Background Marine threespine sticklebacks colonized and adapted to brackish and freshwater environments since the last Pleistocene glacial. Throughout the Holarctic, three lateral plate morphs are observed; ...

Background Understanding the effects of habitat modification on the feeding strategies of threatened species is essential to designing effective conservation management plans. Bale monkeys (Chlorocebus ...

The genomic landscape of a hybrid species is marked by alternating regions of parental inheritance and areas of genomic constraint which form reproductive barriers. A PhD candidate at the University of Oslo has explored ...

Background The ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta) belongs to a large teleost family containing more than 600 species showing several unique evolutionary traits such as lack of stomach and hermaphroditism. ...

Skeletal muscle is a heterogeneous tissue comprised of a variety of different cell types, including the multinucleated skeletal myofiber. Although myofibers are post-mitotic, they hold a remarkable ability to adapt new ...

Background The class Diphyllatea belongs to a group of enigmatic unicellular eukaryotes that play a key role in reconstructing the morphological innovation and diversification of early eukaryotic evolution. ...

Genome-wide association studies have helped us identify a wealth of genetic variants associated with complex human phenotypes. Because most variants explain a small portion of the total phenotypic variation, however, ...

We have previously shown that aberrant promoter methylation of ZNF331 is a potential biomarker for colorectal cancer detection with high sensitivity (71%) and specificity (98%). This finding was recently confirmed by others, ...

Objectives The aetiology of several human diarrhoeas has been increasingly associated with the presence of virulence factors rather than with the bacterial species hosting the virulence genes, exemplified ...

Albumin and IgG have remarkably long serum half-lives due to pH-dependent FcRn-mediated cellular recycling that rescues both ligands from intracellular degradation. Furthermore, increase in half-lives of IgG and albumin-based ...

Background The expansion of offshore oil exploration increases the risk of marine species being exposed to oil pollution in currently pristine areas. The adverse effects of oil exposure through toxic ...

In this thesis, a general phosphoproteomics workflow was established by careful evaluation of the different steps for phosphopeptide enrichment. In addition, the application of two different collision energies for MS2 ...

Cryptic species could represent a substantial fraction of biodiversity. However, inconsistent definitions and taxonomic treatment of cryptic species prevent informed estimates of their contribution to biodiversity and ...

Background The concept of pioneer transcription factors is emerging as an essential part of the epigenetic regulation, taking place during cell development and differentiation. However, the precise molecular ...

Objective The objective of this study was to analyse intraspecific sequence variation of Atlantic cod mitochondrial DNA, based on a comprehensive collection of completely sequenced mitochondrial genomes. ...

Background Increased availability of genome assemblies for non-model organisms has resulted in invaluable biological and genomic insight into numerous vertebrates, including teleosts. Sequencing of the ...

Over the past ten years the massive use of genomic and transcriptomic technologies has revealed groundbreaking information about the genetic drivers of cancer in general. The knowledge of these drivers is not only fundamental ...

Transmembrane proteins in the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria are almost exclusively β-barrels. They are inserted into the outer membrane by a conserved and essential protein complex called the BAM (for β-barrel ...

Concentrations of dissolved organic matter (DOM) are increasing in a large number of lakes across the Northern hemisphere. This browning serves a dual role for biota by protecting against harmful ultraviolet radiation, ...

Many bacteria, both environmental and pathogenic, exhibit the property of autoaggregation. In autoaggregation (sometimes also called autoagglutination or flocculation), bacteria of the same type form multicellular clumps ...

Background Emergence of tick-borne diseases is impacting humans and livestock across the Northern Hemisphere. There are, however, large regional variations in number of cases of tick-borne diseases. Some ...

A growing body of evidence suggests that processes of upward treeline expansion and shifts in vegetation zones may occur in response to climate change. However, such shifts can be limited by a variety of non-climatic ...

Understanding the genetic basis of adaptation is one of the main enigmas of evolutionary biology. Among vertebrates, hemoglobin has been well documented as a key trait for adaptation to different environments. Here, we ...

Background: Recent large-scale undertakings such as ENCODE and Roadmap Epigenomics have generated experimental data mapped to the human reference genome (as genomic tracks) representing a variety of functional elements ...

Breast cancers exhibit genome-wide aberrant DNA methylation patterns. To investigate how these affect the transcriptome and which changes are linked to transformation or progression, we apply genome-wide expression–methylation ...

By whole-genome sequencing of resistant mutants, a putative receptor for plantaricin JK, a two-peptide bacteriocin produced by some Lactobacillus plantarum strains, was identified in Lactobacillus plantarum NCFB 965 and ...

Crucian carp (Carassius carassius) survive without oxygen for several months, but it is unknown whether they are able to protect themselves from cell death normally caused by the absence, and particularly return, of oxygen. ...

Recent developments in the field of genomics have provided new and powerful insights into population structure and dynamics that are essential for the conservation of biological diversity. As a commercially highly valuable ...

Almost all integral membrane proteins found in the outer membranes of Gram-negative bacteria belong to the transmembrane β-barrel family. These proteins are not only important for nutrient uptake and homeostasis, but are ...

Dengue, a viral infection transmitted between people by mosquitoes, is today one of the most rapidly spreading diseases in the world. Here, we report the analyses covering 11 years (2005–2015) from the city of Guangzhou ...

The Red Queen Hypothesis proposes that perpetual co-evolution among organisms can result from purely biotic drivers. After more than four decades, there is no satisfactory understanding as to which mechanisms trigger Red ...

Resource quantity and quality are fundamental bottom-up constraints on consumers. Best understood in autotroph-based systems, co-occurrence of these constraints may be common but remains poorly studied in detrital-based ...

Tumor-associated macrophages may either promote or suppress tumor growth depending on their activation status. Interferon-γ (IFN-γ) has been identified as a key factor for inducing tumoricidal M1 phenotype in macrophages. ...

Commercial fishing generally removes large and old individuals from fish stocks, reducing mean age and age diversity among spawners. It is feared that these demographic changes lead to lower and more variable recruitment ...

We construct a detailed bioeconomic model of the Norwegian coastal cod fishery. This fishery has been open access up to the policy change during the “cod crisis” of 1989/1990. To answer to what extent the subsequent increase ...

As ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) plays a crucial role in nucleic acid metabolism, it is an important target for anticancer therapy. The thiosemicarbazone Triapine is an efficient R2-inhibitor, which has entered about 20 ...

Heightened inflammation, including expression of COX-2, is associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) pathogenesis. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that is ...

A number of lysine-specific methyltransferases (KMTs) are responsible for the post-translational modification of cellular proteins on lysine residues. Most KMTs typically recognize specific motifs in unstructured, short ...

Many cellular proteins are methylated on lysine residues and this has been most intensively studied for histone proteins. Lysine methylations on non-histone proteins are also frequent, but in most cases the functional ...

Computers are now essential in all branches of science, but most researchers are never taught the equivalent of basic lab skills for research computing. As a result, data can get lost, analyses can take much longer than ...

When a fish stock shifts from one nation to another nation, e.g., due to climate change, the nation that loses the resource has incentives to deplete it, while the other nation, receiving the resource, has incentives to ...

In the extracellular environment, the enzyme transglutaminase 2 (TG2) is involved in cell–matrix interactions through association with the extracellular matrix protein, fibronectin (FN). The 45 kDa gelatin-binding domain ...

Autophagy (macroautophagy) is a highly conserved eukaryotic degradation pathway in which cytosolic components and organelles are sequestered by specialized autophagic membranes and degraded through the lysosomal system. ...

Large herbivores gain nutritional benefits from following the sequential flush of newly emergent, high-quality forage along environmental gradients in the landscape, termed green wave surfing. Which landscape characteristics ...

Divergence-time estimation based on molecular phylogenies and the fossil record has provided insights into fundamental questions of evolutionary biology. In Bayesian node dating, phylogenies are commonly time calibrated ...

Supplemental feeding for ungulates is a widespread practice in many human-dominated landscapes across Europe and North America, mainly intended to seasonally support populations. Surprisingly, little consideration was given ...

Warming-induced range shifts along elevational and latitudinal gradients have been observed in several species from various taxa. The mobility and behavioral plasticity of large endothermic mammals, however, complicate the ...

Rab7a, a small GTPase of the Rab family, is localized to late endosomes and controls late endocytic trafficking. The discovery of several Rab7a interacting proteins revealed that Rab7a function is closely connected to ...

Caspases are key enzymes responsible for mediating apoptotic cell death. Across species, caspase‐2 is the most conserved caspase and stands out due to unique features. Apart from cell death, caspase‐2 also regulates ...

Studying herbal products derived from local and traditional knowledge and their value chains is one of the main challenges in ethnopharmacology. The majority of these products have a long history of use, but non-harmonized ...

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common non-cutaneous cancer in men. The androgen receptor (AR), a ligand-activated transcription factor, constitutes the main drug target for advanced cases of the disease. However, a ...

Ameloblastin (AMBN), an important component of the self-assembled enamel extra cellular matrix, contains several in silico predicted phosphorylation sites. However, to what extent these sites actually are phosphorylated ...

Shiga toxins consist of an A-moiety and five B-moieties able to bind the neutral glycosphingolipid globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) on the cell surface. To intoxicate cells efficiently, the toxin A-moiety has to be cleaved by ...

The neonatal crystallizable fragment receptor (FcRn) is responsible for maintaining the long half-life and high levels of the two most abundant circulating proteins, albumin and IgG. In the latter case, the protective ...

Throughout life animals learn to recognize cues that signal danger and instantaneously initiate an adequate threat response. Memories of such associations may last a lifetime and far outlast the intracellular molecules ...

An international workshop on marine integrated contaminant monitoring (ICON) was organised to test a framework on integrated environmental assessment and simultaneously assess the status of selected European marine areas. ...

1. Many northern freshwaters are currently experiencing a pronounced ‘browning’, that is an increase in terrestrially derived dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Chromophoric DOC offers protection against photodamage by absorbing ...

Dab (Limanda limanda) and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) were collected from coastal and offshore locations in the Baltic (dab only), North Sea (haddock from one location only) and Iceland. Blood was analysed for DNA ...

This paper reports a full assessment of results from ICON, an international workshop on marine integrated contaminant monitoring, encompassing different matrices (sediment, fish, mussels, gastropods), areas (Iceland, North ...

Biological effects measurements in fish and blue mussel are fundamental in marine environmental monitoring. Nevertheless, currently used biomarkers may be confounded by basic physiological phenomena, such as growth, ...

Many herbal products have a long history of use, but there are increasing concerns over product efficacy, safety and quality in the wake of recent cases exposing discrepancies between labeling and constituents. When it ...

PSL1a is a lectin from the mushroom Polyporus squamosus that binds to sialylated glycans and glycoconjugates with high specificity and selectivity. In addition to its N-terminal carbohydrate-binding domain, PSL1a possesses ...

Mass mortality events caused by pulse anthropogenic or environmental perturbations (e.g., extreme weather, toxic spills or epizootics) severely reduce the abundance of a population in a short time. The frequency and impact ...

Background Natural transformation enables acquisition of adaptive traits and drives genome evolution in prokaryotes. Yet, the selective forces responsible for the evolution and maintenance of natural ...

Transition zones between mountain forests and treeless tundra, i.e. treeline ecotones, are characterized by great regional variety. In this paper, we discuss the biodiversity in various trophic levels in treeline ecotones ...

Histopathology is a widely used approach to evaluate effects of endocrine-active chemicals in the thyroid. However, effects at an ultrastructural level have hardly been examined in fish thyroids. In the present study, ...

Background Anthrax is a globally distributed disease affecting primarily herbivorous mammals. It is caused by the soil-dwelling and spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. The dormant B. anthracis spores ...

Chromosomal rearrangements such as inversions can play a crucial role in maintaining polymorphism underlying complex traits and contribute to the process of speciation. In Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), inversions of several ...

Wild caught North Sea saithe Pollachius virens were monitored for growth, sex steroid profiles and oocyte development pre‐spawning and measured for egg size and group fecundity during the spawning season in the laboratory. ...

Sister group relations of Ethiopian species of Anthericum and Chlorophytum and variation patterns in the C. gallabatense and C. comosum complexes are studied using molecular phylogenetic analyses, morphometrics, and scanning ...

Activation of EGF-R and PDGF-R triggers autophosphorylation and the recruitment of Eps15 and Hrs. These two endosomal proteins are important for specific receptor sorting. Hrs is recruiting ubiquitinated receptors to early ...

Sperm morphological traits are highly variable among species and are commonly thought to evolve by post-copulatory sexual selection. However, little is known about the evolutionary dynamics of sperm morphology, and whether ...

Background Postzygotic isolation in the form of reduced viability and/or fertility of hybrids may help maintain species boundaries in the face of interspecific gene flow. Past hybridization events between ...

Background Teleosts are exposed to a broad range of external stimuli, which may be either of acute or chronic nature. The larval phase of certain fish species offer a unique opportunity to study the ...

Background Many wingless ectoparasites have a limited capacity for active movement and are therefore primarily dependent on hitchhiking on their hosts for transportation. The distribution of the tick Ixodes ...

Background Mice lacking glycosylated lysosomal membrane protein (Glmp gt/gt mice) have liver fibrosis as the predominant phenotype due to chronic liver injury. The Glmp gt/gt mice grow and reproduce at the same rate as ...

Recent studies suggest that previous estimates of mesopelagic biomasses are severely biased, with the new, higher estimates underlining the need to unveil behaviourally mediated coupling between shallow and deep ocean ...

Background Bergmann’s rule proposes that animals in cold habitats will be larger than those in warm habitats. This prediction has been tested thoroughly at the intraspecific level, but few studies have ...

Phytoplankton acclimates to irradiance by regulating the cellular content of light-harvesting complexes, which are nitrogen (N) rich and phosphorus (P) poor. Irradiance is thus hypothesised to influence the cellular N : P ...

This study compares the structure of eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) meadows and associated food webs in two eelgrass habitats in Denmark, differing in exposure, connection to the open sea, nutrient enrichment and water ...

Increased concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), often labelled “browning”, is a current trend in northern, particularly boreal, freshwaters. The browning has been attributed to the recent reduction in sulphate ...

The tendency of ectotherms to get larger in the cold (Bergmann clines) has potentially great implications for individual performance and food web dynamics. The mechanistic drivers of this trend are not well understood, ...

Background The deer ked (Lipoptena cervi) is an ectoparasite on cervids that has invaded large parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland during recent decades. During their host-seeking flight activity, the adult ...

Habitat fragmentation is a growing problem worldwide. Particularly in river systems, numerous dams and weirs hamper the movement of a wide variety of species. With the aim to preserve connectivity for fish, many barriers ...

Background Translocation of native species and introduction of non-native species are potentially harmful to the existing biota by introducing e.g. diseases, parasites and organisms that may negatively ...

Infectious salmon anaemia virus (ISAV) is an orthomyxovirus infecting salmonid fish. The virus is adapted to low temperature and has a replication optimum between 10–15 °C. In this study the subcellular localization and ...

Background Studying how trophic traits and niche use are related in natural populations is important in order to understand adaptation and specialization. Here, we describe trophic trait diversity in ...

Lactobacillus plantarum produces a number of antimicrobial peptides (bacteriocins) that mostly target closely related bacteria. Although bacteriocins are important for the ecology of these bacteria, very little is known ...

Divergent sexual selection within allopatric populations may result in divergent sexual phenotypes, which can act as reproductive barriers between populations upon secondary contact. This hypothesis has been most tested ...

Background In marine fish species, where pelagic egg and larvae drift with ocean currents, population structure has been suggested to be maintained by larval retention due to hydrographic structuring and ...

Large herbivore consumption of forage is known to affect vegetation composition and thereby ecosystem functions. It is thus important to understand how diet composition arises as a mixture of individual variation in ...

The whole-genome duplication 80 million years ago of the common ancestor of salmonids (salmonid-specific fourth vertebrate whole-genome duplication, Ss4R) provides unique opportunities to learn about the evolutionary fate ...

Signalling systems activated under stress are highly conserved, suggesting adaptive effects of their function. Pathologies arising from continued activation of such systems may represent a mismatch between evolutionary ...

In the threespine stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus model system, phenotypes are often classified into three morphs according to lateral plate number. Morph identity has been shown to be largely genetically determined, ...