Highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus clades 2.3.4, 2.3.2, and 7 are the dominant cocirculating H5N1 viruses in poultry in China. However, humans appear to be clinically susceptible mostly to the 2.3.4 virus clade. Here, we demonstrated that A549 cells and human macrophages infected with clade 2.3.4 viruses produced significantly more viruses than those infected with the other two clades...

The avalanche of next generation sequencing data has led to a rapid increase of annotated microRNAs in the last few years. Many of them are specific to individual species or rather narrow clades. A closer inspection of the current version of miRBase shows that dozens of entries conflict with other ncRNAs, in particular snoRNAs. With few exceptions, these cases show little similarities to canoni...

Several features of currently used Bayesian methods in phylogenetic analysis are discussed. The distinction between Clade-Bayes and Topology-Bayes is presented and illustrated with an empirical example. Three problems with Bayesian phylogenetic methods--exaggerated clade support, inconsistently biased priors, and the impossibility of hypothesis testing of cladograms--are shown to be the result ...

We analyze the phylogenetic position of the frontofacial fragment from Zuttiyeh, Israel. This specimen is dated to the Middle Pleistocene (the latest estimate is between 250 and 350 kyr) and is associated with the Acheulo-Yabrudian, which makes it the oldest cranium from the region. It has been previously regarded as a Neandertal, and early “anatomically modern Homo sapiens,” and a generalized ...

BACKGROUND The presence of IgG and IgM against Tat, an HIV protein important for viral replication and immune dysfunction, is associated with slow disease progression in clade B HIV-infected individuals. However, although Tat activities strictly depend on the viral clade, our knowledge about the importance of anti-Tat antibodies in non-clade B HIV infection is poor. The objective of this study ...

Gigantism and dwarfism evolve in vertebrates restricted to islands. We describe four new species in the Rhinolophus hildebrandtii species-complex of horseshoe bats, whose evolution has entailed adaptive shifts in body size. We postulate that vicissitudes of palaeoenvironments resulted in gigantism and dwarfism in habitat islands fragmented across eastern and southern Africa. Mitochondrial and n...

BACKGROUND Previous clinical efficacy trials failed to support the continued development of recombinant gp120 (rgp120) as a candidate HIV vaccine. However, the recent RV144 HIV vaccine trial in Thailand showed that a prime/boost immunization strategy involving priming with canarypox vCP1521 followed by boosting with rgp120 could provide significant, although modest, protection from HIV infectio...