Effects of gender, age, and nutrition on circadian locomotor activity rhythms in the flesh fly Sarcophaga crassipalpis.

In many animal species, circadian rhythms of behavior are not constant throughout the lifetime of the individual but rather exhibit at least some degree of plasticity. In the present study, we have examined the potential influences of gender, age, and nutrition (presence or absence of liver) on the expression of circadian locomotor activity rhythms in the flesh fly Sarcophaga crassipalpis. We found no significant differences in endogenous circadian period under constant dark conditions with respect to gender, nutrition, or age for the duration of our experiments. On the other hand, both male and female flesh flies, as expected, were predominantly diurnal under light-dark cycles, but the pattern of entrainment differed between the sexes. Females also displayed higher activity levels than males. Also, in contrast with males, female activity levels increased with age. Moreover, females exhibited an extraordinary, but transient (one to three days), departure from diurnality which we characterize as "extended dark activity" (EDA). This phenomenon appeared as a continuous bout of locomotor activity that extended at least three hours into the early half of the dark phase at levels at least twice the median of the overall locomotor activity for the individual fly. EDA occurred as an age-dependent response to liver consumption, never appearing prior to day 4 post-eclosion but, thereafter, transpiring within one or two days after a 48-h exposure to liver. These results suggest a linkage between physiological events associated with egg provisioning and locomotor activity in the anautogenous flesh fly. Furthermore, our findings identify the existence of multiple influences on the expression of circadian clock-regulated behavior.

Extensive reorganization of behavior accompanies ontogeny of aggression in male flesh flies.

Aggression, costly in both time and energy, is often expressed by male animals in defense of valuable resources such as food or potential mates. Here we present a new insect model system for the study of aggression, the male flesh fly Sarcophaga crassipalpis, and ask whether there is an ontogeny of aggression that coincides with reproductive maturity. After establishing that reproductive maturity occurs by day 3 of age (post-eclosion), we examined the behavior of socially isolated males from different age cohorts (days 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6) upon introduction, in a test arena, with another male of the same age. The results show a pronounced development of aggression with age. The change from relative indifference to heightened aggression involves a profound increase in the frequency of high-intensity aggressive behaviors between days 1 and 3. Also noteworthy is an abrupt increase in the number of statistically significant transitions involving these full-contact agonistic behaviors on day 2. This elevated activity is trimmed back somewhat by day 3 and appears to maintain a stable plateau thereafter. No convincing evidence was found for escalation of aggression nor the establishment of a dominance relationship over the duration of the encounters. Despite the fact that aggressive interactions are brief, lasting only a few seconds, a major reorganization in the relative proportions of four major non-aggressive behaviors (accounting for at least 96% of the total observation time for each age cohort) accompanies the switch from low to high aggression. A series of control experiments, with single flies in the test arenas, indicates that these changes occur in the absence of the performance of aggressive behaviors. This parallel ontogeny of aggressive and non-aggressive behaviors has implications for understanding how the entire behavioral repertoire may be organized and reorganized to accommodate the needs of the organism.

Residue propensities, discrimination and binding site prediction of adenine and guanine phosphates.

BACKGROUND: Adenine and guanine phosphates are involved in a number of biological processes such as cell signaling, metabolism and enzymatic cofactor functions. Binding sites in proteins for these ligands are often detected by looking for a previously known motif by alignment based search. This is likely to miss those where a similar binding site has not been previously characterized and when the binding sites do not follow the rule described by predefined motif. Also, it is intriguing how proteins select between adenine and guanine derivative with high specificity. RESULTS: Residue preferences for AMP, GMP, ADP, GDP, ATP and GTP have been investigated in details with additional comparison with cyclic variants cAMP and cGMP. We also attempt to predict residues interacting with these nucleotides using information derived from local sequence and evolutionary profiles. Results indicate that subtle differences exist between single residue preferences for specific nucleotides and taking neighbor environment and evolutionary context into account, successful models of their binding site prediction can be developed. CONCLUSION: In this work, we explore how single amino acid propensities for these nucleotides play a role in the affinity and specificity of this set of nucleotides. This is expected to be helpful in identifying novel binding sites for adenine and guanine phosphates, especially when a known binding motif is not detectable.

Toward integration: from quantitative biology to mathbio-biomath?

In response to the call of BIO2010 for integrating quantitative skills into undergraduate biology education, 30 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Program Directors at the 2006 HHMI Program Directors Meeting established a consortium to investigate, implement, develop, and disseminate best practices resulting from the integration of math and biology. With the assistance of an HHMI-funded mini-grant, led by Karl Joplin of East Tennessee State University, and support in institutional HHMI grants at Emory and University of Delaware, these institutions held a series of summer institutes and workshops to document progress toward and address the challenges of implementing a more quantitative approach to undergraduate biology education. This report summarizes the results of the four summer institutes (2007-2010). The group developed four draft white papers, a wiki site, and a listserv. One major outcome of these meetings is this issue of CBE-Life Sciences Education, which resulted from proposals at our 2008 meeting and a January 2009 planning session. Many of the papers in this issue emerged from or were influenced by these meetings.

SYMBIOSIS: development, implementation, and assessment of a model curriculum across biology and mathematics at the introductory level.

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." Alan Cohen (Used by permission. All rights reserved. For more information on Alan Cohen's books and programs, see (www.alancohen.com.) With the support of the East Tennessee State University (ETSU) administration and a grant from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the departments of Biological Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, and Curriculum and Instruction have developed a biology-math integrated curriculum. An interdisciplinary faculty team, charged with teaching the 18 curriculum modules, designed this three-semester curriculum, known as SYMBIOSIS. This curriculum was piloted to two student cohorts during the developmental stage. The positive feedback and assessment results of this project have given us the foundation to implement the SYMBIOSIS curriculum as a replacement for the standard biology majors curriculum at the introductory level. This article addresses the history and development of the curriculum, previous assessment results and current assessment protocol, and the future of ETSU's approach to implementing the SYMBIOSIS curriculum.