Biological adaptation, digestive disorders, and health services.
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Historical and archaeological records indicate that the Maritime and Land Silk Roads played a pivotal role in facilitating Trans-Eurasian migrations and cultural exchanges. However, the extent to which population movements or the spread of ideas shape Chinese Hui populations remains debated. We present the largest genomic resource to date, including 2,280 Hui individuals sequenced or genotyped from 30 diverse regions, to examine the genetic origins, population structure, and biological adaptations of this underrepresented group in global human genome research. We identified a detailed population structure characterized by five distinct genetic lineages of the Hui, influenced by geography and varying gene flow. The admixture history and demographic events suggest that the northwestern and northern Hui lineages emerged from demic diffusion during the Tang and Yuan Dynasties via the Land Silk Road. In contrast, the southern and island Hui lineages reflect cultural diffusion along the Maritime Silk Road, while the mixed southern-northern lineage likely developed through a combination of demic and cultural diffusion. Our findings support a hybrid model for Hui formation, indicating that both demographic processes and sociocultural transmissions contributed to their population history. We identified east-west highly differentiated variants and pre- and post-admixture adaptations in Hui genomes, demonstrating that admixture-driven adaptive or neutral variants impacted susceptibility to cardiovascular diseases and immune- and diet-related traits. These adaptive signatures include post-admixture signals of SLC24A5 and ECHDC1 in the Hui, as well as pre-admixture signals of the HLA region, BCL2A1, and KCNH8 in the East Asian source. Overall, our study suggests that Han-related genetic components helped the Hui population rapidly adapt to new local environments. Additionally, the frequency spectrum of clinically essential variants differed significantly between Hui and Han individuals, emphasizing the importance of including underrepresented populations in genomic research to promote health equity.
Cardiac hypertrophy which occurs during chronic arterial hypertension is one of the numerous examples of biological adaptation to environmental requirements. As such, it is obtained at random by trial and error, and adaptation represents the sum of various modifications in gene expression, including the shift in isomyosin or in iso-Na+,K(+)-ATPase, the decrease in beta 1-adrenergic or muscarinic receptors or in sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-ATPase densities, and the unchanged density in calcium channels and current. Some of these changes are beneficial at the cellular level but are finally detrimental for the organism as a whole, such as slowing of maximum shortening velocity (Vmax). The prolonged calcium transient is likely to be a consequence of the various modifications of the membranes phenotype and provides a rational basis for arrhythmogenicity of the hypertrophied heart. There are also detrimental modifications, such as the increased collagen concentration and vascular hypertrophy, which may result from the accompanying changes in plasma content in several hormones or peptides.
Cardiac hypertrophy due to permanent mechanical overloading is only one example among thousands of the general process of biological adaptation. The process is randomly governed and results in at least one thermodynamical benefit: to be adaptational and to induce several changes in gene expression. Some of these changes are detrimental, some can even be useless. The cascade of events which finally leads to a permanent modification of the genetic expression involves an initial signal, likely to be the stretch, a pathway which transducts the signal, and a transient change in genetic expression which transmits competence to the cell to be transformed. The permanent modifications occur at all cellular levels including the sarcomere, sarcolemma, energy metabolism, and extra-cellular matrix, but they are species-specific and differ in the ventricles and the atria.
During the evolution of many systems found in nature, both the system composition and the interactions between components will vary. Equating the dimension with the number of different components, a system which adds or deletes components belongs to a class of dynamical systems with a finite dimensional phase space of variable dimension. We present two models of biochemical systems with a variable phase space, a model of autocatalytic reaction networks in the prebiotic soup and a model of the idiotypic network of the immune system. Each model contains characteristic meta-dynamical rules for constructing equations of motion from component properties. The simulation of each model occurs on two levels. On one level, the equations of motion are integrated to determine the state of each component. On a second level, algorithms which approximate physical processes in the real system are employed to change the equations of motion. Models with meta-dynamical rules possess several advantages for the study of evolving systems. First, there are no explicit fitness functions to determine how the components of the model rank in terms of survivability. The success of any component is a function of its relationship to the rest of the system. A second advantage is that since the phase space representation of the system is always finite but continually changing, we can explore a potentially infinite phase space which would otherwise be inaccessible with finite computer resources. Third, the enlarged capacity of systems with meta-dynamics for variation allows us to conduct true evolution experiments. The modeling methods presented here can be applied to many real biological systems. In the two studies we present, we are investigating two apparent properties of adaptive networks. With the simulation of the prebiotic soup, we are most interested in how a chemical reaction network might emerge from an initial state of relative disorder. With the study of the immune system, we study the self-regulation of the network including its ability to distinguish between species which are part of the network and those which are not.
The following part of the description of adaptation to high altitude describes the geographical specifities of the relevant regions of the world. There are several factors which require an adaptive answer, such as hypoxia, temperature, terrain, nutrition etc. The terms of genetically determined and of individual adaptation are discussed, with special consideration of a duration of settlement in the main altitude regions of about ten thousand years, as well as the principles of adaptation in general, including the phenomenon of maladaptation. The problem of adaptation of animals to high altitude is reviewed in short especially in regard to mammals. The differential fertility proves to be most important in the survival of a species in high altitude as well as the individual adaptability, is the fitness which makes high altitude tolerable to newcomers.
The thermotropic behaviour of membrane phospholipids was estimated in intact cells of Bacillus subtilis. Membrane fluidity (microviscosity) of intact cells depended markedly on the ambient temperature - increase in cultivation temperature led to an increase in membrane fluidity. Estimated as anisotropy of 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene fluorescence, a 30% difference was observed when cells cultivated at 20 and 40 degrees C were compared. This lack of rigorous homeostatic control of bulk-phase lipid fluidity prompted the reevaluation of the physiological significance of the "homeoviscous adaptation" in B. subtilis.
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A total of 192 patients with Bell paralysis were studied. In 32 a technique of biofeedback training was applied to accelerate the restoration of mimetic muscles with EMG feedback. Clinical and electrophysiological data confirmed the efficiency of this technique in terms of considerably accelerated rehabilitation.
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Temperature adaptation of biological membranes was examined by comparing the fragmented sarcoplasmic reticulum preparation of goldfish acclimated to different temperatures. Membrane fluidity was estimated using the fluorescence polarization technique. There was considerable variation between preparations, but no consistent differences in fluidity were observed between 5- and 25 degrees C-acclimated goldfish, fish species adapted over an evolutionary period to arctic or desert temperatures, and rat. The fatty acid composition of the sarcoplamic reticulum preparations of differently acclimated goldfish showed differences in the proportion of mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids while the proportion of saturated fatty acids remained relatively constant. However, the fatty acid composition of sarcoplasmic reticulum phosphoglycerides became more unsaturated in the order rat, desert pupfish, arctic sculpin, which correlates with their respective environmental or body temperature. It is concluded that differences in membrane components other than fatty acids are important in determining membrane dynamic structure. The inability to demonstrate homeoviscous adaptation in sarcoplasmic reticulum is supported by other evidence suggesting that functions of the sarcoplasmic reticulum that are measured in vitro are not affected by such modifications of their phosphoglyceride fatty acid composition as occur during thermal acclimation.