31Faster evolution of X chromosomes has been documented in several species and results from 32 the increased efficiency of selection on recessive alleles in hemizygous males and/or from 33 increased drift due to the smaller effective population size of X chromosomes. Aphids are 34 excellent models for evaluating the importance of selection in faster-X evolution, because 35 their peculiar life-cycle and unusual inheritance of sex-chromosomes lead to equal effective 36 population sizes for X and autosomes. Because we lack a high-density genetic map for the pea 37 aphid whose complete genome has been sequenced, we assigned its entire genome to the X 38 and autosomes based on ratios of sequencing depth in males and females. Unexpectedly, we 39 found frequent scaffold misassembly, but we could unambiguously locate 13,726 genes on the 40 X and 19,263 on autosomes. We found higher non-synonymous to synonymous substitutions 41 ratios (dN/dS) for X-linked than for autosomal genes. Our analyses of substitution rates 42 together with polymorphism and expression data showed that relaxed selection is likely to 43 contribute predominantly to faster-X as a large fraction of X-linked genes are expressed at 44 low rates and thus escape selection. Yet, a minor role for positive selection is also suggested 45 by the difference between substitution rates for X and autosomes for male-biased genes (but 46 not for asexual female-biased genes) and by lower Tajima's D for X-linked than for 47 autosomal genes with highly male-biased expression patterns. This study highlights the 48 relevance of organisms displaying alternative inheritance of chromosomes to the 49 understanding of forces shaping genome evolution. 50 51 52

This article documents the addition of 473 microsatellite marker loci and 71 pairs of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sequencing primers to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Barteria fistulosa, Bombus morio, Galaxias platei, Hematodinium perezi, Macrocentrus cingulum Brischke (a.k.a. M. abdominalis Fab., M. grandii Goidanich or M. gifuensis Ashmead), Micropogonias furnieri, Nerita melanotragus, Nilaparvata lugens Stål, Sciaenops ocellatus, Scomber scombrus, Spodoptera frugiperda and Turdus lherminieri. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Barteria dewevrei, Barteria nigritana, Barteria solida, Cynoscion acoupa, Cynoscion jamaicensis, Cynoscion leiarchus, Cynoscion nebulosus, Cynoscion striatus, Cynoscion virescens, Macrodon ancylodon, Menticirrhus americanus, Nilaparvata muiri and Umbrina canosai. This article also documents the addition of 116 sequencing primer pairs for Dicentrarchus labrax.

DIGITAL SIGNATURES TO ENSURE THE AUTHENTICITY AND INTEGRITY OF SYNTHETIC DNA MOLECULESDNA molecules are increasingly being synthesized in the laboratory some of which are licensed intellectual properties (IP). Synthetic samples are shared between academic labs, ordered from DNA synthesis companies, and manipulated for a variety of different purposes, mostly to study their properties and improve upon them. However, it is not uncommon for a sample to change hands many times with very little proof of origin information encoded in the sample. This poses significant challenges to the original inventor of the DNA molecules, trying to protect her IP rights.More importantly, following the anthrax attacks of 2001, there is an increased urgency to employ microbial forensic technologies to trace and track agent inventories. However, in the realm of synthesized DNA such attribution is next to impossible with existing technology. We look into how a digital signature of the DNA molecule can be embedded into the molecule itself to solve this problem (if at all). We encounter several challenges that we do not face in the digital world. These challenges arise primarily from the fact that the physical size of the DNA molecule can affect its properties, random mutations can accumulate in the DNA samples over time, DNA sequencers can sequence (read) DNA erroneously and is still relatively expensive (which means that laboratories would prefer not to read and re-read a DNA to get error-free sequences).In this research, we try to address these challenges and present a digital signature technology that can be applied to synthetic DNA molecules in living cells.ii