Science & Publishing

The prolonged and severe seizures suffered by those with pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy (PDE) can lead to brain dysfunction and death if not treated. Standard antiepileptic drugs are typically ineffective for people with this rare genetic disorder—instead, they need high doses of vitamin B6 in the form of pyridoxine or pyridoxal 5′-phosphate. But even with this supplementation,…

Choosing a mate is hardly random. During courtship in the diploid phase of our life cycle, we often employ elaborate rituals and biological signals to attract and assess potential mates. But after that, we usually assume that eggs and sperm choose each other randomly at fertilization. Or so says Mendel’s First Law. But sometimes, Joseph…

In the 1980s, scientists first noticed circles of DNA interspersed among the normally linear chromosomes of eukaryotic nuclei. Little is known about these molecules, which are called extrachromosomal circular DNA (eccDNA). Variation in eccDNA appears to be biologically significant; development of an organism often comes with increased numbers of eccDNA, for example, and certain types…

The yeast Candida albicans lives on and even inside many of us. Most of the time, its silent presence goes unnoticed, but this fungus can turn on its host, causing infections ranging in severity from annoying to life-threatening. For the yeast to become pathogenic, some of the C. albicans must transform from small, round cells…

Check out the December issue of G3! Table of Contents Software and Data Resources ARSDA: A New Approach for Storing, Transmitting and Analyzing Transcriptomic Data Xuhua Xia G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics December 2017 7: 3839-3848; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.117.300271 rSalvador: An R Package for the Fluctuation Experiment Qi Zheng G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics December 2017 7: 3849-3856; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.117.300120 Investigations…

Check out the December issue of GENETICS by looking at the highlights or the full table of contents! ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS Gene Conversion Facilitates Adaptive Evolution on Rugged Fitness Landscapes, pp. 1577–1589 Philip Bittihn and Lev S. Tsimring An important question in evolutionary theory is how adaptation might be hindered on a rugged fitness landscape in the presence of strong selection that…

Check out the November issue of G3! Table of Contents Mutant Screen Report Genetic Screening for EMS-Induced Maize Embryo-Specific Mutants Altered in Embryo Morphogenesis Dale C. Brunelle, Janice K. Clark, William F. Sheridan G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics November 2017 7: 3559-3570; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.117.300293 Genomic Selection Genomic Prediction Within and Across Biparental Families: Means and Variances of Prediction Accuracy…

When you catch a nasty cold, curling up in bed to sleep may be the only activity you can manage. Sleeping in response to stress isn’t a uniquely human behavior: many other animals have the same reaction, and it’s not clear why. While the circadian sleep that follows the pattern of the clock has been…

Check out the November issue of GENETICS by looking at the highlights or the full table of contents! ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS Ethanol stimulates locomotion via a Gas-signalling pathway in IL2 neurons in Caenorhabditis elegans, pp. 1023–1039 James R. Johnson, Mark R. Edwards, Huw Davies, Daniel Newman, Whitney Holden, Rosalind E. Jenkins, Robert D. Burgoyne, Robert J. Lucas, and Jeff W. Barclay Alcohol…

Over three centuries, as many as a million enslaved people were shipped to the Colombian port of Cartagena. From this hub of the slave trade, European colonists took Africans to labor in many places across the Americas, including the gold mines of the Chocó region. Today, people from Chocó often proudly identify as Afro-Colombian, while…

When a mutation arises in an egg or sperm cell, it could be evolutionarily important. But if a mutation occurs in somatic tissue instead, the result could be cancer. Mutations in the germline and soma not only have contrasting consequences, they also arise at different rates that may reflect the balance of DNA damage and…