SignificanceAlzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease. Genome-wide association studies predominately focusing on Caucasian populations have identified risk loci and genes associated with AD; the majority of these variants reside in noncoding regions with unclear functions. Here, we report a whole-genome sequencing study for AD in the Chinese population. Other than the APOE locus, we identified common variants in GCH1 and KCNJ15 that show suggestive associations with AD. For these two risk variants, an association with AD or advanced onset of disease can be observed in non-Asian AD cohorts. An association study of risk variants with expression data revealed their modulatory effects on immune signatures, linking the potential roles of these genes with immune-related pathways during AD pathogenesis.

Agrobacterium tumefaciens was used to stably transform the entomopathogenic deuteromycete Beauveria bassiana to hygromycin B resistance by integration of the hph gene of Escherichia coli into the fungal genome. The transformation protocol was optimized to generate a library of insertion mutants of Beauveria. Transformation frequencies around 10(-4) and suppression of background growth were achieved. Over 90% of the AIM mutants investigated contained single-copy T-DNA integrations at different chromosomal locations. Integrated T-DNAs were re-isolated from ten transformants by a marker rescue approach. When the sequences flanking these T-DNAs were compared with the corresponding locations of the wild-type genome, truncations of T-DNA borders were found to be common, while none of the sites of integration had suffered deletion or rearrangement. Thus, AIM can be considered a promising tool for insertional mutagenesis studies of entomopathogenic filamentous fungi.

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The Formosania is only distributed in a narrow area in Southeast China, and differentiation of the species of this genus may be helpful in understanding the formation process of the water system on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The complete mitochondrial genome of Formosania chenyiyui is sequenced in this paper. The results show that the full length of the complete mitochondrial genome is 16,572 bp, comprising 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes, and 1 control region. Overall base composition is 30.35% A, 26.68% T, 15.86% G, and 27.11% C. The result of phylogenetic analysis suggests that F. chenyiyui is close to that of F. lacustre and Vanmanenia stenosoma, and accords with the evolutionary viewpoint of Formosaniini group based on morphological characteristics. ARTICLE HISTORY