NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Cyprus finance minister, Michalis Sarris, resigned Tuesday after less than five weeks in the job, to make way for a government investigation into how the country's economy nearly collapsed last month.
President Nicos Anastasiades accepted Sarris' resignation, which came as Cyprus finalized the details of its bailout with international creditors. Harris Georgiades, the former labor minister, will become the new head of finance.
Sarris, 66, was appointed to the position after Anastasiades' Conservatives won general elections in February, days before the island was overwhelmed by its financial crisis.
The minister, a former World Bank official who helped negotiate Cyprus' euro membership in 2008, has come under strong criticism for his handling of the bailout negotiations. On top of that, he was last year the head of Laiki Bank, one of the troubled banks at the heart of the country's financial problems.
Sarris told reporters that he decided to step down to not compromise the work of investigators.
"To ease the work of this committee, I've thought that it would be appropriate for me to put my resignation at the disposal of the president of the republic, which I did," he said. Anastasiades praised the move, hailing Sarris' political sensibility.
Earlier Tuesday, the president appointed a panel of three former supreme court judges to investigate the country's plunge to the verge of bankruptcy.
Cyprus has been given a 10 billion euro ($12.8 billion) bailout from its lenders after agreeing to overhaul its oversized banking sector flush with foreign deposits, including billions from Russia.
To secure the bailout, Cyprus had to agree that bondholders, investors and savers in the country's two biggest banks ? Bank of Cyprus and Laiki ? take a hit. Laiki, the country's second-largest lender, will be broken up with depositors with more than 100,000 euros ($128,000) taking major losses. Savers with more than 100,000 euros at the Bank of Cyprus could face losses of up to 60 percent on their savings as part of the rescue deal.
Sarris came out of retirement to take over at the helm at Laiki last year. The hope was that Sarris's experience and contacts would help woo investors and money back into the bank, which had sustained huge losses on bad Greek debt and loans. Laiki eventually asked for 1.8 billion euros in government help ? money that Cyprus didn't have. That in turn, forced the country to turn to its euro-area partners and the International Monetary Fund for a financial lifeline.
Sarris, who had been critical of the previous government's handling of the economy, quit from Laiki less than year after taking charge, saying that he was bowing to the government's wishes.
Anastasiades himself has come under scrutiny over the crisis: a local newspaper has alleged that a company apparently co-owned by one of his relatives took money out of Laiki days before the country agreed to its bailout. The president Tuesday urged the judges to kick off their probe by investigating his family's business dealings.
Meanwhile, Cypriot government spokesman Christos Stylianides said authorities were putting the finishing touches to the country's bailout agreement with officials from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF ? collectively known as the troika.
One of the conditions agreed was an extra two years, until 2018, to achieve a targeted budget surplus of 4 percent through spending cuts and tax hikes. The extension is designed to give more time for the Cypriot economy to recover. Government officials are predicting that the country's economic output will shrink by 9 this year alone.
"Without doubt, completion of the agreement with the troika should have been done much sooner in much more favorable political and economic conditions," Stylianides said. "Even with this delay, the situation is now normalized, stabilized and conditions are being created to restart the economy."
Under the terms of the deal, the country has been granted 22 years ? which includes a 10-year grace period ? to pay off the 10 billion euro bailout loan at an interest rate of 2.5 percent.
Stylianides said the troika won't have any say in how future revenues generated from the country's newfound offshore gas deposits will be used.
Not to be left out of the April 1 fun, popular keyboard app SwiftKey has today announced "SwiftKey Tilt," a new keyboard designed to offer a "whole-body typing experience." How's it work? Well, instead of typing with your thumb, simply guide a little pinball across the screen to spell out words. (And in doing so, look just as cool as the people above.)
Video's after the break. SwiftKey says the new tilt keyboard will be available today for those "inquisitive enough to find it," so be on the lookout for that, we guess.
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will strike back quickly if the North stages any attack on its territory, the new president in Seoul warned on Monday, as tensions ratcheted higher on the Korean peninsula amid shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang and the U.S. deployment of radar-evading fighter planes.
North Korea says the region is on the brink of a nuclear war in the wake of United Nations sanctions imposed for its February nuclear test and a series of joint U.S. and South Korean military drills that have included a rare U.S. show of aerial power.
North Korea said on Saturday it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea in response to what it termed the "hostile" military drills being staged in the South. But there have been no signs of unusual activity in the North's military to suggest an imminent aggression, a South Korean defense ministry official said last week.
"If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations," President Park Geun-hye told the defense minister and senior officials at a meeting on Monday.
The South has changed its rules of engagement to allow local units to respond immediately to attacks, rather than waiting for permission from Seoul.
Stung by criticism that its response to the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010 was tardy and weak, Seoul has also threatened to target North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and to destroy statues of the ruling Kim dynasty in the event of any new attack, a plan that has outraged Pyongyang.
Seoul and its ally the United States played down Saturday's statement from the official KCNA news agency as the latest in a stream of tough talk from Pyongyang.
North Korea stepped up its rhetoric in early March, when U.S. and South Korean forces began annual military drills that involved the flights of U.S. B-2 stealth bombers in a practice run, prompting the North to puts its missile units on standby to fire at U.S. military bases in the South and in the Pacific.
The United States also deployed F-22 stealth fighter jets on Sunday to take part in the drills. The F-22s were deployed in South Korea before, in 2010.
On its part, North Korea has cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS "NOT A BARGAINING CHIP"
Park's intervention came on the heels of a meeting of the North's ruling Workers Party Central Committee where leader Kim Jong-un rejected the notion that Pyongyang was going to use its nuclear arms development as a bargaining chip.
"The nuclear weapons of Songun Korea are not goods for getting U.S. dollars and they are ... (not) to be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing the (North) to disarm itself," KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.
At the meeting, Kim appointed a handful of personal confidants to the party's politburo, further consolidating his grip on power in the second full year of his reign.
Pyongyang took part in nuclear disarmament talks for five years aimed at paying it off in return for abandoning its atomic weapons program. Those talks fell apart in 2008. Some experts say the talks gave the North grounds to pursue a highly enriched uranium program that took it closer to owning a working arsenal.
Songun is the Korean word for the "Military First" policy preached by Kim's father who used it to justify the use of the impoverished state's scare resources to build a 1.2-million strong army and a weapons of mass destruction program.
CALLS FOR RESTRAINT
White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said North Korea's announcement that it was in a state of war followed a "familiar pattern" of rhetoric.
China has repeatedly called for restraint on the peninsula.
However, many in South Korea have regarded the North's willingness to keep open the Kaesong industrial zone, located just a few miles (km) north of the heavily-militarized border and operated jointly by both sides, as a sign that Pyongyang will not risk losing a lucrative source of foreign currency by mounting a real act of aggression.
The Kaesong zone is a vital source of hard currency for the North and hundreds of South Korean workers and vehicles enter daily after crossing the armed border. It was still open on Monday despite threats by Pyongyang to shut it down. Closure could also trap hundreds of South Korean workers and managers of the more than 100 firms that have factories there.
The North has previously suspended operations at the factory zone at the height of political tensions with the South, only to let it resume operations later.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Editing by David Chance, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ian Geoghegan)
FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2009 file photo, weapons and drugs seized in special joint operation conducted with the Drug Enforecement Administration against the La Familia drug cartel based out of Michoacan, Mexico and operating in San Bernardino and surrounding counties, are on display at a news conference at sheriff's headquarters in San Bernardino, Calif. Drug cartels have long been the nation?s No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, but in the past, their operatives rarely ventured beyond the border. A wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2009 file photo, weapons and drugs seized in special joint operation conducted with the Drug Enforecement Administration against the La Familia drug cartel based out of Michoacan, Mexico and operating in San Bernardino and surrounding counties, are on display at a news conference at sheriff's headquarters in San Bernardino, Calif. Drug cartels have long been the nation?s No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, but in the past, their operatives rarely ventured beyond the border. A wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
This 2009 photo provided by the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department in Lawrenceville, Ga., shows reputed cartel operative Socorro Hernandez-Rodriguez after his arrest in a suburb of Atlanta. Hernandez-Rodriguez was later convicted of sweeping drug trafficking charges. Prosecutors said he was a high-ranking figure in the La Familia cartel, sent to the U.S. to run a drug cell. His defense lawyers denied he was a major figure in the cartel. (AP Photo/Courtesy of the Gwinnett County Sheriff?s Department)
In this Feb. 14, 2013 photo, Art Bilek, executive vice president of the Chicago Crime Commission, left, announces that Joaquin ``El Chapo'' Guzman, a drug kingpin in Mexico, has been named Chicago's Public Enemy No. 1, during a news conference in Chicago. Looking on is Jack Riley, right, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Chicago and Peter Bensinger, former Administrator of the United States DEA. Ruthless drug cartels have long been the nation?s No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, but in the past, their operatives rarely ventured beyond the border. A wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
In this Dec. 11, 2012 file photo, Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Chicago, points out local Mexican drug cartel problem areas on a map in the new interagency Strike Force office in Chicago. Looking on is DEA agent Vince Balbo. The ruthless syndicates have long been the nation?s No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, but in the past, their operatives rarely ventured beyond the border. A wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
FILE - This Feb. 14, 2013 file photo, shows a poster displayed at a Chicago Crime Commission news conference in Chicago, where Joaquin ``El Chapo'' Guzman, a drug kingpin in Mexico, was named as Chicago's Public Enemy No. 1, It is first time since prohibition, when the label was created for Al Capone, that anyone else has been named Public Enemy No. 1. Ruthless drug cartels have long been the nation?s No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, but in the past, their operatives rarely ventured beyond the border. A wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
CHICAGO (AP) ? Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States ? an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits.
If left unchecked, authorities say, the cartels' move into the American interior could render the syndicates harder than ever to dislodge and pave the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as prostitution, kidnapping-and-extortion rackets and money laundering.
Cartel activity in the U.S. is certainly not new. Starting in the 1990s, the ruthless syndicates became the nation's No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, using unaffiliated middlemen to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and heroin beyond the border or even to grow pot here.
But a wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. Cartel operatives are suspected of running drug-distribution networks in at least nine non-border states, often in middle-class suburbs in the Midwest, South and Northeast.
"It's probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime," said Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office.
The cartel threat looms so large that one of Mexico's most notorious drug kingpins ? a man who has never set foot in Chicago ? was recently named the city's Public Enemy No. 1, the same notorious label once assigned to Al Capone.
The Chicago Crime Commission, a non-government agency that tracks crime trends in the region, said it considers Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even more menacing than Capone because Guzman leads the deadly Sinaloa cartel, which supplies most of the narcotics sold in Chicago and in many cities across the U.S.
Years ago, Mexico faced the same problem ? of then-nascent cartels expanding their power ? "and didn't nip the problem in the bud," said Jack Killorin, head of an anti-trafficking program in Atlanta for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "And see where they are now."
Riley sounds a similar alarm: "People think, 'The border's 1,700 miles away. This isn't our problem.' Well, it is. These days, we operate as if Chicago is on the border."
Border states from Texas to California have long grappled with a cartel presence. But cases involving cartel members have now emerged in the suburbs of Chicago and Atlanta, as well as Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Ky., and rural North Carolina. Suspects have also surfaced in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
Mexican drug cartels "are taking over our neighborhoods," Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane warned a legislative committee in February. State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan disputed her claim, saying cartels are primarily drug suppliers, not the ones trafficking drugs on the ground.
For years, cartels were more inclined to make deals in Mexico with American traffickers, who would then handle transportation to and distribution within major cities, said Art Bilek, a former organized crime investigator who is now executive vice president of the crime commission.
As their organizations grew more sophisticated, the cartels began scheming to keep more profits for themselves. So leaders sought to cut out middlemen and assume more direct control, pushing aside American traffickers, he said.
Beginning two or three years ago, authorities noticed that cartels were putting "deputies on the ground here," Bilek said. "Chicago became such a massive market ... it was critical that they had firm control."
To help fight the syndicates, Chicago recently opened a first-of-its-kind facility at a secret location where 70 federal agents work side-by-side with police and prosecutors. Their primary focus is the point of contact between suburban-based cartel operatives and city street gangs who act as retail salesmen. That is when both sides are most vulnerable to detection, when they are most likely to meet in the open or use cellphones that can be wiretapped.
Others are skeptical about claims cartels are expanding their presence, saying law-enforcement agencies are prone to exaggerating threats to justify bigger budgets.
David Shirk, of the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute, said there is a dearth of reliable intelligence that cartels are dispatching operatives from Mexico on a large scale.
"We know astonishingly little about the structure and dynamics of cartels north of the border," Shirk said. "We need to be very cautious about the assumptions we make."
Statistics from the DEA suggest a heightened cartel presence in more U.S. cities. In 2008, around 230 American communities reported some level of cartel presence. That number climbed to more than 1,200 in 2011, the most recent year for which information is available, though the increase is partly due to better reporting.
Dozens of federal agents and local police interviewed by the AP said they have identified cartel members or operatives using wiretapped conversations, informants or confessions. Hundreds of court documents reviewed by the AP appear to support those statements.
"This is the first time we've been seeing it ? cartels who have their operatives actually sent here," said Richard Pearson, a lieutenant with the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department, which arrested four alleged operatives of the Zetas cartel in November in the suburb of Okolona.
People who live on the tree-lined street where authorities seized more than 2,400 pounds of marijuana and more than $1 million in cash were shocked to learn their low-key neighbors were accused of working for one of Mexico's most violent drug syndicates, Pearson said.
One of the best documented cases is Jose Gonzalez-Zavala, who was dispatched to the U.S. by the La Familia cartel, according to court filings.
In 2008, the former taxi driver and father of five moved into a spacious home at 1416 Brookfield Drive in a middle-class neighborhood of Joliet, southwest of Chicago. From there, court papers indicate, he oversaw wholesale shipments of cocaine in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana.
Wiretap transcripts reveal he called an unidentified cartel boss in Mexico almost every day, displaying the deference any midlevel executive might show to someone higher up the corporate ladder. Once he stammered as he explained that one customer would not pay a debt until after a trip.
"No," snaps the boss. "What we need is for him to pay."
The same cartel assigned Jorge Guadalupe Ayala-German to guard a Chicago-area stash house for $300 a week, plus a promised $35,000 lump-sum payment once he returned to Mexico after a year or two, according to court documents.
Ayala-German brought his wife and child to help give the house the appearance of an ordinary family residence. But he was arrested before he could return home and pleaded guilty to multiple trafficking charges. He will be sentenced later this year.
Socorro Hernandez-Rodriguez was convicted in 2011 of heading a massive drug operation in suburban Atlanta's Gwinnett County. The chief prosecutor said he and his associates were high-ranking figures in the La Familia cartel ? an allegation defense lawyers denied.
And at the end of February outside Columbus, Ohio, authorities arrested 34-year-old Isaac Eli Perez Neri, who allegedly told investigators he was a debt collector for the Sinaloa cartel.
An Atlanta attorney who has represented reputed cartel members says authorities sometimes overstate the threat such men pose.
"Often, you have a kid whose first time leaving Mexico is sleeping on a mattress at a stash house playing Game Boy, eating Burger King, just checking drugs or money in and out," said Bruce Harvey. "Then he's arrested and gets a gargantuan sentence. It's sad."
Because cartels accumulate houses full of cash, they run the constant risk associates will skim off the top. That points to the main reason cartels prefer their own people: Trust is hard to come by in their cutthroat world. There's also a fear factor. Cartels can exert more control on their operatives than on middlemen, often by threatening to torture or kill loved ones back home.
Danny Porter, chief prosecutor in Gwinnett County, Ga., said he has tried to entice dozens of suspected cartel members to cooperate with American authorities. Nearly all declined. Some laughed in his face.
"They say, 'We are more scared of them (the cartels) than we are of you. We talk and they'll boil our family in acid,'" Porter said. "Their families are essentially hostages."
Citing the safety of his own family, Gonzalez-Zavala declined to cooperate with authorities in exchange for years being shaved off his 40-year sentence.
In other cases, cartel brass send their own family members to the U.S.
"They're sometimes married or related to people in the cartels," Porter said. "They don't hire casual labor." So meticulous have cartels become that some even have operatives fill out job applications before being dispatched to the U.S., Riley added.
In Mexico, the cartels are known for a staggering number of killings ? more than 50,000, according to one tally. Beheadings are sometimes a signature.
So far, cartels don't appear to be directly responsible for large numbers of slayings in the United States, though the Texas Department of Public Safety reported 22 killings and five kidnappings in Texas at the hands of Mexican cartels from 2010 through mid- 2011.
Still, police worry that increased cartel activity could fuel heightened violence.
In Chicago, the police commander who oversees narcotics investigations, James O'Grady, said street-gang disputes over turf account for most of the city's uptick in murders last year, when slayings topped 500 for the first time since 2008. Although the cartels aren't dictating the territorial wars, they are the source of drugs.
Riley's assessment is stark: He argues that the cartels should be seen as an underlying cause of Chicago's disturbingly high murder rate.
"They are the puppeteers," he said. "Maybe the shooter didn't know and maybe the victim didn't know that. But if you follow it down the line, the cartels are ultimately responsible."
Genetics Society of America's Genetics journal highlights for April 2013Public release date: 1-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phyllis Edelman pedelman@genetics-gsa.org 301-634-7302 Genetics Society of America
Bethesda, MDApril 1, 2013 Listed below are the selected highlights for the April 2013 issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal, Genetics. The April issue is available online at http://www.genetics.org/content/current. Please credit Genetics, Vol. 193, April 2013, Copyright 2013.
Please feel free to forward to colleagues who may be interested in these articles on a wide array of topics including methods, technology and resources; gene expression; genetics of complex traits; genome integrity and transmission; population and evolutionary genetics; cellular genetics; and, genome system biology.
ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS
Methods, Technology and Resources
1. Marker density and read depth for genotyping populations using genotyping-by-sequencing, pp. 1073-1081
Timothy M. Beissinger, Candice N. Hirsch, Rajandeep S. Sekhon, Jillian M. Foerster, James M. Johnson, German Muttoni, Brieanne Vaillancourt, C. Robin Buell, Shawn M. Kaeppler, and Natalia de Leon
Genotyping-by-sequencing enables rapid and efficient genotyping of any species, but it must be appropriately implemented to provide the desired information. This article describes what constitutes sufficient marker information for a variety of genetic studies, and tells how best to obtain that information with genotyping-by-sequencing.
Gene Expression
2. Novel sexual-cycle-specific gene silencing in Aspergillus nidulans, pp. 1149-1162
Wioletta Czaja, Karen Y. Miller, and Bruce L. Miller
Homology-dependent gene silencing operates in many fungi, plants, and animals. This article reports a novel gene silencing system in the fungus Aspergillus nidulans that is sexual-cycle-specific. Duplication of the matA gene encoding a master regulator of sexual differentiation triggers Mat-induced silencing of mating type function and aborts gametogenesis. Mat-induced silencing offers a valuable insight into genome surveillance in eukaryotes.
Genetics of Complex Traits
3. The protein chaperone HSP90 can facilitate the divergence of gene duplicates, pp. 1269-1277
Jennifer Lachowiec, Tzitziki Lemus, James H. Thomas, Patrick J. M. Murphy, Jennifer L. Nemhauser, and Christine Queitsch
Because protein chaperones facilitate folding and stability of their client proteins, clients may be free to accumulate more mutations than nonclients experiencing similar evolutionary pressures. These investigators found that a plant HSP90 client protein shows relaxed selection and hallmarks of neo- and subfunctionalization compared to its nonclient paralog. In addition, they show that systematically identified yeast HSP90 clients also tend to evolve faster than their nonclient paralogs.
Genome Integrity and Transmission
4. Limited RNA editing in exons of mouse liver and adipose, pp. 1107-1115
Sandrine Lagarrigue, Farhad Hormozdiari, Lisa J. Martin, Frdric Lecerf, Yehudit Hasin, Christoph Rau, Raffi Hagopian, Yu Xiao, Jun Yan, Thomas A. Drake, Anatole Ghazalpour, Eleazar Eskin, and Aldons J. Lusis
How prevalent is RNA editing? Several recent studies of RNA editing of exons in humans and mice reached very different conclusions. This article should quiet the controversy. Employing stringent criteria, the authors identified only 63 examples of editing in liver and 188 in adipose tissue of mice. Their results suggest that exonic RNA editing in these tissues is limited to perhaps a few hundred events.
Population and Evolutionary Genetics
5. Inferring admixture histories of human populations using linkage disequilibrium, pp. 1233-1254
Po-Ru Loh, Mark Lipson, Nick Patterson, Priya Moorjani, Joseph K. Pickrell, David Reich, and Bonnie Berger
Admixture between previously separated populations shapes patterns of genetic diversity. These investigators present new methods for analyzing data from admixed populations and show how statistics based on linkage disequilibrium can be used to construct a robust test for admixture and to infer admixture-related parameters such as dates, mixture proportions, and phylogenetic relationships. These tools are offered in a fast and flexible software packageALDERand applied to human data, yielding new insights into the admixture history of Sardinians, Pygmies, and Japanese.
Population and Evolutionary Genetics
6. Correcting coalescent analyses for panel-based SNP ascertainment, pp. 1185-1196
James R. McGill, Elizabeth A. Walkup, and Mary K. Kuhner
SNP chips only detect previously identified variants. Analyzing them as if they are fully ascertained leads to biased estimates of population size and other parameters; culling low-frequency SNPs makes the bias worse. This article offers corrections allowing accurate estimation of population parameters from panel-based and frequency-culled SNPs, and recommends strategies for SNP-based data collection and analysis.
Cellular Genetics
7. Nonself recognition through intermolecular disulfide bond formation of ribonucleotide reductase in Neurospora, pp. 1175-1183
Robert P. Smith, Kenji Wellman, Leila Haidari, Hirohisa Masuda, and Myron L. Smith
In addition to its task of manufacturing DNA nucleotides, ribonucleotide reductase has a surprising function in Neurospora crassa: nonself recognition. These investigators discovered that the flexible tail of the enzyme irreversibly crosslinks two alternative forms of the enzyme via an unusual disulfide bond. Their observation that different versions of this tail inhibit the growth of cells that carry the other allelic form offers the possibility of developing specific chemotherapeutic drugs using this system as a prototype.
Genome and Systems Biology
8. The draft genome and transcriptome of Panagrellus redivivus are shaped by the harsh demands of a free-living lifestyle, pp. 1279-1295
Jagan Srinivasan, Adler R. Dillman, Marissa G. Macchietto, Liisa Heikkinen, Merja Lakso, Kelley M. Fracchia, Igor Antoshechkin, Ali Mortazavi, Garry Wong, and Paul W. Sternberg
This article presents analysis of the draft genome sequence of a free-living nematode. It reveals striking protein family expansions that likely result from selection in a harsh environment with pathogens. For example, expansion of a eukaryotic release factor protein family suggests an ongoing evolutionary arms race with viruses and transposons. The authors describe a resource that will enable experimental analysis of interesting developmental and behavioral features of this worm, such as its gonad development and use of ascaroside social signals.
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ABOUT GENETICS: Since 1916, Genetics (http://www.genetics.org/) has covered high quality, original research on a range of topics bearing on inheritance, including population and evolutionary genetics, complex traits, developmental and behavioral genetics, cellular genetics, gene expression, genome integrity and transmission, and genome and systems biology. Genetics, a peer-reviewed, peer-edited journal of the Genetics Society of America is one of the world's most cited journals in genetics and heredity.
ABOUT GSA: Founded in 1931, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) is the professional membership organization for scientific researchers, educators, bioengineers, bioinformaticians and others interested in the field of genetics. Its nearly 5,000 members work to advance knowledge in the basic mechanisms of inheritance, from the molecular to the population level. GSA is dedicated to promoting research in genetics and to facilitating communication among geneticists worldwide through its conferences, including the biennial conference on Model Organisms to Human Biology, an interdisciplinary meeting on current and cutting edge topics in genetics research, as well as annual and biennial meetings that focus on the genetics of particular organisms, including C. elegans, Drosophila, fungi, mice, yeast, and zebrafish. GSA publishes Genetics, a leading journal in the field and an online, open-access journal, G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics. For more information about GSA, please visit http://www.genetics-gsa.org. Also follow GSA on Facebook at facebook.com/GeneticsGSA and on Twitter @GeneticsGSA.
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Genetics Society of America's Genetics journal highlights for April 2013Public release date: 1-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phyllis Edelman pedelman@genetics-gsa.org 301-634-7302 Genetics Society of America
Bethesda, MDApril 1, 2013 Listed below are the selected highlights for the April 2013 issue of the Genetics Society of America's journal, Genetics. The April issue is available online at http://www.genetics.org/content/current. Please credit Genetics, Vol. 193, April 2013, Copyright 2013.
Please feel free to forward to colleagues who may be interested in these articles on a wide array of topics including methods, technology and resources; gene expression; genetics of complex traits; genome integrity and transmission; population and evolutionary genetics; cellular genetics; and, genome system biology.
ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS
Methods, Technology and Resources
1. Marker density and read depth for genotyping populations using genotyping-by-sequencing, pp. 1073-1081
Timothy M. Beissinger, Candice N. Hirsch, Rajandeep S. Sekhon, Jillian M. Foerster, James M. Johnson, German Muttoni, Brieanne Vaillancourt, C. Robin Buell, Shawn M. Kaeppler, and Natalia de Leon
Genotyping-by-sequencing enables rapid and efficient genotyping of any species, but it must be appropriately implemented to provide the desired information. This article describes what constitutes sufficient marker information for a variety of genetic studies, and tells how best to obtain that information with genotyping-by-sequencing.
Gene Expression
2. Novel sexual-cycle-specific gene silencing in Aspergillus nidulans, pp. 1149-1162
Wioletta Czaja, Karen Y. Miller, and Bruce L. Miller
Homology-dependent gene silencing operates in many fungi, plants, and animals. This article reports a novel gene silencing system in the fungus Aspergillus nidulans that is sexual-cycle-specific. Duplication of the matA gene encoding a master regulator of sexual differentiation triggers Mat-induced silencing of mating type function and aborts gametogenesis. Mat-induced silencing offers a valuable insight into genome surveillance in eukaryotes.
Genetics of Complex Traits
3. The protein chaperone HSP90 can facilitate the divergence of gene duplicates, pp. 1269-1277
Jennifer Lachowiec, Tzitziki Lemus, James H. Thomas, Patrick J. M. Murphy, Jennifer L. Nemhauser, and Christine Queitsch
Because protein chaperones facilitate folding and stability of their client proteins, clients may be free to accumulate more mutations than nonclients experiencing similar evolutionary pressures. These investigators found that a plant HSP90 client protein shows relaxed selection and hallmarks of neo- and subfunctionalization compared to its nonclient paralog. In addition, they show that systematically identified yeast HSP90 clients also tend to evolve faster than their nonclient paralogs.
Genome Integrity and Transmission
4. Limited RNA editing in exons of mouse liver and adipose, pp. 1107-1115
Sandrine Lagarrigue, Farhad Hormozdiari, Lisa J. Martin, Frdric Lecerf, Yehudit Hasin, Christoph Rau, Raffi Hagopian, Yu Xiao, Jun Yan, Thomas A. Drake, Anatole Ghazalpour, Eleazar Eskin, and Aldons J. Lusis
How prevalent is RNA editing? Several recent studies of RNA editing of exons in humans and mice reached very different conclusions. This article should quiet the controversy. Employing stringent criteria, the authors identified only 63 examples of editing in liver and 188 in adipose tissue of mice. Their results suggest that exonic RNA editing in these tissues is limited to perhaps a few hundred events.
Population and Evolutionary Genetics
5. Inferring admixture histories of human populations using linkage disequilibrium, pp. 1233-1254
Po-Ru Loh, Mark Lipson, Nick Patterson, Priya Moorjani, Joseph K. Pickrell, David Reich, and Bonnie Berger
Admixture between previously separated populations shapes patterns of genetic diversity. These investigators present new methods for analyzing data from admixed populations and show how statistics based on linkage disequilibrium can be used to construct a robust test for admixture and to infer admixture-related parameters such as dates, mixture proportions, and phylogenetic relationships. These tools are offered in a fast and flexible software packageALDERand applied to human data, yielding new insights into the admixture history of Sardinians, Pygmies, and Japanese.
Population and Evolutionary Genetics
6. Correcting coalescent analyses for panel-based SNP ascertainment, pp. 1185-1196
James R. McGill, Elizabeth A. Walkup, and Mary K. Kuhner
SNP chips only detect previously identified variants. Analyzing them as if they are fully ascertained leads to biased estimates of population size and other parameters; culling low-frequency SNPs makes the bias worse. This article offers corrections allowing accurate estimation of population parameters from panel-based and frequency-culled SNPs, and recommends strategies for SNP-based data collection and analysis.
Cellular Genetics
7. Nonself recognition through intermolecular disulfide bond formation of ribonucleotide reductase in Neurospora, pp. 1175-1183
Robert P. Smith, Kenji Wellman, Leila Haidari, Hirohisa Masuda, and Myron L. Smith
In addition to its task of manufacturing DNA nucleotides, ribonucleotide reductase has a surprising function in Neurospora crassa: nonself recognition. These investigators discovered that the flexible tail of the enzyme irreversibly crosslinks two alternative forms of the enzyme via an unusual disulfide bond. Their observation that different versions of this tail inhibit the growth of cells that carry the other allelic form offers the possibility of developing specific chemotherapeutic drugs using this system as a prototype.
Genome and Systems Biology
8. The draft genome and transcriptome of Panagrellus redivivus are shaped by the harsh demands of a free-living lifestyle, pp. 1279-1295
Jagan Srinivasan, Adler R. Dillman, Marissa G. Macchietto, Liisa Heikkinen, Merja Lakso, Kelley M. Fracchia, Igor Antoshechkin, Ali Mortazavi, Garry Wong, and Paul W. Sternberg
This article presents analysis of the draft genome sequence of a free-living nematode. It reveals striking protein family expansions that likely result from selection in a harsh environment with pathogens. For example, expansion of a eukaryotic release factor protein family suggests an ongoing evolutionary arms race with viruses and transposons. The authors describe a resource that will enable experimental analysis of interesting developmental and behavioral features of this worm, such as its gonad development and use of ascaroside social signals.
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ABOUT GSA: Founded in 1931, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) is the professional membership organization for scientific researchers, educators, bioengineers, bioinformaticians and others interested in the field of genetics. Its nearly 5,000 members work to advance knowledge in the basic mechanisms of inheritance, from the molecular to the population level. GSA is dedicated to promoting research in genetics and to facilitating communication among geneticists worldwide through its conferences, including the biennial conference on Model Organisms to Human Biology, an interdisciplinary meeting on current and cutting edge topics in genetics research, as well as annual and biennial meetings that focus on the genetics of particular organisms, including C. elegans, Drosophila, fungi, mice, yeast, and zebrafish. GSA publishes Genetics, a leading journal in the field and an online, open-access journal, G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics. For more information about GSA, please visit http://www.genetics-gsa.org. Also follow GSA on Facebook at facebook.com/GeneticsGSA and on Twitter @GeneticsGSA.
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Posted by staff reporter Monday, April 01 - 2013 at 08:14 UAE local time (GMT+4)
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Public release date: 1-Apr-2013
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