population dynamical patterns that are apparent only on a scale of generations.