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Volume 14, Issue 2, February 2024
Investigation
The genome of Salmacisia buchloëana, the parasitic puppet master pulling strings of sexual phenotypic monstrosities in buffalograss
Massive contractions of myotonic dystrophy type 2-associated CCTG tetranucleotide repeats occur via double-strand break repair with distinct requirements for DNA helicases
Evolutionary diversity of the control of the azole response by Tra1 across yeast species
The effect of developmental variation on expression QTLs in a multi parental Caenorhabditis elegans population
van Eijnatten et al. use a multi-parental RIL population of the model organism C. elegans to explore the impact of developmental age variation on eQTL mapping patterns. By employing dynamical eQTL mapping, they separate developmental age variation from genotypic variation to explain variation in gene expression levels. Their results show that many eQTLs are caused by developmental variation, that most trans-bands are associated with developmental age, and that dynamical eQTL mapping detects additional eQTLs not found with classical eQTL mapping.
Mutations in SLC45A2 lead to loss of melanin in parrot feathers
Simplified homology-assisted CRISPR for gene editing in Drosophila
The contributions of DNA accessibility and transcription factor occupancy to enhancer activity during cellular differentiation
A Drosophila screen identifies a role for histone methylation in ER stress preconditioning
Transvection between nonallelic genomic positions in Drosophila
A nematode model to evaluate microdeletion phenotype expression
Modeling the effects of consanguinity on autosomal and X-chromosomal runs of homozygosity and identity-by-descent sharing
Active natural compounds perturb the melanoma risk-gene network
The main genetic locus associated with the evolution of gamecocks is centered on ISPD
Low-pass sequencing plus imputation using avidity sequencing displays comparable imputation accuracy to sequencing by synthesis while reducing duplicates
Identification of loci conferring resistance to 4 foliar diseases of maize
Multiple disease resistance is of interest to plant breeders as it can accelerate breeding for disease resistance. Qiu et al. analyze four maize introgression line populations to identify regions conferring resistance to multiple fungal diseases and the bacterial disease Goss’s wilt. They report several regions associated with resistance to multiple diseases, as well as several small effect QTL for Goss’s wilt resistance. Their data suggest that resistance to Goss’s wilt is highly quantitative.
Gene dosage adaptations to mtDNA depletion and mitochondrial protein stress in budding yeast
Genomic loci involved in sensing environmental cues and metabolism affect seasonal coat shedding in Bos taurus and Bos indicus cattle
Durbin et al. identify genomic loci associated with differences in the seasonal phenotype of hair shedding in cattle, finding that nutritional plane, hours of daylight, and temperature interact to affect this trait. However, genomic loci related to metabolism and light sensing have the largest impact on the degree of hair shedding. The authors also report prototype genomic predictions of hair shedding. This large genetic analyses of a phenological trait provides insight for both agriculture production and basic science.
Distinct neurogenetic mechanisms establish the same chemosensory valence state at different life stages in Caenorhabditis elegans
Heritable epigenetic variation facilitates long-term maintenance of epigenetic and genetic variation
A marker weighting approach for enhancing within-family accuracy in genomic prediction
Within-family genomic prediction is fundamental in plant breeding. Montesinos-López et al. propose a method that combines the Adversarial Validation and the Boruta feature selection methods. This AB method builds a weighted genomic relationship matrix that is implemented with the Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Predictor (GBLUP) model. The authors compare the proposed AB method with the GBLUP model (C method) (no weighted genomic relationship matrix) and find that ABAB outperforms GBLUP in terms of genomic prediction accuracy.
