Cichlid fishes are famous for large, diverse and replicated adaptive radiations in the Great Lakes of East Africa. To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying cichlid phenotypic diversity, we sequenced the genomes and transcriptomes of five lineages of African cichlids: the Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), an ancestral lineage with low diversity; and four members of the East African lineage: Neolamprologus brichardi/pulcher (older radiation, Lake Tanganyika), Metriaclima zebra (recent radiation, Lake Malawi), Pundamilia nyererei (very recent radiation, Lake Victoria), and Astatotilapia burtoni (riverine species around Lake Tanganyika). We found an excess of gene duplications in the East African lineage compared to tilapia and other teleosts, an abundance of non-coding element divergence, accelerated coding sequence evolution, expression divergence associated with transposable element insertions, and regulation by novel microRNAs. In addition, we analysed sequence data from sixty individuals representing six closely related species from Lake Victoria, and show genome-wide diversifying selection on coding and regulatory variants, some of which were recruited from ancient polymorphisms. We conclude that a number of molecular mechanisms shaped East African cichlid genomes, and that amassing of standing variation during periods of relaxed purifying selection may have been important in facilitating subsequent evolutionary diversification.

Miltefosine (hexadecylphosphocholine [ HePC]) is the first orally active antileishmanial drug. Transient HePC treatment of Leishmania donovani promastigotes at 10 M significantly reduced the phosphatidylcholine content and enhanced the phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) content in parasite membranes, suggesting a partial inactivation of PE-N-methyltransferase. Phospholipase D activity did not seem to be affected by HePC. In addition, the enhancement of the lysophosphatidylcholine content could be ascribed to phospholipase A2 activation. Moreover, transient HePC treatment had no effect on the fatty acid alkyl chain length or the fatty acid unsaturation rate. Concerning sterols, we found a strong reduction of the C 24 alkylated sterol content, and the enhancement of the cholesterol content could be the result of the HePC condensation effect with sterols.