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The Aconitum lycoctonum complex is a widespread yellow-flowered group of species found in central and southern Europe. Because of extreme morphological variability, the systematics of this group is confusing, and hybridizations among taxa are often hypothesized. To determine whether hybridization, realized mating system within populations or colonization from different Pleistocene refugia might explain some of the morphological variation, the genetic structure of 19 populations from central and southern Europe was studied using starch gel electrophoresis and 10 enzyme loci, of which eight were polymorphic. A pattern typical of an outcrossing species was expected because A. lycoctonum flowers are adapted to pollination by long-tongued bumblebees. However, heterozygosity was very low (between 0.031 and 0.150), which is atypical of either widespread or outcrossing species. The inbreeding coefficient, FIS, also suggested inbreeding in more than half the populations. Analysis of molecular variance showed that 31% of the genetic variation is found among populations, again suggesting inbreeding. A neighbour-joining tree based on Reynolds’s genetic distance showed a clear separation between the central/eastern European populations and the samples from the Iberian peninsula and Alpes Maritimes. These data are consistent with the hypothesized refugia and the phylogeographical histories of several European forest trees. The genetic identity of all populations was very high, suggesting that all investigated populations belong to the same species despite high morphological variability. Hybridization was not supported by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Human papillomavirus type 58 (HPV-58) accounts for a much higher proportion of cervical cancers in East Asia than other types. A classification system of HPV-58, which is essential for molecular epidemiological study, is lacking., Methods and Results: This study analyzed the sequences of 401 isolates collected from 15 countries and cities. The 268 unique concatenated E6-E7-E2-E5-L1-LCR sequences that comprised 57% of the whole HPV-58 genome showed 4 distinct clusters. L1 and LCR produced tree topologies that best resembled the concatenated sequences and thus are the most appropriate surrogate regions for lineage classification. Moreover, short fragments from L1 (nucleotides 6014-6539) and LCR (nucleotides 7257-7429 and 7540-52) were found to contain sequence signatures informative for lineage identification. Lineage A was the most prevalent lineage across all regions. Lineage C was more frequent in Africa than elsewhere, whereas lineage D was more prevalent in Africa than in Asia. Among lineage A variants, sublineage A2 dominated in Africa, the Americas, and Europe, but not in Asia. Sublineage A1, which represents the prototype that originated from a patient with cancer, was rare worldwide except in Asia., Conclusions: HPV-58 can be classified into 4 lineages that show some degree of ethnogeographic predilection in distribution. The evolutionary, epidemiological, and pathological characteristics of these lineages warrant further study.