Washington State University

About: Washington State University is a education organization based out in Pullman, Washington, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 26947 authors who have published 57736 publications receiving 2341509 citations. The organization is also known as: WSU & Wazzu.

Insights into social insects from the genome of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Abstract: Here we report the genome sequence of the honeybee Apis mellifera, a key model for social behaviour and essential to global ecology through pollination. Compared with other sequenced insect genomes, the A. mellifera genome has high A+T and CpG contents, lacks major transposon families, evolves more slowly, and is more similar to vertebrates for circadian rhythm, RNA interference and DNA methylation genes, among others. Furthermore, A. mellifera has fewer genes for innate immunity, detoxification enzymes, cuticle-forming proteins and gustatory receptors, more genes for odorant receptors, and novel genes for nectar and pollen utilization, consistent with its ecology and social organization. Compared to Drosophila, genes in early developmental pathways differ in Apis, whereas similarities exist for functions that differ markedly, such as sex determination, brain function and behaviour. Population genetics suggests a novel African origin for the species A. mellifera and insights into whether Africanized bees spread throughout the New World via hybridization or displacement.

Sequence complexity of disordered protein.

Abstract: Intrinsic disorder refers to segments or to whole proteins that fail to self-fold into fixed 3D structure, with such disorder sometimes existing in the native state. Here we report data on the relationships among intrinsic disorder, sequence complexity as measured by Shannon's entropy, and amino acid composition. Intrinsic disorder identified in protein crystal structures, and by nuclear magnetic resonance, circular dichroism, and prediction from amino acid sequence, all exhibit similar complexity distributions that are shifted to lower values compared to, but significantly overlapping with, the distribution for ordered proteins. Compared to sequences from ordered proteins, these variously characterized intrinsically disordered segments and proteins, and also a collection of low-complexity sequences, typically have obviously higher levels of protein-specific subsets of the following amino acids: R, K, E, P, and S, and lower levels of subsets of the following: C, W, Y, I, and V. The Swiss Protein database of sequences exhibits significantly higher amounts of both low-complexity and predicted-to-be-disordered segments as compared to a non-redundant set of sequences from the Protein Data Bank, providing additional data that nature is richer in disordered and low-complexity segments compared to the commonness of these features in the set of structurally characterized proteins.

Institutional theory and institutional change: introduction to the special research forum

Abstract: Institutional theory has risen to prominence as a popular and powerful explanation for both individual and organizational action. It is a vibrant theory that has heen synthesized and contrasted with a number of other approaches. Although its scope has certainly heen expanded, institutional theory has often been criticized as largely being used to explain hoth the persistence and the homogeneity of phenomena. We helieve that this focus did little to tap the full power or potential of institutional theory. We find, for example, that institutions change over time, are not ttniformly taken-forgranted, have effects that are particularistic, and are challenged as well as hotly contested. Thus, we acknowledge that although institutions serve both to powerfully drive change and to shape the nature of change across levels and contexts, they also themselves change in character and potency over time. It was in this spirit that we put forth a call for papers on the study of institutional theory and institutional change. We also believed that the topic of institutional change has emerged as a central focus for organizational researchers. Therefore, we sought to provide new understandings of the manner in which institutions are created, transformed, and extinguished and the way in which institutional processes interact to affect institutional change. We received over 75 manuscripts for review. In-