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Until the mid-nineteenth century, "physiology" was a comprehensive theory of life, expounded and shaped by Johannes P. Müller (1801-1858). Biologists and medical doctors still refer to him today. In the summer term of 1851, Müller gave a lecture on the Comparative Anatomy of animals. This lecture was attended and recorded by Ernst Zeller (1830-1902), a future physician and zoologist, and has recently been published together with a German transcript. In this paper, we situate Johannes Müller within the intellectual history of his time. Through his "empirical idealism," we show how he opposed the speculative tendencies of the romantic understanding of nature, the emerging evolutionism, and the growing splits in the natural sciences. Müller focused on recognizing living nature as a whole and realizing ideal "phenomena" through his empirical research. He considered the notion of the soul of the world. Müller's lecture transcript serves as a poignant testament to German scientific culture in the mid-nineteenth century, a few years before the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. It also provides valuable insights into the self-contained epistemological foundations of morphology., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: N 6 -methyladenosine (m6A) is one of the most abundant post-transcriptional modifications on mRNA influencing mRNA metabolism. There is emerging evidence for its implication in metabolic disease. No comprehensive analyses on gene expression of m6A regulators in human adipose tissue, especially in paired adipose tissue depots, and its correlation with clinical variables were reported so far. We hypothesized that inter-depot specific gene expression of m6A regulators may differentially correlate with clinical variables related to obesity and fat distribution., Methods: We extracted intra-individually paired gene expression data (omental visceral adipose tissue (OVAT) N =48; subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) N =56) of m6A regulators from an existing microarray dataset. We also measured gene expression in another sample set of paired OVAT and SAT ( N =46) using RT-qPCR. Finally, we extracted existing gene expression data from peripheral mononuclear blood cells (PBMCs) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in METTL3 and YTHDF3 from genome wide data from the Sorbs population ( N =1049). The data were analysed for differential gene expression between OVAT and SAT; and for association with obesity and clinical variables. We further tested for association of SNP markers with gene expression and clinical traits., Results: In adipose tissue we observed that several m6A regulators ( WTAP , VIRMA , YTHDC1 and ALKBH5 ) correlate with obesity and clinical variables. Moreover, we found adipose tissue depot specific gene expression for METTL3 , WTAP , VIRMA , FTO and YTHDC1. In PBMCs, we identified ALKBH5 and YTHDF3 correlated with obesity. Genetic markers in METTL3 associate with BMI whilst SNPs in YTHDF3 are associated with its gene expression., Conclusions: Our data show that expression of m6A regulators correlates with obesity, is adipose tissue depot-specific and related to clinical traits. Genetic variation in m6A regulators adds an additional layer of variability to the functional consequences., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Rønningen, Dahl, Valderhaug, Cayir, Keller, Tönjes, Blüher and Böttcher.)

The article offers information on the Third European Workshop on Plant Senescence in Salzau, Germany in February 2007. Areas of senescence research that were discussed included the regulation of autumn leaf senescence and senescence of annual plants, processes involved in dinitrogen remobilization from senescing leaves and programmed cell death in plants. It was discussed at the workshop that senescence can be influenced by biotic and abiotic stress.