More Like this

1. Microcystin aids in cold temperature acclimation: Differences between a toxic Microcystis wildtype and non-toxic mutant

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hal.2023.102531  

   Stark, Gwendolyn F.; Martin, Robbie M.; Smith, Laura E.; Wei, Bofan; Hellweger, Ferdi L.; Bullerjahn, George S.; McKay, R.Michael L.; Boyer, Gregory L.; Wilhelm, Steven W. (November 2023, Harmful Algae)
2. Molecular forecasting of toxic bloom events

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2417139121  

   Alexander, Harriet (October 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
3. Mobilome impacts on physiology in the widely used non-toxic mutant Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 ΔmcyB and toxic wildtype

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-024-10839-5  

   Stark, Gwendolyn F; Truchon, Alexander R; Wilhelm, Steven W (December 2024, BMC Genomics)

   Abstract TheMicrocystismobilome is a well-known but understudied component of this bloom-forming cyanobacterium. Through genomic and transcriptomic comparisons, we found five families of transposases that altered the expression of genes in the well-studied toxigenic type-strain,Microcystis aeruginosaPCC 7086, and a non-toxigenic genetic mutant,Microcystis aeruginosaPCC 7806 ΔmcyB. Since its creation in 1997, the ΔmcyBstrain has been used in comparative physiology studies against the wildtype strain by research labs throughout the world. Some differences in gene expression between what were thought to be otherwise genetically identical strains have appeared due to insertion events in both intra- and intergenic regions. In our ΔmcyBisolate, a sulfate transporter gene cluster (sbp-cysTWA) showed differential expression from the wildtype, which may have been caused by the insertion of a miniature inverted repeat transposable element (MITE) in the sulfate-binding protein gene (sbp). Differences in growth in sulfate-limited media also were also observed between the two isolates. This paper highlights howMicrocystisstrains continue to “evolve” in lab conditions and illustrates the importance of insertion sequences / transposable elements in shaping genomic and physiological differences betweenMicrocystisstrains thought otherwise identical. This study forces the necessity of knowing the complete genetic background of isolates in comparative physiological experiments, to facilitate the correct conclusions (and caveats) from experiments. 

   more » « less
4. Challenges in Automated Debiasing for Toxic Language Detection

   https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2021.eacl-main.274  

   Zhou, Xuhui; Sap, Maarten; Swayamdipta, Swabha; Choi, Yejin; Smith, Noah (January 2021, Proceedings of the 16th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Main Volume)

   Biased associations have been a challenge in the development of classifiers for detecting toxic language, hindering both fairness and accuracy. As potential solutions, we investigate recently introduced debiasing methods for text classification datasets and models, as applied to toxic language detection. Our focus is on lexical (e.g., swear words, slurs, identity mentions) and dialectal markers (specifically African American English). Our comprehensive experiments establish that existing methods are limited in their ability to prevent biased behavior in current toxicity detectors. We then propose an automatic, dialect-aware data correction method, as a proof-of-concept. Despite the use of synthetic labels, this method reduces dialectal associations with toxicity. Overall, our findings show that debiasing a model trained on biased toxic language data is not as effective as simply relabeling the data to remove existing biases. 

   more » « less
5. Peroxisome compartmentalization of a toxic enzyme improves alkaloid production

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-020-00668-4  

   Grewal, Parbir S.; Samson, Jennifer A.; Baker, Jordan J.; Choi, Brian; Dueber, John E. (January 2021, Nature Chemical Biology)

   null (Ed.)