Project description:Many insects enter a developmental arrest (diapause) that allows them to survive harsh seasonal conditions. Despite the well-established ecological significance of diapause, the molecular basis of this crucial adaptation remains largely unresolved. Sitodiplosis mosellana (Gehin), the orange wheat blossom midge (OWBM), causes serious damage to wheat throughout the northern hemisphere, and sporadic outbreaks occur in the world. Traits related to diapause appear to be important factors contributing to their rapid spread and outbreak. To better understand the diapause mechanisms of OWBM, we sequenced the transcriptome and determined the gene expression profile of this species.
Project description:The Kashmiri population is an ethno-linguistic group that resides in the Kashmir Valley in northern India. A longstanding hypothesis is that this population derives ancestry from Jewish and/or Greek sources. There is historical and archaeological evidence of ancient Greek presence in India and Kashmir. Further, some historical accounts suggest ancient Hebrew ancestry as well. To date, it has not been determined whether signatures of Greek or Jewish admixture can be detected in the Kashmiri population. Using genome-wide genotyping and admixture detection methods, we determined there are no significant or substantial signs of Greek or Jewish admixture in modern-day Kashmiris. The ancestry of Kashmiri Tibetans was also determined, which showed signs of admixture with populations from northern India and west Eurasia. These results contribute to our understanding of the existing population structure in northern India and its surrounding geographical areas.
Project description:<p>There are few studies that have characterized maternal gut microbiota and fetal methylmercury exposure, yet microbes likely modulate this relationship. The primary objective of our pilot study was to determine associations between gut microbial taxa and mercury concentrations in multiple biomarkers (stool, hair, and cord blood). Our secondary objective was to determine the contribution of gut microbial mercury methylation to stool methylmercury.</p>
Project description:Epidemiological studies link exposure to mercury with autoimmune disease. Unfortunately, in spite of considerable effort, no generally accepted mechanistic understanding of how mercury actually functions with respect to the etiology of autoimmune disease is currently available. Nevertheless, autoimmune disease often arises because of defective B cell signaling. Because B cell signaling is dependent on phosphorylation cascades, in this report, we have focused on how mercury intoxication alters phosphorylation of B cell proteins in antigen-non stimulated (tonic) mouse splenic B cells. Specifically, we utilized mass spectrometric techniques to conduct a comprehensive unbiased global analysis of the effect of mercury on the entire B cell phosphoproteome. We found that the effects were pleotropic in the sense that large numbers of pathways were impacted. However, confirming our earlier work, we found that the B cell signaling pathway stood out from the rest, in that phosphoproteins which had sites which were affected by mercury, exhibited a much higher degree of connectivity, than components of other pathways. Further analysis showed that many of these BCR pathway proteins had been previously linked to autoimmune disease. Finally, dose response analysis of these BCR pathway proteins showed STIM1_S575, and NFAT2_S259 are the two most mercury sensitive of these sites. Because STIM1_S575 controls the ability of STIM1 to regulate internal Ca2+, we speculate that STIM1 may be the initial point of disruption, where mercury interferes with B cell signaling leading to systemic autoimmunity, with the molecular effects pleiotropically propagated throughout the cell by virtue of Ca2+ dysregulation.
