Pulmonary emphysema is a major manifestation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and is associated with chronic pulmonary inflammation caused by cigarette smoking, with contributions from immune cells such as neutrophils, macrophages, and lymphocytes. Although matrix metalloproteinases are well-known to contribute to emphysema progression, the role of a disintegrin and metalloproteinase (ADAM) family proteins, other major metalloproteinases, in disease pathogenesis is largely unknown. ADAM17 is a major sheddase that cleaves various cell surface proteins, including CD62L,...

Many male animals donate nutritive materials during courtship or mating to their female mates. Donation of large-sized gifts, though costly to prepare, can result in increased sperm transfer during mating and delayed remating of the females, resulting in a higher paternity. Nuptial gifting sometimes causes severe female-female competition for obtaining gifts (i.e., sex-role reversal in mate competition) and female polyandry, changing the intensity of sperm competition and the resultant paternity gains. We built a theoretical...

Antibiotics and dietary habits can affect the gut microbial community, influencing disease susceptibility. Although the influence of microbiota on the postnatal environment has been well documented, much less is known regarding the impact of gut microbiota at the embryonic stage. Here, we show that maternal microbiota shapes the metabolic system of offspring. During pregnancy, short-chain fatty acids produced by the maternal microbiota dictate the differentiation of neural, intestinal, and pancreatic cells through embryonic GPR41 and...

Raw metabolome data from medaka larvae at five days post-hatching (dph). Hatching stage of medaka larvae were treated with normal feeding (fed), starvation (starved), Pank inhibitor (PI) and FAS inhibitor (C75) for five days. Water-soluble metabolites were extracted from the whole body and analyzed by CE-TOFMS, IC-FTMS and LC-MS/MS.

The investigation of prosocial behavior is of particular interest from an evolutionary perspective. Comparisons of prosociality across non-human animal species have, however, so far largely focused on primates, and their interpretation is hampered by the diversity of paradigms and procedures used. Here we present the first systematic comparison of prosocial behavior across multiple species in a taxonomic group outside the primate order, namely the bird family Corvidae. We measured prosociality in 8 corvid species, which...