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Forensic Sci Int Genet 2021 Feb 26;52:102489. Epub 2021 Feb 26.

Division of Biological Traces, Netherlands Forensic Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands; University of Amsterdam, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address:

The interpretation of short tandem repeat (STR) profiles can be challenging when, for example, alleles are masked due to allele sharing among contributors and/or when they are subject to drop-out, for instance from sample degradation. Mixture interpretation can be improved by increasing the number of STRs and/or loci with a higher discriminatory power. Both capillary electrophoresis (CE, 6-dye) and massively parallel sequencing (MPS) provide a platform for analysing relatively large numbers of autosomal STRs. Read More

Insects 2021 Feb 12;12(2). Epub 2021 Feb 12.

Department of Entomology, Federal University of Grande Dourados (UFGD), Dourados 79825-070, Brazil.

Competition behavior involving agricultural pest species has long been viewed as a powerful selective force that drives ecological and phenotypic diversity. In this context, a Game Theory-based approach may be useful to describe the decision-making dilemma of a competitor with impacts to guarantee its superiority in terms of ecological dominance or sharing of the food resource with its competitor. In an attempt to elucidate the consequences of competitive dynamics for the ecological dominance of these species in refuge areas of Bt cotton, we conducted a study that was divided into two parts. Read More

Genes (Basel) 2021 Feb 25;12(3). Epub 2021 Feb 25.

Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel.

and are two tetraploid wheat species sharing as a common ancestor, and domesticated accessions from both of these allopolyploids exhibit nonbrittle rachis (i.e., nonshattering spikes). Read More

PLoS One 2021 5;16(3):e0246828. Epub 2021 Mar 5.

Emotional Brain B.V., Almere, The Netherlands.

Phenotype Prediction Scores (PPS) might be powerful tools to predict traits or the efficacy of treatments based on combinations of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) in large samples. We developed a novel method to produce PPS models for small samples sizes. The set of SNPs is first filtered on those known to be relevant in biological pathways involved in a clinical condition, and then further filtered repeatedly in a survival strategy to select stabile positive/negative risk alleles. Read More

PLoS One 2021 4;16(3):e0247375. Epub 2021 Mar 4.

Division of Endocrinology, Phoenix VA Medical Center, Phoenix, Arizona, United States of America.

Gene editing has become an essential tool for interrogation of gene function in biomedical research and is also a promising approach for gene therapy. Despite recent progresses, the gene-editing procedure is still a tedious process involving manually isolating large number of single cell colonies to screen for desired mutations. For diploid eukaryotic cells, there is the additional challenge to inactivate both alleles for genes-of-interest, i. Read More