Article describes how induction of high photosynthetic capacity is a key acclimation response to high light for many herbaceous dicot plants. Here, a systems biology approach was utilized to characterize the induction of high photosynthetic capacity in strongly and weakly acclimating Arabidopsis thaliana accessions.

Article describes how taxonomic profiling of ancient metagenomic samples is challenging due to the accumulation of specific damage patterns on DNA over time. The authors performed a comprehensive evaluation on simulated metagenomes representing human dental calculus microbiome, with the level of DNA damage successively raised to mimic modern to ancient metagenomes.

Article claims antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the healthcare system worldwide with the rise of emerging drug resistant infectious agents. To infer novel resistance genes, we used complete gene sets of several bacterial strains known to be susceptible or resistant to specific drugs and associated phenotypic information within a machine learning framework that enabled prioritizing genes potentially involved in resistance.

Article describes how rapid urbanization has influenced the transformation of local and global food systems, altering the availability, access to, and distribution of healthy food. Micronutrient deficiency and hunger have been exacerbated worldwide. The author's research proposes a simulation strategy to evaluate the impact of agricultural land use and crop choices on nutritional production in rapidly growing urban areas.

Article describes how postmenopausal women are severely affected by recurrent urinary tract infection (rUTI). The authors perform shotgun metagenomics and advanced culture on urine from a controlled cohort of postmenopausal women to identify urogenital microbiome compositional and function changes linked to rUTI susceptibility.

Data management plan for the grant "Elucidating Cyclic Fatty Acid Biosynthesis and Compartmentalization to Improve Cottonseed Value." Cotton is an important oilseed crop in the U.S. economy. Cotton seed and other vegetative tissues produce unusual chemicals called cyclic fatty acids that have wide-ranging potential uses from high-value industrial properties to nutrition-oriented uses. This project focuses on identifying genes that contribute to the production and storage of these high value bioproducts.

Article studying the responses of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants to a combination of high light and heat stress (HL+HS) conditions. The study reveals that Jasmonic acid (JA) plays an important role in the acclimation of plants to a combination of HL+HS.

This article is a review cataloging and contextualizing all of the plant genes currently known to be required for SNF in two model legume species, Medicago truncatula and Lotus japonicus, and two crop species, Glycine max (soybean) and Phaseolus vulgaris (common bean). The authors also briefly consider the future of SNF genetics in the era of pan-genomics and genome editing.

This article finds that the transcript profile of the laccase gene ChLAC8 parallels the accumulation of C-lignin during seed coat development. Recombinant ChLAC8 oxidizes caffeyl and sinapyl alcohols, generating their corresponding dimers or trimers in vitro, but cannot oxidize coniferyl alcohol. The authors propose a basis for this substrate preference based on molecular modeling/docking experiments. Suppression of ChLAC8 expression led to significantly reduced C-lignin content in the seed coats of transgenic Cleome plants. Feeding of 13C-caffeyl alcohol to the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) caffeic acid o-methyltransferase mutant resulted in no incorporation of 13C into C-lignin, but expressing ChLAC8 in this genetic background led to appearance of C-lignin with >40% label incorporation. These results indicate that ChLAC8 is required for C-lignin polymerization and determines lignin composition when caffeyl alcohol is available.

Article is a study that aims to identify actionable clinical and culture characteristics of IVF treatment that influence blastocyst developmental rate, with the goal of acquiring optimal success.

Article showing that knockdown Arabidopsis plants with suppressed expression of the key water-water cycle enzyme, thylakoid-attached copper/zinc superoxide dismutase (KD-SOD), are suppressed in their growth and development. This article provides e genetic evidence for the importance of the water-water cycle in protecting the photosynthetic apparatus of higher plants from photooxidative damage.

Article isolating a gene encoding cytosolic bate peroxidase (ApxI) from pea (Pisum sativum L.) and determining its nucleotide sequence.

Article using zebrafish as a model and identifies that trypsin induces an aversive response in zebrafish larvae and adult zebrafish. Results show that the trypsin activates PAR2 on keratinocytes signaling the brain, and this pathway of trypsin-induced escape response will provide a unique communication mechanism in zebrafish.

This article is a review examining the characteristics that make an animal model attractive for developmental research and explores opportunities presented by the embryo to adult continuum of alternative bird models including quail, ratites, songbirds, birds of prey, and corvids.

Article describing an approach to expand biocuration through crowdsourcing with undergraduates in the community-oriented wiki framework for GO annotation called the Gene Ontology Normal Usage Tracking System (GONUTS). This multiplies the number of high-quality annotations in international databases, enriches the coverage of the literature on normal gene function, and pushes the field in new directions.

Data management plan for the grant, "LLELA Quail Program: Quail in the Park Cities? Restoring a functional quail population to a small rangeland system in the Dallas Metroplex."

This article examining the correlation between pulmonary compliance, lung volume, and lymph flux rates in anurans. The findings of this article suggest that lymph mobilization capacity may explain some of the variation in pulmonary compliance and lung volume in anurans.

This article presents herpetofaunal observations from Limnos and Agios Efstratios, two Asia Minor continental shelf islands in the Aegean Sea. Comprehensive surveys over 88 days in total on Limnos, over a period of nine years, consisted mainly of visual encounter surveys and road cruised observations, revealed the presence of three species of amphibians and twelve species of reptiles, including two new species records for the island (Malpolon insignitus and Pelobates syriacus). The results of these surveys provide a clearer understanding of the extant herpetofauna on Limnos and Agios Efstratios and offer discussion on natural history, possible erroneous historical records and preliminary ecological understanding of the herpetofaunal assemblages residing on these islands.

Article reviews the common dysregulation of phosphatidylinositol-3 kinases (PI3K)/Akt/mTOR pathway in gastric cancer (GC) and the various types of single or dual pathway inhibitors under development that might have a superior role in GC treatment.

Article addresses the differences in evolutionary scenario, leaf anatomy, and especially C4 metabolic flow, C4 transporters, and cell-specific function deduced from recently reported cell-specific transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolic analyses of NAD-dependent malic enzyme (NAD-ME) and NADP-dependent malic enzyme (NADP-ME) subtypes.

Article examines NEET proteins and aberrant cluster release, which is implicated in a variety of human diseases, including cancer.

Article investigates basic cardiovascular physiology in the Red Junglefowl, the broiler, and the White Leghorn breeds at 90% of incubation. The authors aimed to identify breed-specific features of arterial blood pressure and heart rate as well as the physiological mechanisms regulating them. They concluded that selection for rapid growth shifts cardiovascular regulatory plasticity to emphasize mechanisms that modulate pressure, and that selection for egg-laying capacity emphasizes mechanisms that modulate heart rate.

Article describes the results of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative's efforts to sequence the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida), including green plants (Viridiplantae), glaucophytes (Glaucophyta) and red algae (Rhodophyta).

Article discusses IslandCafe, a proposed method for genomic island detection.