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Volume 219, Issue 4, December 2021
Perspectives
The pushback against state interference in science: how Lysenkoism tried to suppress Genetics and how it was eventually defeated
Lysenkoism hugely damaged biology in the USSR and served as an important example of a number of similar processes in other areas of science. New evidence has recently become available about its history. Here, Ptushenko describes the remarkable efforts of mathematicians, physicists, and chemists to reanimate and rehabilitate genetics and ‘non-Michurinist’ biology as a whole.
Investigation
Experimental Technologies and Resources
CeLINC, a fluorescence-based protein–protein interaction assay in Caenorhabditis elegans
Gene Expression
Two promoters integrate multiple enhancer inputs to drive wild-type knirps expression in the Drosophila melanogaster embryo
TORC1 signaling modulates Cdk8-dependent GAL gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Horvath, Hawe et al. examine regulators of Cdk8-dependent Gal4 activity in a screen for defects in the LTA response of gal3 yeast. They identify TORC1 components tor1 and tco89 and the downstream PP2A/Cdc55 phosphatase as regulators of Gal4. Additionally, genetic analysis indicates that mutations in hom3, which encodes aspartate kinase, produce defects in TOR signaling. These results demonstrate that regulation of Gal4 by phosphorylation is modulated by the TOR nutritional signaling pathway through the activity of PP2A/Cdc55.
Genetics of Complex Traits
The correlation of substitution effects across populations and generations in the presence of nonadditive functional gene action
In presence of functional non-additive gene action, substitution effects at quantitative trait loci change across genetic backgrounds. This is relevant for genomic prediction and assessing the role of epistasis in evolution. Legarra et al. analytically derive differences of substitution effects across two populations, showing that these differences are functions of: the magnitude of additive, dominance and additive by additive variance; the genetic distance of the populations; and their heterozygosity. They illustrate these differences with simulation and real-life examples from literature.