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In today's society, environmental thinking is high on the agenda. New environmental requirements from, among other things, the EU require that buildings that are built must contribute as little emissions as possible. But even older existing buildings can be remedied as heating buildings requires energy. The purpose of the report is to study how much energy usage can be reduced by adapting apartment buildings, built from the 1930s to the 2000s, to modern standards. The report is limited to apartment buildings in brick or concrete built from 1930 to 2000 in Sweden. Books and internet sources are searched to find what typical constructions might have looked like in relevant years and to find input data for calculations. The results are reached through calculations in Excel. The calculations show that the U-value, or heat transfer coefficient, for the six selected construction types falls between 0.54 and 1.49 watts per square meter kelvin. With these values, a rough calculation can be made to see how much the electricity cost would be if these buildings were left untouched today. In order to lower the U-value, additional insulation on the roof and walls and the replacement of windows and doors are investigated. These U-values are adapted so that they match what U-value BBR recommends for different building parts. Then a new Uvalue can be calculated for the six selected constructions and the new values land between 0.33 and 0.58 watts per square meter kelvin. If you look at the percentage reduction, it is between 33 and 62 percent. The largest reduction occurs in the older brick house and the structure that benefits the least is the apartment building built with concrete elements. The additional insulation required to achieve the new values is also calculated. For walls, it is between 90 and 188 millimeters thick, and for the ceiling it is between 105 and 245 millimeters thick. The conclusion is that it is possible to reduce the energy usage of old buildings by lowering, I dagens samhälle står miljötänk högt på agendan. Nya miljökrav från bland annat EU kräver att byggnader som byggs ska bidra med så små utsläpp som möjligt. Men även äldre befintliga byggnader går att åtgärda då uppvärmning av byggnader kräver energi. Syftet med rapporten är att studera hur mycket man kan sänka energianvändningen genom att anpassa flerbostadshus, byggda från 1930-talet till 2000-talet, efter moderna standarder. Rapporten avgränsar sig till flerbostadshus i tegel eller betong byggda från år 1930 till år 2000 i Sverige. Böcker och internetkällor söks igenom för att hitta hur typiska konstruktioner kan ha sett ut under relevanta årtal och för att hitta indata till beräkningar. Resultaten nås genom beräkningar i Excel. Av beräkningarna fås fram att U-värdet, eller värmegenomgångskoefficient, för de sex valda konstruktionstyperna landar mellan 0,54 och 1,49 watt per kvadratmeterkelvin. Med dessa värden kan en grov beräkning göras för att se hur mycket elkostnaden kan vara om dessa byggnader fanns oåtgärdade idag. För att sänka U-värdet undersöks tilläggsisolering på tak och vägg samt byte av fönster och dörrar. Dessa U-värden anpassas så att de matchar vad BBR rekommenderar för U-värde för olika byggnadsdelar. Då kan ett nytt U-värde beräknas för de sex valda konstruktionerna och de nya värdena landar mellan 0,33 och 0,58 watt per kvadratmeterkelvin. Tittar man på den procentuella minskningen är den mellan 33 och 62 procent. Den största minskningen sker i det äldre tegelhuset och den konstruktion som gynnas minst är skivhuset byggt med betongelement. Även den tilläggsisolering som krävs för att uppnå de nya värdena beräknas. För väggar landar den mellan 90 och 188 millimeter tjock, och för taket är den mellan 105 och 245 millimeter tjock. Slutsatsen är att det går att sänka energianvändningen på gamla byggnader genom att sänka Uvärdet och syftet med att se hur många procent det kan sänkas då konstruktionerna anpassas efter dagens krav på energianvändning

Summary: Nanometa Live presents a user-friendly interface designed for real-time metagenomic data analysis and pathogen identification utilizing Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ MinION and Flongle flow cells. It offers an efficient workflow and graphical interface for the visualization and interpretation of metagenomic data as it is being generated. Key features include automated BLAST validation, streamlined handling of custom Kraken2 databases, and a simplified graphical user interface for enhanced user experience. Nanometa Live is particularly notable for its capability to run without constant internet or server access once installed, setting it apart from similar tools. It provides a comprehensive view of taxonomic composition and facilitates the detection of user-defined pathogens or other species of interest, catering to both researchers and clinicians. Availability and implementation: Nanometa Live has been implemented as a local web application using the Dash framework with Snakemake handling the data processing. The source code is freely accessible on the GitHub repository at https://github.com/FOIBioinformatics/nanometa_live and it is easily installable using Bioconda. It includes containerization support via Docker and Singularity, ensuring ease of use, reproducibility, and portability.

Background: Surface raw water used as a source for drinking water production is a critical resource, sensitive to contamination. We conducted a study on Swedish raw water sources, aiming to identify mutually co-occurring metacommunities of bacteria, and environmental factors driving such patterns. Methods: The water sources were different regarding nutrient composition, water quality, and climate characteristics, and displayed various degrees of anthropogenic impact. Water inlet samples were collected at six drinking water treatment plants over 3 years, totaling 230 samples. The bacterial communities of DNA sequenced samples (n = 175), obtained by 16S metabarcoding, were analyzed using a joint model for taxa abundance. Results: Two major groups of well-defined metacommunities of microorganisms were identified, in addition to a third, less distinct, and taxonomically more diverse group. These three metacommunities showed various associations to the measured environmental data. Predictions for the well-defined metacommunities revealed differing sets of favored metabolic pathways and life strategies. In one community, taxa with methanogenic metabolism were common, while a second community was dominated by taxa with carbohydrate and lipid-focused metabolism. Conclusion: The identification of ubiquitous persistent co-occurring bacterial metacommunities in freshwater habitats could potentially facilitate microbial source tracking analysis of contamination issues in freshwater sources.

The Flexible Taxonomy Database framework provides a method for modification and merging official and custom taxonomic databases to create improved databases. Using such databases will increase accuracy and precision of existing methods to classify sequence reads.

Microorganisms are essential constituents of ecosystems. To improve our understanding of how various factors shape microbial diversity and composition in nature it is important to study how microorganisms vary in space and time. Factors shaping microbial communities in ground level air have been surveyed in a limited number of studies, indicating that geographic location, season and local climate influence the microbial communities. However, few have surveyed more than one location, at high latitude or continuously over more than a year. We surveyed the airborne microbial communities over two full consecutive years in Kiruna, in the Arctic boreal zone, and Ljungbyhed, in the Southern nemoral zone of Sweden, by using a unique collection of archived air filters. We mapped both geographic and seasonal differences in bacterial and fungal communities and evaluated environmental factors that may contribute to these differences and found that location, season and weather influence the airborne communities. Location had stronger influence on the bacterial community composition compared to season, while location and season had equal influence on the fungal community composition. However, the airborne bacterial and fungal diversity showed overall the same trend over the seasons, regardless of location, with a peak during the warmer parts of the year, except for the fungal seasonal trend in Ljungbyhed, which fluctuated more within season. Interestingly, the diversity and evenness of the airborne communities were generally lower in Ljungbyhed. In addition, both bacterial and fungal communities varied significantly within and between locations, where orders like Rhizobiales, Rhodospirillales and Agaricales dominated in Kiruna, whereas Bacillales, Clostridiales and Sordariales dominated in Ljungbyhed. These differences are a likely reflection of the landscape surrounding the sampling sites where the landscape in Ljungbyhed is more homogenous and predominantly characterized by art

Materialinsamling under fysisk ansträngning undersöks och spelas in för att senarebli till färdiga produktioner. Tillvägagångsättet uppfattas som ett verktyg vidbristande kreativitet och motivation, men har även sina brister då det är beroendeutav faktorer såsom fysisk hälsa samt miljön och omgivningens tillstånd.

Environmental perturbations induce transcriptional changes, some of which may be inherited even in the absence of the initial stimulus. Previous studies have focused on transfers through the germ-line although microbiota is also passed on to the offspring. Thus, we inspected the involvement of the gut microbiome in transgenerational inheritance of environmental exposures in Drosophila melanogaster. We grew flies in the cold versus control temperatures and compared their transcriptional patterns in both conditions as well as in their offspring. F2 flies grew in control temperature while we controlled their microbiota acquisition from either F1 sets. Transcriptional status of some genes was conserved transgenerationally, and a subset of these genes, mainly expressed in the gut, was transcriptionally dependent on the acquired microbiome. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Mutations in human Atrophin1, a transcriptional corepressor, cause dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy, a neurodegenerative disease. Drosophila Atrophin (Atro) mutants display many phenotypes, including neurodegeneration, segmentation, patterning and planar polarity defects. Despite Atros critical role in development and disease, relatively little is known about Atros binding partners and downstream targets. We present the first genomic analysis of Atro using ChIP-seq against endogenous Atro. ChIP-seq identified 1300 potential direct targets of Atro including engrailed, and components of the Dpp and Notch signaling pathways. We show that Atro regulates Dpp and Notch signaling in larval imaginal discs, at least partially via regulation of thickveins and fringe. In addition, bioinformatics analyses, sequential ChIP and coimmunoprecipitation experiments reveal that Atro interacts with the Drosophila GAGA Factor, Trithorax-like (Trl), and they bind to the same loci simultaneously. Phenotypic analyses of Trl and Atro clones suggest that Atro is required to modulate the transcription activation by Trl in larval imaginal discs. Taken together, these data indicate that Atro is a major Trl cofactor that functions to moderate developmental gene transcription.

Original article in Infection Ecology & Epidemiology, Volume 6, 2016 - Issue 1, DOI: 10.3402/iee.v6.32838 Reply in Infection Ecology & Epidemiology, Volume 7, 2017 - Issue 1. DOI: 10.1080/20008686.2017.1323532

Objectives: We analysed diverse strains of Francisella tularensis subsp. holarctica to assess if its division into biovars I and II is associated with specific mutations previously linked to erythromycin resistance and to determine the distribution of this resistance trait across this subspecies. Methods:Three-hundred and fourteen F. tularensis subsp. holarctica strains were tested for erythromycin susceptibility and whole-genome sequences for these strains were examined for SNPs in genes previously associated with erythromycin resistance. Each strain was assigned to a global phylogenetic framework using genome-wide canonical SNPs. The contribution of a specific SNP to erythromycin resistance was examined using allelic exchange. The geographical distribution of erythromycin-resistant F. tularensis strains was further investigated by literature search. Results:There was a perfect correlation between biovar II strains (erythromycin resistance) and the phylogenetic group B.12. Only B.12 strains had an AaEuroS -> aEuroSC SNP at position 2059 in the three copies of the rrl gene. Introducing 2059C into an rrl gene of an erythromycin-susceptible F. tularensis strain resulted in resistance. An additional 1144 erythromycin-resistant strains were identified from the scientific literature, all of them from Eurasia. Conclusions:Erythromycin resistance in F. tularensis is caused by an A2059C rrl gene mutation, which exhibits a strictly clonal inheritance pattern found only in phylogenetic group B.12. This group is an extremely successful clone, representing the most common type of F. tularensis throughout Eurasia.

For many infections transmitting to humans from reservoirs in nature, disease dispersal patterns over space and time are largely unknown. Here, a reversed genomics approach helped us understand disease dispersal and yielded insight into evolution and biological properties of Francisella tularensis, the bacterium causing tularemia. We whole-genome sequenced 67 strains and characterized by single-nucleotide polymorphism assays 138 strains, collected from individuals infected 1947-2012 across Western Europe. We used the data for phylogenetic, population genetic and geographical network analyses. All strains (n= 205) belonged to a monophyletic population of recent ancestry not found outside Western Europe. Most strains (n= 195) throughout the study area were assigned to a star-like phylogenetic pattern indicating that colonization of Western Europe occurred via clonal expansion. In the East of the study area, strains were more diverse, consistent with a founder population spreading from east to west. The relationship of genetic and geographic distance within the F. tularensis population was complex and indicated multiple long-distance dispersal events. Mutation rate estimates based on year of isolation indicated null rates; in outbreak hotspots only, there was a rate of 0.4 mutations/genome/year. Patterns of nucleotide substitution showed marked AT mutational bias suggestive of genetic drift. These results demonstrate that tularemia has moved from east to west in Europe and that F. tularensis has a biology characterized by long-range geographical dispersal events and mostly slow, but variable, replication rates. The results indicate that mutation-driven evolution, a resting survival phase, genetic drift and long-distance geographical dispersal events have interacted to generate genetic diversity within this species.

Sonchita Bagchi och Sofie V. Hellsten delar förstaförfattarskapet.

Introduction: Outbreaks of the zoonotic disease tularemia occurred in north-east Bulgaria in the 1960s. Then came 30 years of epidemiological silence until new outbreaks occurred in west Bulgaria in the 1990s. To investigate how bacterial strains of Francisella tularensis causing tularemia in wildlife and humans in the 1960s and the 1990s were related, we explored their genetic diversity. Material and methods: TenF. tularensis genomes from the 1960s (n=3) and the 1990s (n=7) were sequenced, assigned to canonical single-nucleotide polymorphism (canSNP) clades, and compared to reference genomes. We developed four new canSNP polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays based on the genome sequence information. Results and discussion: The genetic analysis showed that the outbreaks in the 1960s as well as in the 1990s involved multiple clones and new genetic diversity. The smallest genetic difference found between any of the Bulgarian strains was five SNPs between the strains L2 and 81 isolated 43 years apart, indicating that F. tularensis may persist locally over long time periods without causing outbreaks. The existence of genetically highly similar strain-pairs isolated the same year in the same area from different hosts supports a hypothesis of local expansion of clones during outbreaks. Close relationship (two SNPs) was found between one strain isolated 1961 in northeast Bulgaria and one strain isolated 5 years before in USSR. Historical data coinciding with the actual time point describe the introduction of water rats from USSR into the Bulgarian outbreak area, which may explain the close genetic relationship and the origin of the outbreak. Conclusion: Genome analysis of strains from two outbreaks in the 1960s and the 1990s provided valuable information on the genetic diversity and persistence of F. tularensis in Bulgaria.

Glutamine transporters are important for regulating levels of glutamate and GABA in the brain. To date, six members of the SLC38 family (SNATs) have been characterized and functionally subdivided into System A (SNAT1, SNAT2 and SNAT4) and System N (SNAT3, SNAT5 and SNAT7). Here we present a first functional characterization of SLC38A8, one of the previous orphan transporters from the family and we suggest that the encoded protein should be named SNAT8 to adhere with the SNAT nomenclature. We show that SLC38A8 have preference for transporting L-glutamine, L-alanine, L-arginine, L-histidine, and L-aspartate using a Na(+)-dependent transport mechanism and that the functional characteristics of SNAT8 has highest similarity to the known System A transporters. We also provide a comprehensive CNS expression profile in mouse brain for the Slc38a8 gene and the SNAT8 protein. We show that Slc38a8 (SNAT8) is expressed in all neurons, both excitatory and inhibitory, in mouse brain using in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, proximity ligation assay show highly similar subcellular expression of SNAT7 and SNAT8. In conclusion, the neuronal SLC38A8 have a broad amino acid transport profile and is the first identified neuronal System A transporter. This suggests a key role of SNAT8 in the glutamine/glutamate(GABA) cycle in the brain.

We present the complete genome sequence of Francisella guangzhouensis strain 08HL01032(T), which consists of one chromosome (1,658,482 bp) and one plasmid ( 3,045 bp) with G+C contents of 32.0% and 28.7%, respectively.

A strain of Francisella endociliophora was isolated from a laboratory culture of the marine ciliate Euplotes raikovi. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of the bacterial strain FSC1006 (Francisella Strain Collection, Swedish Defence Research Agency, Umeå, Sweden).

Previous studies of the causative agent of tularaemia, Francisella tularensis have identified phylogeographic patterns suggestive of environmental maintenance reservoirs. To investigate the phylogeography of tularaemia in Sweden, we selected 163 clinical isolates obtained during 1995-2009 in 10 counties and sequenced one isolate's genome to identify new genetic markers. An improved typing scheme based on two indels and nine SNPs was developed using hydrolysis or TaqMan MGB probe assays. The results showed that much of the known global genetic diversity of F. tularensis subsp. holarctica is present in Sweden. Thirteen of the 163 isolates belonged to a new genetic group that is basal to all other known members of the major genetic clade B.I, which is spread across the Eurosiberian region. One hundred and twenty-five of the 163 Swedish isolates belonged to B.I, but individual clades' frequencies differed from county to county (P < 0.001). Subsequent analyses revealed a correlation between genotype variation over time and recurrent outbreaks at specific places, supporting the 'maintenance reservoir' environmental maintenance hypothesis. Most importantly, the findings reveal the presence of diverse source populations of F. tularensis subsp. holarctica in Sweden and suggest a historical spread of the disease from Scandinavia to other parts of Eurosiberia.