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"Alligators."
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Florida ordered to dismantle Alligator Alcatraz
A federal judge in Miami gave the state of Florida 60 days to clear out the immigrant detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz on Aug. 21, 2025.
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Trump tours Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz'
President Donald Trump visited a new immigration detention center in the Everglades on July 1 nicknamed \"Alligator Alcatraz\" and pushed for more deportations.
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Three crocodilian genomes reveal ancestral patterns of evolution among archosaurs
To provide context for the diversification of archosaurs—the group that includes crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds—we generated draft genomes of three crocodilians: Alligator mississippiensis (the American alligator), Crocodylus porosus (the saltwater crocodile), and Gavialis gangeticus (the Indian gharial). We observed an exceptionally slow rate of genome evolution within crocodilians at all levels, including nucleotide substitutions, indels, transposable element content and movement, gene family evolution, and chromosomal synteny. When placed within the context of related taxa including birds and turtles, this suggests that the common ancestor of all of these taxa also exhibited slow genome evolution and that the comparatively rapid evolution is derived in birds. The data also provided the opportunity to analyze heterozygosity in crocodilians, which indicates a likely reduction in population size for all three taxa through the Pleistocene. Finally, these data combined with newly published bird genomes allowed us to reconstruct the partial genome of the common ancestor of archosaurs, thereby providing a tool to investigate the genetic starting material of crocodilians, birds, and dinosaurs.
Journal Article
Cardiac mitochondria function in embryonic and 1-year old American alligators, Alligator mississippiensis, is not altered by hypoxic incubation or an acute anoxic challenge
Hypoxic conditions naturally occur in nests of egg laying reptiles including the American alligator,
Alligator mississippiensis
. The effects of developmental hypoxia have been delineated in several studies of this species, with changes in cardiovascular function persisting into juvenile life. However, several questions regarding the effects of developmental hypoxia remain. In this study we designed a series of experiments to quantify the effects of developmental hypoxia on permeabilized cardiac muscle fiber mitochondrial respiration, reactive oxygen species production, and response to acute anoxia in American alligators. Alligator eggs were incubated in 21% O
2
(normoxia) or 10% O
2
(hypoxia) at 30 °C beginning on day 14 of a 72-day incubation period through hatching. Animals were studied at two ages, at 90% of incubation and 1-year post hatching. Mitochondrial respiration and ROS production under leak and oxidative phosphorylation states were measured in permeabilized cardiac muscle fibers with high-resolution respirometry coupled with fluorometry. To examine the response of mitochondria to acute anoxia and subsequent reoxygenation, permeabilized cardiac muscle fibers were exposed to 20 min of anoxia, followed by reoxygenation during measurement of mitochondria respiration and ROS production. Hypoxic incubation resulted in a decrease in embryos mass which was maintained through the first year of juvenile life. Hypoxic incubation had no effect on cardiac mitochondria respiration or ROS production at either 90% of incubation or 1-year post hatching. After exposure to anoxia for 20 min, the rate of mitochondria respiration did not differ between the pre-anoxia respiration levels for all animals tested. There was no change in ROS production observed upon reoxygenation of the permeabilized cardiac muscle. Our results suggest that hypoxic incubation has little influence on cardiac myocyte mitochondrial physiology in the developing alligator and the cardiac mitochondria are resistant to acute bouts of anoxic exposure.
Journal Article
Alligators
This title offers an in-depth look at alligators, including their physical characteristics, behavior, survival, techniques, life cycle, habitat and range, and threats to other animals.
Book
Deimination Protein Profiles in Alligator mississippiensis Reveal Plasma and Extracellular Vesicle-Specific Signatures Relating to Immunity, Metabolic Function, and Gene Regulation
Alligators are crocodilians and among few species that endured the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. With long life spans, low metabolic rates, unusual immunological characteristics, including strong antibacterial and antiviral ability, and cancer resistance, crocodilians may hold information for molecular pathways underlying such physiological traits. Peptidylarginine deiminases (PADs) are a group of calcium-activated enzymes that cause posttranslational protein deimination/citrullination in a range of target proteins contributing to protein moonlighting functions in health and disease. PADs are phylogenetically conserved and are also a key regulator of extracellular vesicle (EV) release, a critical part of cellular communication. As little is known about PAD-mediated mechanisms in reptile immunology, this study was aimed at profiling EVs and protein deimination in
. Alligator plasma EVs were found to be polydispersed in a 50-400-nm size range. Key immune, metabolic, and gene regulatory proteins were identified to be posttranslationally deiminated in plasma and plasma EVs, with some overlapping hits, while some were unique to either plasma or plasma EVs. In whole plasma, 112 target proteins were identified to be deiminated, while 77 proteins were found as deiminated protein hits in plasma EVs, whereof 31 were specific for EVs only, including proteins specific for gene regulatory functions (e.g., histones). Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis revealed KEGG pathways specific to deiminated proteins in whole plasma related to adipocytokine signaling, while KEGG pathways of deiminated proteins specific to EVs included ribosome, biosynthesis of amino acids, and glycolysis/gluconeogenesis pathways as well as core histones. This highlights roles for EV-mediated export of deiminated protein cargo with roles in metabolism and gene regulation, also related to cancer. The identification of posttranslational deimination and EV-mediated communication in alligator plasma revealed here contributes to current understanding of protein moonlighting functions and EV-mediated communication in these ancient reptiles, providing novel insight into their unusual immune systems and physiological traits. In addition, our findings may shed light on pathways underlying cancer resistance, antibacterial and antiviral resistance, with translatable value to human pathologies.
Journal Article