Holmantownsend0176

The eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is an important proxy for examining historical trajectories of coastal ecosystems. Measurement of ~40,000 oyster shells from archaeological sites along the Atlantic Coast of the United States provides a long-term record of oyster abundance and size. The data demonstrate increases in oyster size across time and a nonrandom pattern in their distributions across sites. We attribute this variation to processes related to Native American fishing rights and environmental variability. Mean oyster length is correlated with total oyster bed length within foraging radii (5 and 10 km) as mapped in 1889 and 1890. These data demonstrate the stability of oyster reefs despite different population densities and environmental shifts and have implications for oyster reef restoration in an age of global climate change.The biological utilization of dissolved silicon (DSi) influences ocean ecology and biogeochemistry. In the deep sea, hexactinellid sponges are major DSi consumers that remain poorly understood. Their DSi consumption departs from the Michaelis-Menten kinetics of shallow-water demosponges and appears particularly maladapted to incorporating DSi from the modest concentrations typical of the modern ocean. Why did sponges not adapt to the shrinking DSi availability that followed diatom expansion some 100 to 65 million years ago? We propose that sponges incorporate DSi combining passive (aquaglyceroporins) and active (ArsB) transporters, while only active transporters (SITs) operate in diatoms and choanoflagellates. Evolution of greater silicon transport efficiency appears constrained by the additional role of aquaglyceroporins in transporting essential metalloids other than silicon. We discuss the possibility that lower energy costs may have driven replacement of ancestral SITs by less efficient aquaglyceroporins, and discuss the functional implications of conservation of aquaglyceroporin-mediated DSi utilization in vertebrates.Nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR) are major repair pathways of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). The pathway choice of HR and NHEJ is tightly regulated in cellular response to DNA damage. Here, we demonstrate that the interaction of TIP60 with DNA-PKcs is attenuated specifically in S phase, which facilitates HR pathway activation. SUMO2 modification of TIP60 K430 mediated by PISA4 E3 ligase blocks its interaction with DNA-PKcs, whereas TIP60 K430R mutation recovers its interaction with DNA-PKcs, which results in abnormally increased phosphorylation of DNA-PKcs S2056 in S phase and marked inhibition of HR efficiency, but barely affects NHEJ activity. TIP60 K430R mutant cancer cells are more sensitive to radiation and PARP inhibitors in cancer cell killing and tumor growth inhibition. Collectively, coordinated regulation of TIP60 and DNA-PKcs facilitates HR pathway choice in S-phase cells. TIP60 K430R mutant is a potential target of radiation and PARPi cancer therapy.Aromatic rearrangement reactions are useful tools in the organic chemist's toolbox when generating uncommon substitution patterns. However, it is difficult to precisely translocate a functional group in (hetero) arene systems, with the exception of halogen atoms in a halogen dance reaction. Here, we describe an unprecedented "ester dance" reaction a predictable translocation of an ester group from one carbon atom to another on an aromatic ring. Specifically, a phenyl carboxylate substituent can be shifted from one carbon to an adjacent carbon on a (hetero) aromatic ring under palladium catalysis to often give a thermodynamically favored, regioisomeric product with modest to good conversions. The obtained ester moiety can be further converted to various aromatic derivatives through the use of classic and state-of-the-art transformations including amidation, acylations, and decarbonylative couplings.Multiple daily insulin injections have been a common regimen worldwide for the management of diabetes mellitus but involved potential safety and compliance problems. In this context, a single integrated microneedle patch (IMP) with multiple release kinetics is demonstrated to provide better physiologic insulin coverage for postprandial glycemic excursion in a convenient and pain-free manner. The combination of rapid separating technique and multiple individual microneedle arrays provides the combined ability to efficiently deliver insulin into the skin within seconds and to independently control insulin release kinetics. In addition, the diabetic rats with a traditional breakfast-lunch-dinner lifestyle exhibit obvious intraday glucose fluctuations, while the hypoglycemic experiments indicate that the IMP is capable of simultaneous bolus and sustained insulin delivery to closely match the glucose rise that occurs in response to meals and efficiently minimize excessive fluctuations, suggesting the potential of this new transdermal insulin delivery system as substitutes for multiple daily injections.Mouse photoreceptors are electrically coupled via gap junctions, but the relative importance of rod/rod, cone/cone, or rod/cone coupling is unknown. Furthermore, while connexin36 (Cx36) is expressed by cones, the identity of the rod connexin has been controversial. We report that FACS-sorted rods and cones both express Cx36 but no other connexins. We created rod- and cone-specific Cx36 knockout mice to dissect the photoreceptor network. In the wild type, Cx36 plaques at rod/cone contacts accounted for more than 95% of photoreceptor labeling and paired recordings showed the transjunctional conductance between rods and cones was ~300 pS. When Cx36 was eliminated on one side of the gap junction, in either conditional knockout, Cx36 labeling and rod/cone coupling were almost abolished. We could not detect direct rod/rod coupling, and cone/cone coupling was minor. Rod/cone coupling is so prevalent that indirect rod/cone/rod coupling via the network may account for previous reports of rod coupling.Proteins, lipids, and sugars establish animal form and function. selleckchem However, the preservation of biological signals in fossil organic matter is poorly understood. Here, we used high-resolution in situ Raman microspectroscopy to analyze the molecular compositions of 113 Phanerozoic metazoan fossils and sediments. Proteins, lipids, and sugars converge in composition during fossilization through lipoxidation and glycoxidation to form endogenous N-, O-, and S-heterocyclic polymers. Nonetheless, multivariate spectral analysis reveals molecular heterogeneities The relative abundance of glycoxidation and lipoxidation products distinguishes different tissue types. Preserved chelating ligands are diagnostic of different modes of biomineralization. Amino acid-specific fossilization products retain phylogenetic information and capture higher-rank metazoan relationships. Molecular signals survive in deep time and provide a powerful tool for reconstructing the evolutionary history of animals.