| 61. |
- Takala, Heikki, et al.
(författare)
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Signal amplification and transduction in phytochrome photosensors
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 509:7499, s. 245-248
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sensory proteins must relay structural signals from the sensory site over large distances to regulatory output domains. Phytochromes are a major family of red-light-sensing kinases that control diverse cellular functions in plants, bacteria and fungi(1-9). Bacterial phytochromes consist of a photosensory core and a carboxy-terminal regulatory domain(10,11). Structures of photosensory cores are reported in the resting state(12-18) and conformational responses to light activation have been proposed in the vicinity of the chromophore(19-23). However, the structure of the signalling state and the mechanism of downstream signal relay through the photosensory core remain elusive. Here we report crystal and solution structures of the resting and activated states of the photosensory core of the bacteriophytochrome from Deinococcus radiodurans. The structures show an open and closed form of the dimeric protein for the activated and resting states, respectively. This nanometre-scale rearrangement is controlled by refolding of an evolutionarily conserved 'tongue', which is in contact with the chromophore. The findings reveal an unusual mechanism in which atomic-scale conformational changes around the chromophore are first amplified into ana angstrom-scale distance change in the tongue, and further grow into a nanometre-scale conformational signal. The structural mechanism is a blueprint for understanding how phytochromes connect to the cellular signalling network.
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| 62. |
- Tobias, Joseph A, et al.
(författare)
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Species coexistence and the dynamics of phenotypic evolution in adaptive radiation.
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 506:7488, s. 359-359
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Interactions between species can promote evolutionary divergence of ecological traits and social signals, a process widely assumed to generate species differences in adaptive radiation. However, an alternative view is that lineages typically interact when relatively old, by which time selection for divergence is weak and potentially exceeded by convergent selection acting on traits mediating interspecific competition. Few studies have tested these contrasting predictions across large radiations, or by controlling for evolutionary time. Thus the role of species interactions in driving broad-scale patterns of trait divergence is unclear. Here we use phylogenetic estimates of divergence times to show that increased trait differences among coexisting lineages of ovenbirds (Furnariidae) are explained by their greater evolutionary age in relation to non-interacting lineages, and that-when these temporal biases are accounted for-the only significant effect of coexistence is convergence in a social signal (song). Our results conflict with the conventional view that coexistence promotes trait divergence among co-occurring organisms at macroevolutionary scales, and instead provide evidence that species interactions can drive phenotypic convergence across entire radiations, a pattern generally concealed by biases in age.
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| 63. |
- Wang, Kaituo, et al.
(författare)
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Structure and mechanism of Zn2+-transporting P-type ATPases
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 514:7523, s. 518-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Zinc is an essential micronutrient for all living organisms. It is required for signalling and proper functioning of a range of proteins involved in, for example, DNA binding and enzymatic catalysis(1). In prokaryotes and photosynthetic eukaryotes, Zn2+-transporting P-type ATPases of class IB (ZntA) are crucial for cellular redistribution and detoxification of Zn2+ and related elements(2,3). Here we present crystal structures representing the phosphoenzyme ground state (E2P) and a dephosphorylation intermediate (E2.P-i) of ZntA from Shigella sonnei, determined at 3.2 angstrom and 2.7 angstrom resolution, respectively. The structures reveal a similar fold to Cu+-ATPases, with an amphipathic helix at the membrane interface. A conserved electronegative funnel connects this region to the intramembranous high-affinity ion-binding site and may promote specific uptake of cellular Zn2+ ions by the transporter. The E2P structure displays a wide extracellular release pathway reaching the invariant residues at the high-affinity site, including C392, C394 and D714. The pathway closes in the E2.P-i state, in which D714 interacts with the conserved residue K693, which possibly stimulates Zn2+ release as a built-in counter ion, as has been proposed for H+-ATPases. Indeed, transport studies in liposomes provide experimental support for ZntA activity without counter transport. These findings suggest a mechanistic link between P-IB-type Zn2+-ATPases and P-III-type H+-ATPases and at the same time show structural features of the extracellular release pathway that resemble P-II-type ATPases such as the sarcoplasmic/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase(4,5) (SERCA) and Na+, K+-ATPase(6). These findings considerably increase our understanding of zinc transport in cells and represent new possibilities for biotechnology and biomedicine.
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| 64. |
- Wardle, David
(författare)
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Conservation: listen to more voices
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 516, s. 37-37
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Annan publikation (refereegranskat)
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| 65. |
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| 66. |
- Willerslev, E, et al.
(författare)
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Fifty thousand years of arctic vegetation change and megafauna diet
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 506:7486, s. 47-47
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although it is generally agreed that the Arctic flora is among the youngest and least diverse on Earth, the processes that shaped it are poorly understood. Here we present 50 thousand years (kyr) of Arctic vegetation history, derived from the first large-scale ancient DNA metabarcoding study of circumpolar plant diversity. For this interval we also explore nematode diversity as a proxy for modelling vegetation cover and soil quality, and diets of herbivorous megafaunal mammals, many of which became extinct around 10 kyr bp (before present). For much of the period investigated, Arctic vegetation consisted of dry steppe-tundra dominated by forbs (non-graminoid herbaceous vascular plants). During the Last Glacial Maximum (25–15 kyr bp), diversity declined markedly, although forbs remained dominant. Much changed after 10 kyr bp, with the appearance of moist tundra dominated by woody plants and graminoids. Our analyses indicate that both graminoids and forbs would have featured in megafaunal diets. As such, our findings question the predominance of a Late Quaternary graminoid-dominated Arctic mammoth steppe.
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| 67. |
- Yvon-Durocher, Gabriel, et al.
(författare)
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Methane fluxes show consistent temperature dependence across microbial to ecosystem scales
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - London : Nature Publishing Group. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 507:7493, s. 488-491
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Methane (CH4) is an important greenhouse gas because it has 25 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO2) by mass over a century(1). Recent calculations suggest that atmospheric CH4 emissions have been responsible for approximately 20% of Earth's warming since pre-industrial times(2). Understanding how CH4 emissions from ecosystems will respond to expected increases in global temperature is therefore fundamental to predicting whether the carbon cycle will mitigate or accelerate climate change. Methanogenesis is the terminal step in the remineralization of organic matter and is carried out by strictly anaerobic Archaea(3). Like most other forms of metabolism, methanogenesis is temperature-dependent(4,5). However, it is not yet known how this physiological response combines with other biotic processes (for example, methanotrophy(6), substrate supply(3,7), microbial community composition(8)) and abiotic processes (for example, water-table depth(9,10)) to determine the temperature dependence of ecosystem-level CH4 emissions. It is also not known whether CH4 emissions at the ecosystem level have a fundamentally different temperature dependence than other key fluxes in the carbon cycle, such as photosynthesis and respiration. Here we use meta-analyses to show that seasonal variations in CH4 emissions from a wide range of ecosystems exhibit an average temperature dependence similar to that of CH4 production derived from pure cultures of methanogens and anaerobic microbial communities. This average temperature dependence (0.96 electron volts (eV)), which corresponds to a 57-fold increase between 0 and 30 degrees C, is considerably higher than previously observed for respiration (approximately 0.65 eV)(11) and photosynthesis (approximately 0.3 eV)(12). As a result, we show that both the emission of CH4 and the ratio of CH4 to CO2 emissions increase markedly with seasonal increases in temperature. Our findings suggest that global warming may have a large impact on the relative contributions of CO2 and CH4 to total greenhouse gas emissions from aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial wetlands and rice paddies.
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| 68. |
- Ågren, Göran, et al.
(författare)
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Temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rates enhanced by microbial community response
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 513, s. 81-84+ figurer
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Soils store about four times as much carbon as plant biomass(1), and soil microbial respiration releases about 60 petagrams of carbon per year to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide(2). Short-term experiments have shown that soil microbial respiration increases exponentially with temperature(3). This information has been incorporated into soil carbon and Earth-system models, which suggest that warming-induced increases in carbon dioxide release from soils represent an important positive feedback loop that could influence twenty-first-century climate change(4). The magnitude of this feedback remains uncertain, however, not least because the response of soil microbial communities to changing temperatures has the potential to either decrease(5-7) or increase(8,9) warming-induced carbon losses substantially. Here we collect soils from different ecosystems along a climate gradient from the Arctic to the Amazon and investigate how microbial community-level responses control the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration. We find that the microbial community-level response more often enhances than reduces the mid-to long-term (90 days) temperature sensitivity of respiration. Furthermore, the strongest enhancing responses were observed in soils with high carbon-to-nitrogen ratios and in soils from cold climatic regions. After 90 days, microbial community responses increased the temperature sensitivity of respiration in high-latitude soils by a factor of 1.4 compared to the instantaneous temperature response. This suggests that the substantial carbon stores in Arctic and boreal soils could be more vulnerable to climate warming than currently predicted.
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| 69. |
- Metcalfe, Dan
(författare)
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A sink down under
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - 0028-0836. ; 509:7502, s. 566-567
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 70. |
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