The evolutionary origin of spliceosomal introns has been the subject of much controversy. Introns are proposed to have been both lost and gained during evolution. If the gain or loss of introns are unique events in evolution, they can serve as markers for phylogenetic analysis. We have made an extensive survey of the phylogenetic distribution of seven spliceosomal introns that are present in Fu...

This paper presents an overview of the nominotypical subgenus of the genus Ventocoris Hahn, 1834 (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomidae: Podopinae); the two species are identified, redescribed, illustrated, and keyed. Species of the sub-genus Astirocoris Jakovlev, 1894 known in Turkey are redescribed, a key is provided for the Turkish species of Ventocoris. Ventocoris trigonus (Krynicki, 1871), ...

Size-scaling metabolism is widely considered to be of significant importance in biology and ecology. Thus, allometric relationships between metabolic rate (VO2) and body mass (M), VO2 = a(i)Mb, have long been a topic of interest and speculation. It has been proposed that intraspecifically metabolic rate scales isometrically or near isometrically with body mass during the early life history in f...

The compact genome of the tiger pufferfish, Takifugu rubripes (fugu), has been sequenced to the "draft" level and annotated to identify all the genes. However, the assembly of the draft genome sequence is highly fragmented due to the lack of a genetic or a physical map. To determine the long-range linkage relationship of the sequences, we have constructed the first genetic linkage map for fugu....

In fish, light (photoperiod, intensity and spectra) is main regulator in many physiological actions includinggrowth. We investigate the effect of light spectra on the somatic growth and growth-related gene expression in the rearing tiger puffer. Fish was reared under different light spectra (blue, green and red) for 8 weeks. Fish body weight and total length were promoted when reared under gree...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an abundant class of 22-nucleotide (nt) noncoding RNAs, some of which are known to control the expression of other genes at the posttranscriptional level (1–4). We developed a computational procedure (MiRscan) to identify miRNA genes (5) and apply it here to identify most of the miRNA genes in vertebrates. MiRscan relies on the observation that the known miRNAs derive fro...

The pufferfish Takifugu flavidus is an important economic species due to its outstanding flavour and high market value. It has been regarded as an excellent model of genetic study for decades as well. In the present study, three mate-pair libraries of T. flavidus genome were sequenced by the SOLiD 4 next-generation sequencing platform, and the draft genome was constructed with the short reads u...