Explore the vast range of titles available.

Introduction: Circadian rhythms influence muscle metabolism and gene expression, suggesting that training time-of-day may shape hypertrophic and molecular adaptations. Evidence in trained individuals, however, remains limited. Objective: To compare the effects of morning versus evening resistance training on hypertrophy, performance, endocrine markers, sleep, and skeletal-muscle transcriptomics in bodybuilders. Methodology: In a randomized parallel-group trial, 112 trained males were assigned to 12 weeks of supervised training either in the morning (07:00–09:00) or evening (17:00–19:00). Primary outcome was change in vastus lateralis CSA (MRI). Secondary outcomes included lean mass (DXA), strength, hormones, sleep (actigraphy), chronotype, and RNA-seq profiling. Results: Evening training produced a greater VL-CSA increase (+8.2% vs +6.0%; p=0.04) and stronger induction of mTOR- and ribosome-related transcriptional pathways (FDR < 0.05). Chronotype moderated hypertrophic responses. Discussion: Training time influenced phenotypic and molecular adaptations, with evening sessions eliciting broader anabolic signaling. Conclusion: Evening resistance training yields modestly greater hypertrophy and distinct transcriptomic responses; aligning training with chronotype may enhance outcomes. Introducción: Los ritmos circadianos influyen en el metabolismo muscular y la expresión génica, lo que sugiere que el momento del día en que se entrena puede determinar las adaptaciones hipertróficas y moleculares. Sin embargo, la evidencia en individuos entrenados aún es limitada. Objetivo: Comparar los efectos del entrenamiento de resistencia matutino versus vespertino sobre la hipertrofia, el rendimiento, los marcadores endocrinos, el sueño y la transcriptómica del músculo esquelético en culturistas. Metodología: En un ensayo aleatorizado de grupos paralelos, 112 hombres entrenados fueron asignados a 12 semanas de entrenamiento supervisado, ya sea por la mañana (07:00–09:00) o por la tarde (17:00–19:00). El resultado primario fue el cambio en el área de sección transversal (CSA) del vasto lateral (RM). Los resultados secundarios incluyeron la masa magra (DXA), la fuerza, las hormonas, el sueño (actigrafía), el cronotipo y el perfil de ARN mediante secuenciación (RNA-seq). Resultados: El entrenamiento vespertino produjo un mayor incremento en el área de sección transversal del músculo vasto lateral (+8,2 % frente a +6,0 %; p = 0,04) y una inducción más potente de las vías de transcripción relacionadas con mTOR y los ribosomas (FDR < 0,05). El cronotipo moduló las respuestas hipertróficas. Discusión: El horario de entrenamiento influyó en las adaptaciones fenotípicas y moleculares, y las sesiones vespertinas provocaron una señalización anabólica más amplia. Conclusión: El entrenamiento de resistencia vespertino produce una hipertrofia ligeramente mayor y respuestas transcriptómicas distintas; alinear el entrenamiento con el cronotipo podría mejorar los resultados. Introdução: Os ritmos circadianos influenciam o metabolismo muscular e a expressão génica, sugerindo que o horário do treino pode determinar adaptações hipertróficas e moleculares. No entanto, as evidências em indivíduos treinados são ainda limitadas. Objectivo: Comparar os efeitos do treino de resistência matutino versus vespertino sobre a hipertrofia, o desempenho, os marcadores endócrinos, o sono e a transcriptómica do músculo esquelético em fisiculturistas. Metodologia: Num ensaio clínico randomizado de grupos paralelos, 112 homens treinados foram alocados a 12 semanas de treino supervisionado, no período da manhã (07:00–09:00) ou no período da noite (17:00–19:00). O desfecho primário foi a alteração da área de secção transversa (AST) do vasto lateral (RM). Os desfechos secundários incluíram massa magra (DXA), força, hormonas, sono (actigrafia), cronotipo e perfil de RNA por sequenciação (RNA-seq). Resultados: O treino noturno resultou num maior aumento da área de secção transversal do músculo vasto lateral (+8,2% vs. +6,0%; p = 0,04) e numa indução mais potente das vias de transcrição relacionadas com o mTOR e os ribossomas (FDR < 0,05). O cronotipo modulou as respostas hipertróficas. Discussão: O horário do treino influenciou as adaptações fenotípicas e moleculares, com as sessões noturnas a desencadearem uma sinalização anabólica mais abrangente. Conclusão: O treino de resistência noturno produz uma hipertrofia ligeiramente maior e respostas transcriptómicas distintas; alinhar o treino com o cronotipo pode melhorar os resultados.

Panama disease of banana, caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, is a serious constraint both to the commercial production of banana and cultivation for subsistence agriculture. Previous work has indicated that F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense consists of several clonal lineages that may be genetically distant. In this study we tested whether lineages of the Panama disease pathogen have a monophyletic origin by comparing DNA sequences of nuclear and mitochondrial genes. DNA sequences were obtained for translation elongation factor 1 alpha and the mitochondrial small subunit ribosomal RNA genes for F. oxysporum strains from banana, pathogenic strains from other hosts and putatively nonpathogenic isolates of F. oxysporum. Cladograms for the two genes were highly concordant and a partition-homogeneity test indicated the two datasets could be combined. The tree inferred from the combined dataset resolved five lineages corresponding to \"F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense\" with a large dichotomy between two taxa represented by strains most commonly isolated from bananas with Panama disease. The results also demonstrate that the latter two taxa have significantly different chromosome numbers. F. oxysporum isolates collected as nonpathogenic or pathogenic to other hosts that have very similar or identical elongation factor 1 alpha and mitochondrial small subunit genotypes as banana pathogens were shown to cause little or no disease on banana. Taken together, these results indicate Panama disease of banana is caused by fungi with independent evolutionary origins

The coding region of the matK gene and two intergenic spacers, psbA-trnH and trnL(UAA)-trnF(GAA), of cpDNA were sequenced to study phylogenetic relationships of 32 Paeonia species. In the psbA-trnH intergenic spacer, short sequences bordered by long inverted repeats have undergone inversions that are often homoplasious mutations. Insertion/deletions found in the two intergenic spacers, mostly resulting from slipped-strand mispairing, provided relatively reliable phylogenetic information. The matK coding region, evolving more rapidly than the trnL-trnF spacer and more slowly than the psbA-trnH spacer, produced the best resolved phylogenetic tree. The matK phylogeny was compared with the phylogeny obtained from sequences of internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA. A refined hypothesis of species phylogeny of section Paeonia was proposed by considering the discordance between the nuclear and cpDNA phylogenies to be results of hybrid speciation followed by inheritance of cpDNA of one parent and fixation of ITS sequences of another parent. The Eurasian and western North American disjunct distribution of the genus may have resulted from interruption of the continuous distribution of ancestral populations of extant peony species across the Bering land bridge during the Miocene. Pleistocene glaciation may have played an important role in triggering extensive reticulate evolution within section Paeonia and shifting distributional ranges of both parental and hybrid species

Comparisons between insular and continental radiations have been hindered by a lack of reliable estimates of absolute diversification rates in island lineages. We took advantage of rate-constant rDNA sequence evolution and an \"external\" calibration using paleoclimatic and fossil data to determine the maximum age and minimum diversification rate of the Hawaiian silversword alliance (Compositae), a textbook example of insular adaptive radiation in plants. Our maximum-age estimate of 5.2 +/- 0.8 million years ago for the most recent common ancestor of the silversword alliance is much younger than ages calculated by other means for the Hawaiian drosophilids, lobelioids, and honeycreepers and falls approximately within the history of the modern high islands (less than or equal to 5.1 +/- 0.2 million years ago). By using a statistically efficient estimator that reduces error variance by incorporating clock-based estimates of divergence times, a minimum diversification rate for the silversword alliance was estimated to be 0.56 +/- 0.17 species per million years. This exceeds average rates of more ancient continental radiations and is comparable to peak rates in taxa with sufficiently rich fossil records that changes in diversification rate can be reconstructed

Wolbachia, a maternally transmitted microorganism of the Rickettsial family, is known to cause cytoplasmic incompatibility, parthenogenesis, or feminization in various insect species. The bacterium-host relationship is usually symbiotic: incompatibility between infected males and uninfected females can enhance reproductive isolation and evolution, whereas the other mechanisms enhance progeny production. We have discovered a variant Wolbachia carried by Drosophila melanogaster in which this cozy relationship is abrogated. Although quiescent during the fly's development, it begins massive proliferation in the adult, causing widespread degeneration of tissues, including brain, retina, and muscle, culminating in early death. Tetracycline treatment of carrier flies eliminates both the bacteria and the degeneration, restoring normal life-span. The 16s rDNA sequence is over 98% identical to Wolbachia known from other insects. Examination of laboratory strains of D. melanogaster commonly used in genetic experiments reveals that a large proportion actually carry Wolbachia in a nonvirulent form, which might affect their longevity and behavior

Many bacteria live only within animal cells and infect hosts through cytoplasmic inheritance. These endosymbiotic lineages show distinctive population structure, with small population size and effectively no recombination. As a result, endosymbionts are expected to accumulate mildly deleterious mutations. If these constitute a substantial proportion of new mutations, endosymbionts will show (i) faster sequence evolution and (ii) a possible shift in base composition reflecting mutational bias. Analyses of 16S rDNA of five independently derived endosymbiont clades show, in every case, faster evolution in endosymbionts than in free-living relatives. For aphid endosymbionts (genus Buchnera), coding genes exhibit accelerated evolution and unusually low ratios of synonymous to nonsynonymous substitutions compared to ratios for the same genes for enterics. This concentration of the rate increase in nonsynonymous substitutions is expected under the hypothesis of increased fixation of deleterious mutations. Polypeptides for all Buchnera genes analyzed have accumulated amino acids with codon families rich in A+T, supporting the hypothesis that substitutions are deleterious in terms of polypeptide function. These observations are best explained as the result of Muller's ratchet within small asexual populations, combined with mutational bias. In light of this explanation, two observations reported earlier for Buchnera, the apparent loss of a repair gene and the overproduction of a chaperonin, may reflect compensatory evolution. An alternative hypothesis, involving selection on genomic base composition, is contradicted by the observation that the speedup is concentrated at nonsynonymous sites.

Polyploidy is a prominent process in plant evolution; yet few data address the question of whether homeologous sequences evolve independently subsequent to polyploidization. We report on ribosomal DNA (rDNA) evolution in five allopolyploid (AD genome) species of cotton (Gossypium) and species representing their diploid progenitors (A genome, D genome). Sequence data from the internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS1 and ITS2) and the 5.8S gene indicate that rDNA arrays are homogeneous, or nearly so, in all diploids and allopolyploids examined. Because these arrays occur at four chromosomal loci in allopolyploid cotton, two in each subgenome, repeats from different arrays must have become homogenized by interlocus concerted evolution. Southern hybridization analysis combined with copy-number estimation demonstrate that this process has gone to completion in the diploids and to completion or near-completion in all allopolyploid species and that it most likely involves the entire rDNA repeat. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrates that interlocus concerted evolution has been bidirectional in allopolyploid species--i.e., rDNA from four polyploid lineages has been homogenized to a D genome repeat type, whereas sequences from Gossypium mustelinum have concerted to an A genome repeat type. Although little is known regarding the functional significance of interlocus concerted evolution of homeologous sequences, this study demonstrates that the process occurs for tandemly repeated sequences in diploid and polyploid plants. That interlocus concerted evolution can occur bidirectionally subsequent to hybridization and polyploidization has significant implications for phylogeny reconstruction, especially when based on rDNA sequences

The internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA of 33 species of genus Paeonia (Paeoniaceae) were sequenced. In section Paeonia, different patterns of nucleotide additivity were detected in 14 diploid and tetraploid species at sites that are variable in the other 12 species of the section, suggesting that reticulate evolution has occurred. Phylogenetic relationships of species that do not show additivity, and thus ostensibly were not derived through hybridization, were reconstructed by parsimony analysis. The taxa presumably derived through reticulate evolution were then added to the phylogenetic tree according to additivity from putative parents. The study provides an example of successfully using ITS sequences to reconstruct reticulate evolution in plants and further demonstrates that the sequence data could be highly informative and accurate for detecting hybridization. Maintenance of parental sequences in the species of hybrid origin is likely due to slowing of concerted evolution caused by the long generation time of peonies. The partial and uneven homogenization of parental sequences displayed in nine species of putative hybrid origin may have resulted from gradients of gene conversion. The documented hybridizations may have occurred since the Pleistocene glaciations. The species of hybrid origin and their putative parents are now distantly allopatric. Reconstruction of reticulate evolution with sequence data, therefore, provides gene records for distributional histories of some of the parental species.

Homobasidiomycete fungi display many complex fruiting body morphologies, including mushrooms and puffballs, but their anatomical simplicity has confounded efforts to understand the evolution of these forms. We performed a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of homobasidiomycetes, using sequences from nuclear and mitochondrial ribosomal DNA, with an emphasis on understanding evolutionary relationships of gilled mushrooms and puffballs. Parsimony-based optimization of character states on our phylogenetic trees suggested that strikingly similar gilled mushrooms evolved at least six times, from morphologically diverse precursors. Approximately 87% of gilled mushrooms are in a single lineage, which we call the \"euagarics.\" Recently discovered 90 million-year-old fossil mushrooms are probably euagarics, suggesting that (i) the origin of this clade must have occurred no later than the mid-Cretaceous and (ii) the gilled mushroom morphology has been maintained in certain lineages for tens of millions of years. Puffballs and other forms with enclosed spore-bearing structures (Gasteromycetes) evolved at least four times. Derivation of Gasteromycetes from forms with exposed spore-bearing structures (Hymenomycetes) is correlated with repeated loss of forcible spore discharge (ballistospory). Diverse fruiting body forms and spore dispersal mechanisms have evolved among Gasteromycetes. Nevertheless, it appears that Hymenomycetes have never been secondarily derived from Gasteromycetes, which suggests that the loss of ballistospory has constrained evolution in these lineages

Cultivation methods have contributed to our present knowledge about the presence and diversity of microbes in naturally occurring communities. However, it is well established that only a small fraction of prokaryotes have been cultivated by standard methods and, therefore, the prokaryotes that are cultivated may not reflect the composition and diversity within those communities. Of the two prokaryotic phylogenetic domains, Bacteria and Archaea, members of the former have been shown to be ubiquitous in nature, with ample evidence of vast assemblages of uncultured organisms. There is also now increasingly compelling evidence that the Archaea, which were once thought to occupy a limited number of environments, are also globally widespread. Here we report the use of molecular phylogenetic techniques, which are independent of microbial cultivation, to conduct an assessment of Archaea in a soil microbial community. Small subunit ribosomal RNA genes of Archaea were amplified from soil and cloned. Phylogenetic and nucleotide signature analyses of these cloned small subunit ribosomal RNA gene sequences revealed a cluster of Archaea from a soil microbial community that diverge deeply from the crenarchaeotal line of descent and has the closest affiliation to the lineage of planktonic Archaea. The identification and phylogenetic classification of this archaeal lineage from soil contributes to our understanding of the ecological significance of Archaea as a component of microbial communities in non-extreme environments