Sperm chemotaxis toward eggs before fertilization has been demonstrated in many animals and plants, and several peptides and small organic compounds acting as chemoattractants have been identified. We previously showed that sperm of the ascidians Ciona intestinalis and Ciona savignyi are activated and then attracted toward the egg by a common factor released from the egg. In this study, we puri...

Non-indigenous species (NIS) can pose a significant level of risk, through potential ecological or genetic consequences, to environments to which they are introduced. One way to characterize the overall risk posed by a NIS is to combine the probability and consequences of its establishment in a risk assessment that can be used to inform managers and policy-makers. The vase tunicate Ciona intest...

AUTHORS Camila Ferreira de Souza, Thais S. Sabedot, Tathiane M. Malta, Lindsay Stetson, Olena Morozova, Artem Sokolov, Peter W. Laird, Maciej Wiznerowicz, Antonio Iavarone, James Snyder, Ana deCarvalho, Zachary Sanborn, Kerrie L. McDonald, William A. Friedman, Daniela Tirapelli, Laila Poisson, Tom Mikkelsen, Carlos G. Carlotti Jr., Steven Kalkanis, Jean Zenklusen, Sofie R. Salama, Jill S. Barnh...

Copy number variation (CNV) is a major genetic polymorphism contributing to genetic diversity and human evolution. Clinical application of CNVs for diagnostic purposes largely depends on sufficient population CNV data for accurate interpretation. CNVs from general population in currently available databases help classify CNVs of uncertain clinical significance, and benign CNVs. Earlier studies ...

October 2006 | Volume 3 | Issue 10 | e439 Over the past decade, several scholars have advocated for international standards in medical ethics and human rights [1–3]. Others have countered that such standards risk ignoring important cultural differences in the way people conceptualize medical decision-making [4–8]. Within this debate hangs a question for international bioethics: as developing co...

The pseudoscorpion Lamprochernes savignyi (Simon, 1881) is reported in Central Europe for the first time. new record from Switzerland based on a single female specimen found compost heap Conservatory and Botanical Garden Geneva. Until now, species distributed mainly Africa, Americas, Asia, less Australia Oceania, Europe, Arabian Peninsula. fills gap distribution between Northern Anatolian A des...

Telomerase is essential for maintaining telomere length and chromosome stability in most eukaryotic organisms. The telomerase ribonucleoprotein complex consists of two essential components, the catalytic telomerase reverse transcriptase protein (TERT) and the intrinsic telomerase RNA. The sea squirts, as urochordates, occupy a key position in the phylogenetic tree of the chordates: they diverge...

Next generation sequencing holds great promise for applications of phylogeography, landscape genetics, and population genomics in wild populations of nonmodel species, but the robustness of inferences hinges on careful experimental design and effective bioinformatic removal of predictable artifacts. Addressing this issue, we use published genomes from a tunicate, stickleback, and soybean to ill...

Although cell intercalation driven by non-canonical Wnt/planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway-dependent mediolateral cell polarity is important for notochord morphogenesis, it is likely that multiple mechanisms shape the notochord as it converges and extends. Here we show that the recessive short-tailed Ciona savignyi mutation chongmague (chm) has a novel defect in the formation of a morphological...