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Determining the adaptive potential of foundation species, such as reef-building corals, is urgent as the oceans warm and coral populations decline. Theory predicts that corals may adapt to climate change via selection on standing genetic variation. Yet, corals face not only rising temperatures but also novel diseases. We studied the interaction between two major stressors affecting colonies of the threatened coral, Acropora cervicornis: white-band disease and high water temperature. We determined that 27% of A. cervicornis were disease resistant prior to a thermal anomaly. However, disease resistance was largely lost during a bleaching event because of more compromised coral hosts or increased pathogenic dose/virulence. There was no tradeoff between disease resistance and temperature tolerance; disease susceptibility was independent of Symbiodinium strain. The present study shows that susceptibility to temperature stress creates an increased risk in disease-associated mortality, and only rare genets may maintain or gain infectious disease resistance under high temperature. We conclude that A. cervicornis populations in the lower Florida Keys harbor few existing genotypes that are resistant to both warming and disease. The staghorn coral was once prevalent throughout the Florida Reef Tract. However, the last few decades have seen a substantial reduction in the coral population because of disease outbreaks and increasing ocean temperatures. The staghorn coral shows no evidence of natural recovery, and so has been the focus of restoration efforts throughout much of the Florida region. Why put the time and effort into growing corals that are unlikely to survive within environmental conditions that continue to deteriorate? One reason is that the genetic make-up – the genotype – of some corals makes them more resilient to certain threats. However, there could be tradeoffs associated with these resilient traits. For example, a coral may be able to tolerate heat, but may easily succumb to disease. Previous studies have identified some staghorn coral genotypes that are resistant to an infection called white-band disease. The influence of high water temperatures on the ability of the coral to resist this disease was not known. There also remained the possibility that more varieties of coral might show similar disease resistance. To investigate Muller et al. conducted two experiments exposing staghorn coral genotypes to white-band diseased tissue before and during a coral bleaching event. Approximately 25% of the population of staghorn tested was resistant to white-band disease before the bleaching event. When the corals were exposed to white-band disease during bleaching, twice as much of the coral died. Two out of the 15, or 13%, of the coral genotypes tested were resistant to the disease even while bleached. Additionally, the level of bleaching within the coral genotypes was not related to how easily they developed white-band disease, suggesting that there are no direct tradeoffs between heat tolerance and disease resistance. These results suggest that there are very hardy corals, created by nature, already in existence. Incorporating these traits thoughtfully into coral restoration plans may increase the likelihood of population-based recovery. The Florida Reef Tract is estimated to be worth over six billion dollars to the state economy, providing over 70,000 jobs and attracting millions of tourists into Florida each year. However, much of these ecosystem services will be lost if living coral is not restored within the reef tract. The results presented by Muller et al. emphasize the need for maintaining high genetic diversity while increasing resiliency when restoring coral. They also emphasize that disease resistant corals, even when bleached, already exist and may be an integral part of the recovery of Florida’s reef tract.

Escalating environmental threats to coral reefs coincides with global advancements in coral restoration programs. To improve long-term efficacy, practitioners must consider incorporating genotypes resilient to ocean warming and disease while maintaining genetic diversity. Identifying such genotypes typically occurs under long-term exposures that mimic natural stressors, but these experiments can be time-consuming, costly, and introduce tank effects, hindering scalability for hundreds of nursery genotypes used for outplanting. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of the acute Coral Bleaching Automated Stress System (CBASS) against long-term exposures on the bleaching response of Acropora cervicornis , the dominant restoration species in Florida’s Coral Reef. Comparing bleaching metrics, F v / F m , chlorophyll, and host protein, we observed similar responses between the long-term heat and the CBASS treatment of 34.3 °C, which was also the calculated bleaching threshold. This suggests the potential of CBASS as a rapid screening tool, with 90% of restoration genotypes exhibiting similar bleaching tolerances. However, variations in acute bleaching phenotypes arose from measurement timing and experiment heat accumulation, cautioning against generalizations solely based on metrics like F v / F m . These findings identify the need to better refine the tools necessary to quickly and effectively screen coral restoration genotypes and determine their relative tolerance for restoration interventions.

By voluntarily directing attention to a specific region of a visual scene, we can improve our perception of stimuli at that location 1 . This ability to focus attention upon specific zones of the visual field has been described metaphorically as a moveable spotlight or zoom lens that facilitates the processing of stimuli within its ‘beam’ 2 , 3 . A long-standing controversy has centred on the question of whether the spotlight of spatial attention has a unitary beam or whether it can be divided flexibly to disparate locations 2 , 4 , 5 , 6 . Evidence supporting the unitary spotlight view has come from numerous behavioural 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 and electrophysiological 11 , 12 studies. Recent experiments, however, indicate that the spotlight of spatial attention may be divided between non-contiguous zones of the visual field for very brief stimulus exposures (<100 ms) 13 , 14 . Here we use an electrophysiological measure of attentional allocation (the steady-state visual evoked potential) to show that the spotlight may be divided between spatially separated locations (excluding interposed locations) over more extended time periods. This spotlight division appears to be accomplished at an early stage of visual-cortical processing.

Along the Florida reef tract, stony-coral-tissue-loss disease (SCTLD) has caused extensive mortality of more than 20 scleractinian coral species. The pathogen is unknown, but its epizoology indicates that the disease, facilitated by water currents, has progressed linearly along the tract, affecting reefs at the scale of hundreds of kilometers. To inform ongoing disease mitigation efforts, we examined the small-scale spatial and temporal epidemiology of SCTLD. We established a series of sites in the middle Florida Keys at offshore and inshore locations that had not yet shown signs of SCTLD. We then conducted high-frequency monitoring from February 2018 through September 2019 and documented the onset of SCTLD and its progression through the sites. SCTLD was first observed at one site during early February 2018 and by early March 2018 all sites showed signs of the disease. A dynamic multistate model suggested that disease transmission was independent of coral density and found little evidence of a positive association between a colony showing signs of SCTLD and the condition or distance to its neighboring colonies. The model did, however, indicate that the probability of a colony showing signs of SCTLD increased with increasing colony surface area. These results are consistent with the water-borne transmission of a pathogen that progressed rapidly through the survey area. However, by the end of our survey the progression of SCTLD had slowed, particularly at inshore sites. Many affected colonies no longer exhibited progressive tissue mortality typical of the disease, suggesting the existence of differentially resilient colonies or coral communities, meriting their use for future coral rescue and propagation and disease research. These results are useful for refining ongoing SCTLD mitigation strategies, particularly by determining when disease rates are sufficiently low for direct intervention efforts designed to arrest disease progression on individual coral colonies will be most effective.

This paper presents the latest international descriptive epidemiological data for invasive breast cancer amongst women, including incidence, survival and mortality, as well as information on mammographic screening programmes. Almost 1.4 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide in 2008 and approximately 459,000 deaths were recorded. Incidence rates were much higher in more developed countries compared to less developed countries (71.7/100,000 and 29.3/100,000 respectively, adjusted to the World 2000 Standard Population) whereas the corresponding mortality rates were 17.1/100,000 and 11.8/100,000. Five-year relative survival estimates range from 12% in parts of Africa to almost 90% in the United States, Australia and Canada, with the differential linked to a combination of early detection, access to treatment services and cultural barriers. Observed improvements in breast cancer survival in more developed parts of the world over recent decades have been attributed to the introduction of population-based screening using mammography and the systemic use of adjuvant therapies. The future worldwide breast cancer burden will be strongly influenced by large predicted rises in incidence throughout parts of Asia due to an increasingly “westernised” lifestyle. Efforts are underway to reduce the global disparities in survival for women with breast cancer using cost-effective interventions.

The stony-coral-tissue-loss disease has recently caused widespread loss of coral along the Florida reef tract. Yet little is known about where, when, and why this coral disease outbreak occurred. In the absence of a definitive pathogen, it is essential to characterize the ecology of the disease and document the spatio-temporal dynamics of the outbreak. Here, we investigate the epizootiology of the stony-coral-tissue-loss disease at multiple spatial and temporal scales along the Florida reef tract from May 2014 to December 2017. We used spatial interpolation to characterize the disease hotspots, Ripley’s K analysis to examine contagion, a spatio-temporal model to assess rates of spread, and a Bayesian model to examine ecological and environmental covariates that may have influenced the occurrence and severity of the outbreak. Our results show that the disease affected reefs at the scale of hundreds of kilometers, with significant clusters of up to 140 km. The epizootic clearly followed a contagion model, suggesting that the disease was highly contagious. The rate of spread of the epizootic was linear and moved slightly faster to the north (~ 100 m d-1) than to the south (~ 92 m d-1). The difference in rate of spread between the north and south direction may indicate currents facilitated transmission. The analyzed dataset showed that the epizootic affected at least 19 coral species and that deep and diverse sites were at greater risk of the disease than shallow and low diversity sites.

Chenopodium quinoa is a halophytic pseudocereal crop that is being cultivated in an ever-growing number of countries. Because quinoa is highly resistant to multiple abiotic stresses and its seed has a better nutritional value than any other major cereals, it is regarded as a future crop to ensure global food security. We generated a high-qual- ity genome draft using an inbred line of the quinoa cultivar Real. The quinoa genome experienced one recent genome duplication about 4.3 million years ago, likely reflecting the genome fusion of two Chenopodium parents, in addition to the y paleohexaploidization reported for most eudicots. The genome is highly repetitive （64.5% repeat content） and contains 54 438 protein-coding genes and 192 microRNA genes, with more than 99.3% having orthologons genes from glycophylic species. Stress tolerance in quinoa is associated with the expansion of genes involved in ion and nu- trient transport, ABA homeostasis and signaling, and enhanced basal-level ABA responses. Epidermal salt bladder ceils exhibit similar characteristics as trichomes, with a significantly higher expression of genes related to energy import and ABA biosynthesis compared with the leaf lamina. The quinoa genome sequence provides insights into its exceptional nutritional value and the evolution of halophytes, enabling the identification of genes involved in salinity tolerance, and providing the basis for molecular breeding in quinoa.

Outbreaks of coral diseases are one of the greatest threats to reef corals in the Caribbean, yet the mechanisms that lead to coral diseases are still largely unknown. Here we examined the spatial-temporal dynamics of white-pox disease on Acropora palmata coral colonies of known genotypes. We took a Bayesian approach, using Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation algorithms, to examine which covariates influenced the presence of white-pox disease over seven years. We showed that colony size, genetic susceptibility of the coral host, and high-water temperatures were the primary tested variables that were positively associated with the presence of white-pox disease on A. palmata colonies. Our study also showed that neither distance from previously diseased individuals, nor colony location, influenced the dynamics of white-pox disease. These results suggest that white-pox disease was most likely a consequence of anomalously high water temperatures that selectively compromised the oldest colonies and the most susceptible coral genotypes.

Mutations in CDCA7, the SNF2 family protein HELLS (LSH), or the DNA methyltransferase DNMT3b cause immunodeficiency–centromeric instability–facial anomalies (ICF) syndrome. While it has been speculated that DNA methylation defects cause this disease, little is known about the molecular function of CDCA7 and its functional relationship to HELLS and DNMT3b. Systematic analysis of how the cell cycle, H3K9 methylation, and the mitotic kinase Aurora B affect proteomic profiles of chromatin in Xenopus egg extracts revealed that HELLS and CDCA7 form a stoichiometric complex on chromatin, in a manner sensitive to Aurora B. Although HELLS alone fails to remodel nucleosomes, we demonstrate that the HELLS–CDCA7 complex possesses nucleosome remodeling activity. Furthermore, CDCA7 is essential for loading HELLS onto chromatin, and CDCA7 harboring patient ICF mutations fails to recruit the complex to chromatin. Together, our study identifies a unique bipartite nucleosome remodeling complex where the functional remodeling activity is split between two proteins and thus delineates the defective pathway in ICF syndrome.

Peri-implantitis may result in the loss of dental implants. Cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP) was suggested to promote re-osseointegration, decrease antimicrobial burden, and support wound healing. However, the long-term risk assessment of CAP treatment in the oral cavity has not been addressed. Treatment with two different CAP devices was compared against UV radiation, carcinogen administration, and untreated conditions over 12 months. Histological analysis of 406 animals revealed that repeated CAP exposure did not foster non-invasive lesions or squamous cell carcinoma (SCCs). Carcinogen administration promoted non-invasive lesions and SCCs. Molecular analysis by a qPCR screening of 144 transcripts revealed distinct inflammatory profiles associated with each treatment regimen. Interestingly, CAP treatment of carcinogen-challenged mucosa did not promote but instead left unchanged or reduced the proportion of non-invasive lesions and SCC formation. In conclusion, repeated CAP exposure of murine oral mucosa was well tolerated, and carcinogenic effects did not occur, motivating CAP applications in patients for dental and implant treatments in the future.