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CRISPR/Cas gene drives can bias transgene inheritance through different mechanisms. Homing drives are designed to replace a wild-type allele with a copy of a drive element on the homologous chromosome. In Aedes aegypti, the sex-determining locus is closely linked to the white gene, which was previously used as a target for a homing drive element (wGDe). Here, through an analysis using this linkage we show that in males inheritance bias of wGDe did not occur by homing, rather through increased propagation of the donor drive element. We test the same wGDe drive element with transgenes expressing Cas9 with germline regulatory elements sds3, bgcn, and nup50. We only find inheritance bias through homing, even with the identical nup50-Cas9 transgene. We propose that DNA repair outcomes may be more context dependent than anticipated and that other previously reported homing drives may, in fact, bias their inheritance through other mechanisms.

An innovative mixed-methods approach to exploratory focus group design is presented using a case study conducted with smallholder rice farmers in Vietnam. Understanding human decision-making under the uncertainties of a complex and changing social and environmental context requires a flexible yet structured and theoretically grounded approach. Using Bayesian belief networks as the architecture of our model allows the study to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative data, the former gathered at this stage in a participatory focus group setting and the latter to be collected in a subsequent survey. This framework further lends itself well to incorporating systematic behavioral approaches to decision-making analysis using Ajzen's theory of planned behavior framework, a symbiosis that remains underexplored in the literature. The visual nature of the networks makes them easily accessible to participants, and the proposed technical solutions to field implementation are flexible, inexpensive, and shown in practice to mitigate issues of co-moderating discussion across language barriers. The tools and methods described are transparent, reproducible in comparative contexts, and transferable to a range of research topics and questions.

Background: By March 2023, the COVID-19 illness had caused over 6.8 million deaths globally. Countries restricted disease spread through nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs; e.g. social distancing). More severe "lockdowns" were also required to manage disease spread. Although lockdowns effectively reduce virus transmission, they substantially disrupt economies and individual well-being. Fortunately, the availability of vaccines provides alternative approaches to manage disease spread. Yet, vaccination programs take several months to implement fully, require further time for individuals to develop immunity following inoculation, may not have complete coverage and/or may be imperfectly efficacious against the virus. Given these aspects of a vaccination programme, it is important to understand how NPIs (such as lockdowns) can be used in conjunction with vaccination to achieve public health goals. Methods: We use mathematical methods to, investigate optimal approaches for vaccination under varying lockdown lengths and/or severities to prevent COVID-19-related deaths exceeding critical thresholds. Results: We find that increases in vaccination rate cause a disproportionate decrease in the length and severity lockdowns to keep mortality levels below a critical threshold. With vaccination, severe lockdowns can further reduce infections by up to 89%. Notably, we include simple demographics, modelling three groups: vulnerable, front-line workers, and non-vulnerable. We investigate the sequence of vaccination. One counter-intuitive finding is that even though the vulnerable group is high risk, demographically, this is a small group and critically, per person, vaccination therefore occurs more slowly. Hence vaccinating this group first achieves limited gains in overall disease control. Discussion: Importantly, we conclude that improved disease control may be best achieved by vaccinating the non-vulnerable group coupled with longer and/or more severe NPIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systems biology promises to revolutionize medicine, yet human wellbeing is also inherently linked to healthy societies and environments (sustainability). The IDEA Consortium is a systems ecology open science initiative to conduct the basic scientific research needed to build use-oriented simulations (avatars) of entire social-ecological systems. Islands are the most scientifically tractable places for these studies and we begin with one of the best known: Moorea, French Polynesia. The Moorea IDEA will be a sustainability simulator modeling links and feedbacks between climate, environment, biodiversity, and human activities across a coupled marine–terrestrial landscape. As a model system, the resulting knowledge and tools will improve our ability to predict human and natural change on Moorea and elsewhere at scales relevant to management/conservation actions.

BACKGROUND: In planarian flatworms, the mechanisms underlying the activity of collectively pluripotent adult stem cells (neoblasts) and their descendants can now be studied from the level of the individual gene to the entire animal. Flatworms maintain startling developmental plasticity and regenerative capacity in response to variable nutrient conditions or injury. We develop a model for cell dynamics in such animals, assuming that fully differentiated cells exert feedback control on neoblast activity. RESULTS: Our model predicts a number of whole organism level and general cell biological and behaviours, some of which have been empirically observed or inferred in planarians and others that have not. As previously observed empirically we find: 1) a curvilinear relationship between external food and planarian steady state size; 2) the fraction of neoblasts in the steady state is constant regardless of planarian size; 3) a burst of controlled apoptosis during regeneration after amputation as the number of differentiated cells are adjusted towards their homeostatic/steady state level. In addition our model describes the following properties that can inform and be tested by future experiments: 4) the strength of feedback control from differentiated cells to neoblasts (i.e. the activity of the signalling system) and from neoblasts on themselves in relation to absolute number depends upon the level of food in the environment; 5) planarians adjust size when food level reduces initially through increased apoptosis and then through a reduction in neoblast self-renewal activity; 6) following wounding or excision of differentiated cells, different time scales characterize both recovery of size and the two feedback functions; 7) the temporal pattern of feedback controls differs noticeably during recovery from a removal or neoblasts or a removal of differentiated cells; 8) the signaling strength for apoptosis of differentiated cells depends upon both the absolute and relative deviations of the number of differentiated cells from their homeostatic level; and 9) planaria prioritize resource use for cell divisions. CONCLUSIONS: We offer the first analytical framework for organizing experiments on planarian flatworm stem cell dynamics in a form that allows models to be compared with quantitative cell data based on underlying molecular mechanisms and thus facilitate the interplay between empirical studies and modeling. This framework is the foundation for studying cell migration during wound repair, the determination of homeostatic levels of differentiated cells by natural selection, and stochastic effects.

Abstract The hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) system is a demand control system, with the demand coming from the organism, since the products of the common myeloid and lymphoid progenitor (CMP, CLP respectively) cells are essential for activity and defense against disease. We show how ideas from population biology (combining population dynamics and evolutionary considerations) can illuminate the feedback control of the HSC system by the fully differentiated products, which has recently been verified experimentally. We develop models for the penultimate differentiation of HSC Multipotent Progenitors (MPPs) into CLP and CMP and introduce two concepts from population biology into stem cell biology. The first concept is the Multipotent Progenitor Commitment Response (MPCR) which is the probability that a multipotent progenitor cell follows a CLP route rather than a CMP route. The second concept is the link between the MPCR and a measure of Darwinian fitness associated with organismal performance and the levels of differentiated lymphoid and myeloid cells. We show that many MPCRs are consistent with homeostasis, but that they will lead to different dynamics of cells and signals following a wound or injury and thus have different consequences for Darwinian fitness. We show how coupling considerations of life history to dynamics of the HSC system and its products allows one to compute the selective pressures on cellular processes. We discuss ways that this framework can be used and extended.