Current Biology最新文献

{"title":"Animal behaviour: A taste for elaborate flavours in Goffin's cockatoos.","authors":"Daniel Sol","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.004","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Among nonhuman animals, a preference for cooked food is frequently observed in captivity. New research now suggests that they could also engage in some rudimentary form of food 'cooking' to enhance flavour.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":"35 5","pages":"R185-R187"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143604098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reply to Žárský and Eliáš.","authors":"Maaike J Bierenbroodspot, Tatyana Darienko, Sophie de Vries, Thomas Pröschold, Iker Irisarri, Jan de Vries","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2024.11.039","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2024.11.039","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The more we learn about the algal relatives of embryophytes (land plants), the more complex and fascinating the evolution of key streptophyte traits becomes. With the sequencing of the Klebsormidium nitens genome, a range of molecular traits shared with land plants were found¹ - despite ca. 800 million years of divergence²^,³. A few years ago, Streptofilum was described, superficially resembling members of Klebsormidiophyceae but showing divergence in traits⁴. In our recent study², we reconstructed a phylogenomic backbone for Klebsormidiophyceae, and Streptofilum was nested within, although we pointed out the difficulties in placing Streptofilum. Now, Žárský and Eliáš⁵ have commented on this placement, building on a different approach to analyze the data.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":"35 5","pages":"R173-R174"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143604131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Skin, scales, and cells in a Jurassic plesiosaur.","authors":"Miguel Marx, Peter Sjövall, Benjamin P Kear, Martin Jarenmark, Mats E Eriksson, Sven Sachs, Klaus Nilkens, Michiel Op De Beeck, Johan Lindgren","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Plesiosaurs are an iconic group of Mesozoic marine reptiles with an evolutionary history spanning over 140 million years (Ma).¹ Their skeletal remains have been discovered worldwide; however, accompanying fossilized soft tissues are exceptionally rare.² Here, we report a virtually complete plesiosaur from the Lower Jurassic (∼183 Ma)³ Posidonia Shale of Germany that preserves skin traces from around the tail and front flipper. The tail integument was apparently scale-less and retains identifiable melanosomes, keratinocytes with cell nuclei, and the stratum corneum, stratum spinosum, and stratum basale of the epidermis. Molecular analysis reveals aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons that likely denote degraded original organics. The flipper integument otherwise integrates small, sub-triangular structures reminiscent of modern reptilian scales. These may have influenced flipper hydrodynamics and/or provided traction on the substrate during benthic feeding. Similar to other sea-going reptiles,⁴^,⁵^,⁶^,⁷^,⁸^,⁹^,¹⁰ scalation covering at least part of the body therefore probably augmented the paleoecology of plesiosaurs.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"1113-1120.e3"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143370220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phylogenomics of coral-infecting corallicolids reveal multiple independent losses of chlorophyll biosynthesis in apicomplexan parasites.","authors":"Victoria K L Jacko-Reynolds, Waldan K Kwong, Samuel J Livingston, Morelia Trznadel, Anthony M Bonacolta, Gordon Lax, Jade Shivak, Nicholas A T Irwin, Mark J A Vermeij, Javier Del Campo, Patrick J Keeling","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.028","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The transition from free-living to parasitic lifestyles induces major shifts in evolution, and nowhere is this more acute than in apicomplexans-obligate intracellular parasites of animals that evolved from photosynthetic algae.¹ In other cases where photosynthesis has been lost, including most apicomplexans, chlorophyll is also absent, but in coral-infecting apicomplexans (corallicolids), chlorophyll biosynthesis genes are retained in the plastid genome despite their lack of photosystems.² This suggests that the loss of photosynthesis and chlorophyll were decoupled in this lineage, but because these observations are only based on plastid genomes, two fundamental questions remain unclear. First, how this impacted apicomplexan evolution as a whole is unclear because there are conflicting phylogenetic positions for corallicolids: plastid gene phylogenies place them at the base of the apicomplexans, whereas nuclear rRNA places them with late-branching coccidians (suborder Eimeriorina).²^,³ Second, it is unclear if chlorophyll or a metabolic intermediate is synthesized, as most chlorophyll biosynthesis enzymes are encoded in the nucleus. To address these questions, we have sequenced transcriptomes from two corallicolids, infecting Parazoanthus swiftii and Madracis mirabilis hosts. Phylogenomic data strongly support a late-branching relationship closer with coccidians, specifically with the protococcidians and the newly discovered ichthyocolids. We also find evidence for the expression of nucleus-encoded enzymes involved in chlorophyll biosynthesis in corallicolids and protococcidians. Overall, we conclude that chlorophyll synthesis was likely retained through the early evolution of the group and then lost approximately 10 times independently, emphasizing the impact of parallel evolutionary changes in parasitic transitions.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"1156-1163.e4"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143457142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Transformations in prefrontal ensemble activity underlying rapid threat avoidance learning.","authors":"Christopher J Gabriel, Tanya A Gupta, Asai Sánchez-Fuentes, Zachary Zeidler, Scott A Wilke, Laura A DeNardo","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.010","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>To survive, animals must rapidly learn to avoid aversive outcomes by predicting threats and taking preemptive actions to avoid them. Often, this involves identifying locations that are safe in the context of specific, impending threats and remaining in those locations until the threat passes. Thus, animals quickly learn how threat-predicting cues alter the implications of entering or leaving a safe location. The prelimbic subregion (PL) of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) integrates learned associations to influence threat avoidance strategies.¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵^,⁶^,⁷^,⁸^,⁹^,¹⁰^,¹¹^,¹² These processes become dysfunctional in mood and anxiety disorders, which are characterized by excessive avoidance.¹³^,¹⁴ Prior work largely focused on the role of PL activity in avoidance behaviors that are fully established,¹²^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷ leaving the prefrontal mechanisms driving avoidance learning poorly understood. To determine when and how learning-related changes emerge, we recorded PL neural activity using miniscope Ca²⁺ imaging¹⁸^,¹⁹ as mice rapidly learned to avoid a cued threat by accessing a safe location. Early in learning, PL population dynamics accurately predicted trial outcomes and tracked individual learning rates. Once behavioral performance stabilized, neurons that encoded avoidance behaviors or risky exploration were strongly modulated by the conditioned tone. Our findings reveal that, during avoidance learning, the PL rapidly generates novel representations of whether mice will take avoidance or exploratory actions during an impending threat. We reveal the sequence of transformations that unfold in the PL and how they relate to individual learning rates.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"1128-1136.e4"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11916606/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143406289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evolution of a vascular plant pathogen is associated with the loss of CRISPR-Cas and an increase in genome plasticity and virulence genes.","authors":"Misha Paauw, Willem E W Schravesande, Nanne W Taks, Martijn Rep, Sebastian Pfeilmeier, Harrold A van den Burg","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A major question in infectious disease research is how bacteria have evolved into highly niche-adapted pathogens with efficient host infection strategies. The plant pathogenic bacterium Xanthomonas campestris is subdivided into pathovars that occupy two distinct niches of the same plant leaf: the vasculature and the mesophyll tissue. Using a pangenome comparison of 94 X. campestris isolates, we discovered that the vasculature-infecting pathovar emerged in one monophyletic clade, has lost its CRISPR-Cas system, and showed an increase in both genomic plasticity and acquisition of virulence factors, such as type III effector proteins, compared with the ancestral pathovar. In addition, we show that the CRISPR spacers of isolates belonging to the ancestral pathovar map to plasmids that circulate in Xanthomonas populations and encode high numbers of transposons and virulence factors, suggesting that CRISPR-Cas restricts gene flow toward this pathovar. Indeed, we demonstrate experimentally reduced plasmid uptake in a CRISPR-Cas-encoding isolate. Based on our data, we propose that the loss of the CRISPR-Cas system was a pivotal step in X. campestris evolution by facilitating increased genome dynamics and the emergence of the vasculature-adapted X. campestris pathovar campestris, a major pathogen of Brassica crops.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"954-969.e5"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143398684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modulation of sweet preference by neurosteroid-sensitive, δ-GABA_A receptors in adult mouse gustatory insular cortex.","authors":"Priscilla E Yevoo, Alfredo Fontanini, Arianna Maffei","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.035","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.035","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Taste preference is a fundamental driver of feeding behavior, influencing dietary choices and eating patterns. Extensive experimental evidence indicates that the gustatory cortex (GC) is engaged in taste perception, palatability, and preference. However, our knowledge of the neural and neurochemical signals regulating taste preference is limited. Neuromodulators can affect preferences, though their effects on neural circuits for taste are incompletely understood. Neurosteroids are of particular interest, as systemic administration of the neurosteroid allopregnanolone (ALLO), a positive allosteric modulator of extrasynaptic GABA_A receptors containing the delta subunit (δ-GABA_ARs), induces hyperphagia and increases intake of energy-rich food in humans and animals. The δ-GABA_ARs receptors produce a tonic inhibitory current and are widely distributed in the brain. However, information regarding their expression within gustatory circuits is lacking, and their role in taste preference has not been investigated. Here, we focused on GC to investigate whether activation of δ-GABA_ARs affects sweet taste preference in adult mice. Our data reveal that δ-GABA_ARs are expressed in multiple cell types within GC, mediate an ALLO-sensitive tonic current, decrease the behavioral sensitivity to sucrose, and reduce the preference for sweet taste in a cell-type-specific manner. Our findings demonstrate a fundamental role for δ-GABA_AR-mediated currents within GC in regulating taste sensitivity and preference in the adult mammalian brain.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"1047-1060.e4"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11903165/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143398691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Phylogenomics defines Streptofilum as a novel deep branch of streptophyte algae.","authors":"Vojtěch Žárský, Marek Eliáš","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2024.12.013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.12.013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Streptophytes constitute a major organismal clade comprised of land plants (embryophytes) and several related green algal lineages¹. Their seemingly well-studied phylogenetic diversity was recently enriched by the discovery of Streptofilum capillaum, a simple filamentous alga forming a novel deep streptophyte lineage in a two-gene phylogeny². A subsequent phylogenetic analysis of plastid genome-encoded proteins resolved Streptofilum as a sister group of nearly all known streptophytes, including Klebsormidiophyceae and Phragmoplastophyta (Charophyceae, Coleochaetophyceae, Zygnematophyceae, and embryophytes)³. However, another recent report, published in Current Biology by Bierenbroodspot et al.⁴, presented a phylogenetic analysis of 845 nuclear loci, resolving S. capillatum as a member of Klebsormidiophyceae, nested among species of the genus Interfilum. Here, we demonstrate that the latter result is an artefact stemming from an unrecognized contamination of the transcriptome assembly from S. capillatum by sequences from Interfilum paradoxum. When confirmed S. capillatum sequences are employed in the analysis, the position of the alga in the nuclear gene-based tree fully agrees with the plastid gene-based phylogeny. Our results underscore S. capillatum as a lineage pivotal for the understanding of the evolutionary genesis of streptophyte, and ultimately embryophyte, traits.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":"35 5","pages":"R171-R172"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143604171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wild rock doves.","authors":"William J Smith","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.065","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>William Smith introduces the wild rock dove, the ancestor of domestic and feral pigeons.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":"35 5","pages":"R162-R164"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143604203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Accounting for sampling heterogeneity suggests a low paleolatitude origin for dinosaurs.","authors":"Joel A Heath, Natalie Cooper, Paul Upchurch, Philip D Mannion","doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2024.12.053","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cub.2024.12.053","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Dinosaurs dominated Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems for ∼160 million years, but their biogeographic origin remains poorly understood. The earliest unequivocal dinosaur fossils appear in the Carnian (∼230 Ma) of southern South America and Africa, leading most authors to propose southwestern Gondwana as the likely center of origin. However, the high taxonomic and morphological diversity of these earliest assemblages suggests a more ancient evolutionary history that is currently unsampled. Phylogenetic uncertainty at the base of Dinosauria, combined with the subsequent appearance of dinosaurs throughout Laurasia in their early evolutionary history, further complicates this picture. Here, we estimate the distribution of early dinosaurs and their archosaurian relatives under a phylogenetic maximum likelihood framework, testing alternative topological arrangements and incorporating potential abiotic barriers to dispersal into our biogeographic models. For the first time, we include spatiotemporal sampling heterogeneity in these models, which frequently supports a low-latitude Gondwanan origin for dinosaurs. These results are best supported when silesaurids are constrained as early-diverging ornithischians, which is likely because this topology accounts for the otherwise substantial ornithischian ghost lineage, explaining the group's absence from the fossil record prior to the Early Jurassic. Our results suggest that the archosaur radiation also took place within low-latitude Gondwana following the end-Permian extinction before lineages dispersed across Pangaea into ecologically and climatically distinct provinces during the Late Triassic. Mesozoic terrestrial vertebrates are under-sampled at low paleolatitudes, and our findings suggest that heterogeneous sampling has hitherto obscured the true paleobiogeographic origin of dinosaurs and their kin.</p>","PeriodicalId":11359,"journal":{"name":"Current Biology","volume":" ","pages":"941-953.e5"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143037587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}