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Abstract Replicate adaptive radiations occur when lineages repeatedly radiate and fill new but similar niches and converge phenotypically. While this is commonly seen in traditional island systems, it may also be present in host-parasite relationships, where hosts serve as islands. In a recent article in BMC Biology, Johnson and colleagues have produced the most extensive phylogeny of the avian lice (Ischnocera) to date, and find evidence for this pattern. This study opens the door to exploring adaptive radiations from a novel host-parasite perspective. See research article: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/10/52

Relaxin's role in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) has been suggested but its characterization in a large clinical sample remains limited. We performed immunohistochemistry for relaxin-2 (RLN2), CD68 (total macrophages), CD163 (M2 macrophages) on tissue microarrays from 181 subjects with non-distant metastatic DTC, and 185 subjects with benign thyroid tissue. Mean pixels/area for each marker was compared between tumor and adjacent tissue via paired-t test and between DTC and benign subjects via t-test assuming unequal variances. RNA qPCR was performed for expression of RLN2, RLN1, and RXFP1 in cell lines. Amongst 181 cases, the mean age was 46 years, 75 % were females. Tumoral tissue amongst the DTC cases demonstrated higher mean expression of RLN2 (53.04 vs. 9.79; p < 0.0001) compared to tumor-adjacent tissue. DTC tissue also demonstrated higher mean expression of CD68 (14.46 vs. 4.79; p < 0.0001), and CD163 (23.13 vs. -0.73; p < 0.0001) than benign thyroid. These markers did not differ between tumor-adjacent and benign thyroid tissue groups; and amongst cases, did not differ by demographic or clinicopathologic features. RLN1 and RXFP1 expression was detected in a minority of the cell lines, while RLN2 was expressed by 6/7 cell lines. In conclusion, widespread RLN2 expression in DTC tissue and most cell lines demonstrates that RLN2 acts in a paracrine manner, and that RLN1 and RXFP1 are probably not involved in thyroid cancer cell signaling. RLN2 is a biomarker for thyroid carcinogenesis, being associated with but not secreted by immunosuppressive macrophages. These findings will guide further investigations for therapeutic avenues against thyroid cancer., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Key features of immune memory are greater and faster antigen-specific antibody responses to repeat infection. In the setting of immune-evading viral evolution, it is important to understand how far antibody memory recognition stretches across viral variants when memory cells are recalled to action by repeat invasions. It is also important to understand how immune recall influences longevity of secreted antibody responses. We analyzed SARS-CoV-2 variant recognition; dynamics of memory B cells; and secreted antibody over time after infection, vaccination, and boosting. We find that a two-dose SARS-CoV-2 vaccination regimen given after natural infection generated greater longitudinal antibody stability and induced maximal antibody magnitudes with enhanced breadth across Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron variants. A homologous third messenger RNA vaccine dose in COVID-naïve individuals conferred greater cross-variant evenness of neutralization potency with stability that was equal to the hybrid immunity conferred by infection plus vaccination. Within unvaccinated individuals who recovered from COVID, enhanced antibody stability over time was observed within a subgroup of individuals who recovered more quickly from COVID and harbored significantly more memory B cells cross-reactive to endemic coronaviruses early after infection. These cross-reactive clones map to the conserved S2 region of SARS-CoV-2 spike with higher somatic hypermutation levels and greater target affinity. We conclude that SARS-CoV-2 antigen challenge histories in humans influence not only the speed and magnitude of antibody responses but also functional cross-variant antibody repertoire composition and longevity.

Over 100 years of studies in Drosophila melanogaster and related species in the genus Drosophila have facilitated key discoveries in genetics, genomics, and evolution. While high-quality genome assemblies exist for several species in this group, they only encompass a small fraction of the genus. Recent advances in long-read sequencing allow high-quality genome assemblies for tens or even hundreds of species to be efficiently generated. Here, we utilize Oxford Nanopore sequencing to build an open community resource of genome assemblies for 101 lines of 93 drosophilid species encompassing 14 species groups and 35 sub-groups. The genomes are highly contiguous and complete, with an average contig N50 of 10.5 Mb and greater than 97% BUSCO completeness in 97/101 assemblies. We show that Nanopore-based assemblies are highly accurate in coding regions, particularly with respect to coding insertions and deletions. These assemblies, along with a detailed laboratory protocol and assembly pipelines, are released as a public resource and will serve as a starting point for addressing broad questions of genetics, ecology, and evolution at the scale of hundreds of species., Competing Interests: BK, JW, DM, OB, ED, AT, AC, DP, ED, JP, JA, DH, TM, EA, MZ, YO, MS, MJ, MV, MT, PE, JG, TK, MT, HW, MW, JD, LM, GM, EB, VK, RH, AT, CJ, DP, NW, AK, DM, DP No competing interests declared, (© 2021, Kim et al.)

The growing prevalence of adolescent mental disorders poses significant challenges for education and healthcare systems globally. Providers are therefore keen to identify effective ways of promoting positive mental health. This aim of this qualitative study was to explore perceptions that social media might be leveraged for the purposes of mental health promotion amongst adolescents aged between 11 and 18 years. Utilizing focus groups conducted with adolescents (N = 54), educational professionals (N = 16) and mental health practitioners (N = 8). We explored their views about the value of social media for this purpose. Three themes were identified. First, social media appears to have potential to promote positive mental health. Second, adolescents frequently utilize social media and the internet to seek information about mental health. Finally, there are benefits and challenges to using social media in this way. We conclude that despite challenges of using social media and the risks, social media does offer a useful way of educating and reaching adolescents to promote mental wellbeing., (© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Despite growing evidence of the effects of social media on the mental health of adolescents, there is still a dearth of empirical research into how adolescents themselves perceive social media, especially as knowledge resource, or how they draw upon the wider social and media discourses to express a viewpoint. Accordingly, this article contributes to this scarce literature. Six focus groups took place over 3 months with 54 adolescents aged 11-18 years, recruited from schools in Leicester and London (UK). Thematic analysis suggested that adolescents perceived social media as a threat to mental wellbeing and three themes were identified: (1) it was believed to cause mood and anxiety disorders for some adolescents, (2) it was viewed as a platform for cyberbullying and (3) the use of social media itself was often framed as a kind of 'addiction'. Future research should focus on targeting and utilising social media for promoting mental wellbeing among adolescents and educating youth to manage the possible deleterious effects.

The mental health of adolescents is a salient contemporary issue attracting the attention of policy makers in the UK and other countries. It is important that the roles and responsibilities of agencies are clearly established, particularly those positioned at the forefront of implementing change. Arguably, this will be more effective if those agencies are actively engaged in the development of relevant policy. An exploratory study was conducted with 10 focus groups including 54 adolescents, 8 mental health practitioners and 16 educational professionals. Thematic analysis revealed four themes: (1) mental health promotion and prevention is not perceived to be a primary role of a teacher; (2) teachers have limited skills to manage complex mental health difficulties; (3) adolescents rely on teachers for mental health support and education about mental health; and (4) the responsibility of parents for their children's mental health. The research endorses the perspective that teachers can support and begin to tackle mental well-being in adolescents. However, it also recognises that mental health difficulties can be complex, requiring adequate funding and support beyond school. Without this support in place, teachers are vulnerable and can feel unsupported, lacking in skills and resources which in turn may present a threat to their own mental well-being., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. We also used the ESRC framework for ethics, which is founded on international codes, like the Declaration of Helsinki.Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Parental consent was also obtained from children aged 15 and below.