Significance Sea stars inhabiting the Northeast Pacific Coast have recently experienced an extensive outbreak of wasting disease, leading to their degradation and disappearance from many coastal areas. In this paper, we present evidence that the cause of the disease is transmissible from disease-affected animals to apparently healthy individuals, that the disease-causing agent is a virus-sized microorganism, and that the best candidate viral taxon, the sea star-associated densovirus (SSaDV), is in greater abundance in diseased than in healthy sea stars.
Sea star wasting disease (SSWD) describes a suite of symptoms reported in asteroids of the North American Pacific Coast. We performed a metatranscriptomic survey of asymptomatic and symptomatic sunflower star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) body wall tissues to understand holobiont gene expression in tissues affected by SSWD. Metatranscriptomes were highly variable between replicate libraries, and most differentially expressed genes represented either transcripts of associated microorganisms (particularly Pseudomonas and Vibrio relatives) or low-level echinoderm transcripts of unknown function. However, the pattern of annotated host functional genes reflects enhanced apoptotic and tissue degradation processes and decreased energy metabolism, while signalling of death-related proteins was greater in asymptomatic and symptomatic tissues. Our results suggest that the body wall tissues of SSWD-affected asteroids may undergo structural changes during disease progression, and that they are stimulated to undergo autocatalytic cell death processes.
Echinoderms are important constituents of marine ecosystems, where they may influence the recruitment success of benthic flora and fauna, and are important consumers of detritus and plant materials. There are currently no described viruses of echinoderms. We used a viral metagenomic approach to examine viral consortia within three urchins -Colobocentrotus atratus, Tripneustes gratilla and Echinometra mathaei -which are common constituents of reef communities in the Hawaiian archipelago. Metagenomic libraries revealed the presence of bacteriophages and densoviruses (family Parvoviridae) in tissues of all three urchins. Densoviruses are known typically to infect terrestrial and aquatic arthropods. Urchin-associated densoviruses were detected by quantitative PCR in all tissues tested, and were also detected in filtered suspended matter (.0.2 mm) from plankton and in sediments at several locations near to where the urchins were collected for metagenomic analysis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of echinoderm-associated viruses, which extends the known host range of parvoviruses.
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, killing 10-20% of oceanic biomass each day. However, despite their ecological importance, viruses inhabiting many echinoderms, cnidarians, urochordates, and marine arthropods have not been investigated with significant breadth. We conducted a broad survey of the viral assemblages inhabiting these hosts through viral metagenomics and phylogenetic analysis. Results indicate that different invertebrate groups harbor distinct viral assemblages. Interestingly, however, no significant difference is observed between the viral assemblages of echinoderms and arthropods. These similarities and differences may be due to cellular, immunological, geographical, and ecological differences amongst host phyla, although mechanistic determination is beyond the purview of this work. Additionally, we present evidence of the detection of several viral families that have not yet been observed in these hosts. Finally, we confirm the result of previous investigation that method of library construction significantly biases metagenomic results by altering the representation of ssDNA and dsDNA viral genomes.
ObjectivesFrom the first description by Leo Kanner [1], autism has been an enigmatic neurobehavioral phenomenon. The new genetic/genomic technologies of the past decade have not been as productive as originally anticipated in unveiling the mysteries of autism. The specific etiology of the majority of cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is unknown, although numerous genetic/genomic variants and alterations of diverse cellular functions have been reported. Prompted by this failure, we have investigated whether the metabolomics approach might yield results which could simultaneously lead to a blood-based screening/diagnostic test and to treatment options. Methods Plasma samples from a clinically well-defined cohort of 100 male individuals, ages 2-16+ years, with ASD and 32 age-matched typically developing (TD) controls were subjected to global metabolomic analysis. ResultsWe have identified more than 25 plasma metabolites among the approximately 650 metabolites analyzed, representing over 70 biochemical pathways, that can discriminate children with ASD as young as 2 years from children that are developing typically. The discriminating power was greatest in the 2-10 year age group and weaker in older age groups. The initial findings were validated in a second cohort of 83 children, males and females, ages 2-10 years, with ASD and 76 age and gender-matched TD children. The discriminant metabolites were associated with several key biochemical pathways suggestive of potential contributions of increased oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation and immune dysregulation in ASD. Further, targeted quantitative analysis of a subset of discriminating metabolites using tandem mass spectrometry provided a reliable laboratory method to detect children with ASD. Conclusion Metabolic profiling appears to be a robust technique to identify children with ASD ages 2-10 years and provides insights into the altered metabolic pathways in ASD, which could lead to treatment strategies. ObjectivesTo uncover novel traits associated with nicotine and alcohol use genetics, we performed a phenome-wide association study in a large multi-ethnic cohort. Methods We investigated 7,688 African-Americans (AFR), 1,133 Asian-Americans (ASN), 14,081 European-Americans (EUR), and 3,492 Hispanic-Americans (HISP) from the Women's Health Initiative, analyzing risk alleles located in the CHRNA5-CHRNA3 locus (rs8034191, rs1051730, rs12914385, rs2036527, and rs16969968) for nicotine-related traits and ADH1B (rs1229984 and rs2066702) and ALDH2 (rs671) for alcohol-related traits with respect to anthropometric characteristics, dietary habits, social status, psychological circumstances, reproductive history, health conditions, and nicotine-and alcohol-related traits. ResultsThe investigated loci resulted associated with novel traits: rs1229984 were associated with family income (p=4.1*10 −12 ), having a pet (p=6.5*10 −11 ), partner education (p=1.8*10 −10 ), "usually expect the best" (p=2.4*10 −7), "felt calm and peaceful" (p=2.6*10 ), and num...
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