MARSDEN FUND NEWSLETTER
NO 19 MARCH 2002
Contents
New Zealand study confirms global devastation following
asteroid impact
The new axis of penal power
News from Marsden Cottage
Bose-Einstein condensation: quantum matter waves and the atom
laser
Proteins that can stick to Teflon
Will the Pacific languages survive?
Water ignites coal
Defusing the ovarian time-bomb
New Zealand study confirms global devastation following
asteroid impact
Marsden researchers became global celebrities for a few weeks late last year,
when their study of West Coast coal seams was published in the international
journal Science 1 . As part of an investigation into the local effects of the
catastrophe that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, two scientists
at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, Drs Ian Raine and Chris
Hollis, and Swedish researcher Dr Vivi Vajda, found the first clear evidence
for abrupt destruction of forests outside of North America.
Their study of pollen grains preserved in coal seams exposed in a stream bank
near Greymouth has revealed a remarkable succession of vegetation, in which
a mixed forest community was abruptly replaced by a few species of ground fern
- species whose modern relatives are known to be early colonisers of open ground.
The ferns dominated the vegetation record over a few centimetres in the coal
seam before a gradual progressive recovery of tree ferns, conifers and broadleaf
trees began. In North America, this so-called fern spike occurs directly above
the asteroid impact layer, which is identified by the high abundance of elements
known to be much more abundant in meteorites than they are in the Earth's crust
- notably iridium and chromium. These same elements have also been found to
be extremely abundant at the base of the fern spike in the New Zealand site.
Prior to the New Zealand discovery, it was felt that destruction of forests
due to an impact winter or impact-ignited wildfires, was largely confined to
the American continent, within a radius of several thousand kilometres of the
inferred impact site on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. A fern spike on an isolated
landmass (New Zealand had separated from the rest of Gondwanaland by this time)
on the opposite side of the Earth to the impact site is compelling evidence
that the asteroid impact caused sudden global destruction of terrestrial plant
communities.
The results help to resolve a long-standing debate concerning the dinosaur
extinctions. Leading explanations for the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million
years ago are linked to climatic cooling - either gradual climatic deterioration
over the last few millions of years of the Cretaceous period or a sudden catastrophic
"nuclear winter" caused by the impact of a giant asteroid. This theory
has been reinforced by some evidence for lower levels of extinction among plants
New Zealand study confirms global devastation following asteroid impact and
animals in cool polar regions. However, fossil evidence from New Zealand, which
was located close to the South Pole in the Late Cretaceous, indicates that some
dinosaurs and related large marine reptiles - mosasaurs and plesiosaurs - could
survive polar climates. The Marsden team’s results show that even if the
polar dinosaurs survived freezing conditions, loss of food supply would see
them meeting the same fate as their cousins living in a warmer climate. This
discovery is just one aspect of the findings of this Marsden programme which
has also turned up evidence for abrupt disruption to marine ecosystems around
New Zealand at the time of the asteroid strike. These findings will be the subject
of a series of articles principal investigator Dr Chris Hollis and his team
are preparing for a special issue of the New Zealand Journal of Geology and
Geophysics to be published in 2003.
| 1 Vajda, V.; Raine, J.I.; Hollis, C.J. 2001: Indication of global deforestation
at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary by New Zea-land fern spike. Science
294: 1700-1702. |
|
For more information, contact Dr Chris Hollis Institute of Geological
and Nuclear Sciences P.O. Box 30368, Lower Hutt Tel: (04) 570 1444 Email:
c.hollis@gns.cri.nz
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The new axis of penal power
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Dr John Pratt,
Victoria University of Wellington
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Dr John Pratt received a Marsden grant (1998–2000) to examine the role played
by cultural values in the historical development of punishment in modern society.
He has written extensively on the project and his book “Punishment and Civilization”
is to be published by Sage in June 2002. In November 2001 he was invited to give
lectures on his research at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Keele and Sheffield.
The following is a summary of one of the final sections of his book. In the last
20 years, the framework of punishment in modern societies has changed dramatically.
The rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased from 230 per 100,000
of population in 1979 to 709 in 2000. In New Zealand, the rate has increased from
75 per 100,000 in 1986 to 160 in 2000; in England, from 93 to 130; and in Australia,
65 to 106, over the same period. One of the reasons for these changes relates
to the way in which the axis of penal power itself has changed over the same period.
During the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this had revolved
around the central state and its bureaucratic organizations, with the public largely
removed from any involvement with the penal process. As a result, legal punishment
increasingly bore the imprint of the sensibilities and aspirations of the liberal
elites working in the penal bureaucracies, speaking a very sanitized language
of punishment and trying to ameliorate the effects of its sanctions. However,
in the last 20 years, this relationship has been replaced to a greater or lesser
extent in these modern societies by a new axis of penal power which revolves around
the state and a general public alarmed and alienated by the pace and extent of
social and economic change, and by the apparent powerlessness of government organ-izations
to protect them from rising crime and dangerous offenders.
As a result, bureaucratic organizations and the experts they employ have come
to be increasingly sidelined and discredited. We find an abandonment of liberal
penal provisions and a general questioning by the public and politicians alike
about the seemingly excessive lenience of the penal system, with demands that
it impose punishments that are more in keeping with contemporary fears and anxieties.
The referendum provision in the New Zealand electoral system from 1993 is an
example of this disenchantment with the orthodox structures of power and the
attempt to give “ordinary people” a voice. This was heard in the 1999
referendum when 92% voted in favour of still longer prison sentences for violent
offenders and “hard labour” prisons terms. Governments no longer dismiss
these expressions of public sentiment as irrational or uninformed, but are prepared
to act on them, as the Labour Government in this country has done with recent
sentencing proposals. These seek to extend terms of imprisonment for some types
of violent crime and make preventive detention more available to the courts.
And yet acceleration of the rate of imprisonment remains so much greater in
the United States than elsewhere. This is because in that country the anxieties
and concerns of everyday life are both more pronounced and profound than elsewhere,
with correspondingly less by way of some residual level of state support that
might provide security against them. In addition, its electoral system allows
for public sentiment to have a more direct impact on penal policy than elsewhere.
The necessity for judges, prosecutors and the like, as well as politicians,
to win public approval allows this new punitiveness to have more direct purchase
there. The consequences have been that these sentiments have steadily pushed
the boundaries of permissible punishment outwards.
| For further information, contact Dr John Pratt Department of Criminology
Victoria University of Wellington P.O. Box 600, Wellington Tel: (04) 472
1000, ext. 8558 Email: john.pratt@vuw.ac.nz
Dr John Pratt, Victoria University of Wellington |
News from Marsden Cottage
by Dr Valda McCann, Manager, Research Funding
Marsden Fund preliminary proposals, 2002
As I write these notes, the preliminary proposal assessment meetings are in
progress and will continue during the firsthalf of April. The Marsden Fund Council
will meet to make the final decisions andthen the invitations to submit full
proposals will be sent out by 18 April. This year, there are 801 preliminary
proposals – 671 standard proposals and 130 Fast-Start proposals. This is
a decrease on the number compared to last year (706 standard, 179 Fast-Start
proposals) when the new Fast-Start programme caused a surge in the number of
applications, but is still more than the previous year’s total (756). We
have defined the panel subject areas in more detail this year, and asked applicants
to choose only one panel unless the research truly spans more than one panel
area. This has approximately halved the percentage of each panel’s proposals
which go to a second panel as well. This has had a larger apparent effect on
decreasing the number in each life science panel, where there has usually been
a large percentage of double panels chosen. The members of the Marsden Fund
Council are checking the proposals and have referred some to people on other
panels for additional expert opinion. They have also sent some proposals to
a second panel for assessment.
| Numbers of preliminary proposals, by panel. The numbers
include proposals sent to more than one panel, so adding up the number of
proposals in each panel gives a total greater than the number of separate
proposals given above. Last year’s figures are given in brackets. |
| Panel |
No. of Fast-Start Proposals
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No. of Standard Proposals
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Total
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| Biomedical Sciences (B&B) |
9 (9)
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107 (119)
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116 (128)
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| Cellular, Molecular & Physiological Biology |
11 (13)
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115 (147)
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126 (160)
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| Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour |
20 (33)
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125 (163)
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145 (196)
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| Earth Sciences and Astronomy |
8 (16)
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79 (75)
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87 (91)
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| Humanities |
16 (16)
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39 (39)
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55 (55)
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| Mathematical and Information Sciences |
15 (20)
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58 (54)
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73 (74)
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| Physical Sciences and Engineering |
17 (26)
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99 (120)
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116 (146)
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| Social Sciences |
40 (56)
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91 (78)
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131 (134)
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| Total |
136 (189)
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713 (795)
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849 (984)
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Marsden at a glance
The Marsden Fund supports excellent research in a wide range of topics
covering the sciences, social sciences, humanities andengineering. Each
year, Government provides funding for projects that will foster research
of the highest calibre. This work is not subject to government priorities
but will nonetheless enhance New Zealand’s ability to participate
in, and benefit from, research of an international standard. Set up in
1994, the Marsden Fund is a contestable fund administered by the Royal
Society of New Zealand. A Marsden Fund Council of nine eminent researchers,
chaired by Professor Diana Hill, is appointed by the Minister of Research,
Science and Technology to make recommendations for funding. Selection
criteria focus on the merit of the proposal, the potential of the researchers
to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, and the enhancement of
research skills in New Zealand, especially those of emerging researchers.
Eight panels have been established to help the Marsden Fund Council assess
proposals. These are:
| Biomedical Sciences |
Earth Sciences and Astronomy |
| Humanities |
Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| Cellular, Molecular and Physiological Biology |
Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour |
| Mathematical and Information Sciences |
Social Sciences |
For more information and application forms, contact the Marsden Fund,
Royal Society of New Zealand, 9 Turnbull St, Thorndon, P.O. Box 598, Wellington,
New Zealand. Phone: (04) 472 8345 Fax: (04) 473 1409 Email: marsden@rsnz.org
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Bose-Einstein condensation: quantum matter waves and the
atom laser
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Graduate students make adjustments on the Otago University
Bose-Einstein experiment.
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Output from the Otago atom laser: the picture (field of view 0.3 ´ 0.3
mm) shows five pulses, each being a separate Bose-Einstein condensate made up
of rubidium atoms. Graduate students make adjustments on the Otago University
Bose-Einstein experiment. A Bose-Einstein condensate is a new fifth state of
matter (after solids, liquids, gases and plasmas) which occurs at extraordinarily
low temperatures, typically within a millionth of a degree of the absolute zero
of temperature (–273 degrees Celsius). In this state, the atoms collectively
behave as if they were a single atom, which means that the quantum behaviour
of single atoms is visible on a much larger scale. (Quantum behaviour refers
to particles having wave-like properties and discrete energy states.) Although
the Bose-Einstein state was first predicted in 1925 by Albert Einstein, little
was then known about its properties, except that the conditions required were
so extreme that a practical realisation seemed impossible. Experimental programmes
to create a Bose-Einstein condensate were started in the 1970s, but it was the
invention of laser cooling in the 1980s that made possible the production of
the first condensate in 1995. This achievement opened a remarkably rich field
for exploration and was recognised with the award of the Nobel Prize to Wieman,
Cornell and Ketterle in 2001.
New Zealand physicists, supported by the Marsden Fund, have been actively involved
in this field since 1995, and have made a number of significant contributions.
A collaborative programme of theoretical research is being carried out by Otago
and Victoria Universities. Auckland University’s theoretical physics group
also contributes to the field as part of its programme in fundamental quantum
studies. The experimental group at Otago produced its first condensate in 1998,
the first group outside the US, France or Germany to do so.
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| Output from the Otago atom laser: the picture (field of view 0.3 n
0.3 mm) shows five pulses, each being a separate Bose-Einstein condensate
made up of rubidium atoms. |
A major focus of research efforts, both here and abroad, has been the development
and application of an atom laser, a device that emits a wave of matter, in contrast
to the conventional optical laser which emits a wave of light. When optical
lasers were invented in the 1950s, they were a solution looking for a problem.
Now they’re everywhere – hidden away in your CD player, an integral
part of optical fibre links, and in routine medical use. The theory of the key
components of the atom laser have been developed by Professors Crispin Gardiner
(Victoria University of Wellington) and Rob Ballagh (Otago University) and tested
by groups around the world, including Dr Andrew Wilson’s experimental group
at Otago. Experimental atom lasers have now been successfully demonstrated,
but there is still much to do.
As with the conventional laser at the same stage of development, the applications
are unknown. It can be speculated, however, that one use will be found in the
production of nano-electronic devices.
Attention is also now focussed on manipulating condensates to exploit the wave
property of matter, and test and extend the understanding of quantum theory.
Optical lasers provide a powerful tool, capable of delivering precise forces
to the condensate. The theory group of Professors Ballagh and Gardiner has been
investigating the way in which optical lasers can affect the condensate and
has been analysing the fundamental processes involved. For example, lasers can
be used to split the condensate in two and to make it oscillate.
The award of the Nobel prize is recognition that Bose-Einstein condensation
is far more than the verification of a 70-year-old idea. It is the creation
of a completely new field of physics, combining condensed matter physics, atomic
physics and quantum optics in the study of a pure quantum system which can be
precisely controlled, and is capable of very clear theoretical description.
The potential of this field is enormous, both from the point of view of pure
science and of technological applications.
| For further information, contact Professor Rob Ballagh, Department of
Physics, University of Otago, P. O. Box 56, Dunedin Tel: (03) 479 1100,
extn 7793 Email: ballagh@physics.otago.ac.nz |
Proteins that can stick to Teflon
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| Electron micrograph of rodlets on the surface of Neurospora crassa
spores (courtesy of Dr Ross Beever, Landcare Research). Scale: the width
of the photo represents 1 micrometre. |
Stamp on a ripe puffball and its tiny spores blow away in a cloud of khaki
smoke, unless the spores get wet and waterlogged, when they'll go nowhere. Mushrooms
and the bread mould Neurospora cover their spores with a layer of little rods,
just one molecule thick, to prevent waterlogging and help their dispersal.
Each rodlet is quite remarkable. One surface faces the spore, the other is directed
outwards, and turns away water. It's a bit like the two ends of a Teflon molecule,
one end glued to the frying pan, the other turning away fat. More remarkably,
the mould's rodlets can be broken down into individual protein molecules then
re-assembled into a tough, orderly coat again. The rodlet layer can assemble
on, and strongly adhere to, Teflon, which is a rare property for biological
molecules.
These highly surface-active proteins are difficult to extract, handle and analyse
in the lab. Details of their molecular structure and chemistry eluded researchers
until, five years ago, a team led by Marsden recipient Dr Matt Templeton (Horticulture
and Food Research Institute, Mt Albert) and Dr Joel Mackay (University of Sydney)
turned their attention to these proteins.
The team found that the layer of rodlets is remarkably tough, being soluble
only in fearsome 100% trifluoroacetic acid. When re-suspended in water, the
dissolved rodlets are almost completely disordered, except for a small core
of structure. But on exposure to the air, the dissolved proteins re-assemble
themselves into highly ordered rodlets again. They can make this transition
time and time again, the rodlets forming almost instantaneously.
Using nuclear magnetic resonance methods, the team has developed the first detailed
atomic information about the relationship between the structure and function
of this peculiar class of protein.
Fungal "hydrophobins", as they are called, join the growing number
of proteins that behave very differently, depending on how they are folded.
Among these are the amyloid fibres in the brains of Alzheimers, Huntington's
and mad cow disease victims. Like the fungal rodlets, these brain fibres also
change shape and "undergo disorder-order transitions" but they have
so far eluded atomic structural analysis. Dr Templeton's team thinks the fungal
rodlets provide a useful model system from which to study and understand amyloid
formation and structure in brain disease.
Apart from its potential as a model for amyloid formation, this peculiar protein
has applications in technology. An example is use of its ability to stick to
Teflon, enabling the attachment of enzymes and antibodies to biosensors.
| For further information, contact Dr Matt Templeton HortResearch Private
Bag 92169, Mt Albert Auckland Tel: (09) 815 4200 Email: mtempleton@hortresearch.co.nz
|
Will the Pacific languages survive?
Many Pacific communities in Manukau are unaware of the fragile state of their
languages. Now, following work being carried out by Professor Allan Bell (Auckland
University of Technology), Dr Melenaite Taumoefolau (University of Auckland),
Dr Donna Starks (University of Auckland) and Ms Karen Davis (Manukau Institute
of Technology), we have early warning of the danger posed to the apparently
robust languages of Pasifika peoples.
Working with elders and advisors from the four largest Pasifika communities
in Manukau, the research team conducted 120 interviews with members of the Tongan,
Samoan, Cook Island and Niuean communities to chart their use of these languages.
The results, to be published this year, will likely show that many of the younger
people in each community have little or no facility in the language their forebears
spoke - and that could sound a warning bell. A pilot study, designed to test
and fine-tune the researchers' methodology, found a strong correlation between
age and competence in the language.
"The older you are, the more likely you are to talk the community language,"
explains Professor Bell. "The younger you are, the less likely. For example,
about 75 per cent of the youngest Cook Islanders are, by their own claim, monolingual
in English."
The Marsden-funded research project will do more than just quantify language
use in communities. Although many scientific projects simply observe change,
Professor Bell and his team have taken on an unabashed advocacy role as well.
"We will not let that bias our findings, but an explicit aim is to help
the languages maintain themselves. It is a value judgement but it is a value
judgement the communities make, and it is part of the deal that we contribute
to the preservation of the languages. Ecologists who work on endangered species
are in favour of preserving the species. The same goes for linguists who work
on languages which are under threat, and they too can use research as a basis
for action.
"The experience in other countries is that the first generations who come
want to adapt and assimilate and become part of the job scene. The second generation
wants to speak the new language in the home. What you invariably find two generations
on is that kids are starting to lose the language and they turn around to their
parents and grandparents and say: 'Why didn't you teach us our language? ' "
Professor Bell says there is much community and scholarly debate about whether
the loss of language makes it difficult for migrant communities to maintain
their culture. "Certainly most older people feel that the language is essential
to the character of the culture."
But he detects a level of complacency in some communities. "There is concern,
but it's not always matched by action. People will say they're worried but they
won't send their kids to the community language preschool. Academics like ourselves
are the people who can say to the community, 'We can see that your languages
are showing the first signs of endangerment. Now's the time to take action!
' "
Note: The collaborative research receives additional support from the Woolf
Fisher Research Centre at the University of Auckland and the three participating
tertiary institutions.
| For further information, contact Professor Allan Bell Language
Department Auckland University of Technology Private Bag 92006, Auckland
1020 Tel: (09) 917 9999 Email: allan.bell@aut.ac.nz |
Water ignites coal
Paradoxically, the presence of water in coal can cause it to ignite while it
is being transported or even while it is being stored, often with catastrophic
consequences. Although it has been known for some time that water can both assist
and inhibit ignition, existing ignition models have given inadequate attention
to its role.
Now, a conceptual framework developed within a project supported by the Marsden
Fund is providing a much more accurate means of assessing the effect of water
on the ignition of carbon-based materials.
Using detailed chemistry based on precise measurements of energy released in
burning, mathematical equations describing the movement of matter and heat,
and the innovative use of computational packages, it has been possible to significantly
increase the accuracy of ignition models.
For a material such as coal, which has a lumpy distribution with pockets of
air, the presence of water has a striking effect. It produces a "heat curtain"
around the centre of a hot spot caused by the chemical reaction of coal and
air. The point of ignition is within this heat curtain and can be determined
precisely, leading to a clearer understanding of the ignition process. This
makes safety criteria much easier to determine.
The work was part of a University of Auckland doctoral thesis by Rose Gong,
supervised by Professor Graeme Wake (now at the University of Canterbury) and
Dr John Burnell (Industrial Research Ltd). It has contributed to a wider Marsden
project, which has addressed fundamental aspects of heat flow and the movement
of matter in a variety of situations, from flow in geothermal fields to transport
through cell membranes.
Originally from Beijing, Dr Gong came to New Zealand in 1990, and has since
worked on a large number of projects related to fuels in internal combustion
engines. Dr Gong is currently working as a Senior Research Fellow on a FRST-funded
project at Victoria University of Wellington aimed at reducing particle emissions
from motor vehicles.
| For further information, contact Professor Graeme Wake Department of Mathematics
and Statistics University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800, Christchurch Tel:
(03) 364 2682 Email: g.wake@math.canterbury.ac.nz |
Defusing the ovarian time-bomb
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Dr Tony Weisstein and Associate Professor Hamish
Spencer.
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Humans and other mammals inherit two copies of each gene - one from their mother
and one from their father. For a small number of genes, either the maternal
copy or the paternal copy is switched off, or is less active than the other.
This phenomenon is known as genomic imprinting.
Biologists have wondered why this evolved, since it reduces the body's ability
to cope with harmful mutations. If the one active copy of the gene is faulty,
there is no other copy to fall back on.
Clearly, however, there is an important underlying reason for imprinting, since
it has evolved several times - more than 30 different genes are imprinted. In
particular, the mother's copies of genes that promote foetal growth are turned
off, whereas the father's copies of genes which inhibit foetal growth are inactivated.
Evolutionary biologists have proposed several hypotheses to explain these observations.
One of these, the "ovarian time-bomb" hypothesis, is based on the
fact that unfertilised eggs inside a female's ovaries can spontaneously start
to develop, leading to ovarian trophoblastic disease - a form of cancer. A female
could reduce this risk by turning down or inactivating growth-enhancing genes
in her eggs, and/ or increasing the activity of growth-inhibiting genes. While
it seemed to make sense, this model had not been developed to the point where
it could specify the precise conditions under which genomic imprinting might
evolve. The hypothesis has also been criticised because it was unable to explain
why the father's copies of some genes are inactivated.
Marsden recipients Dr Tony Weisstein and Associate Professor Hamish Spencer
at the University of Otago have worked with Dr Marcus Feldman at Stanford University
in the United States to construct a mathematical model that describes how imprinted
genes would evolve if the ovarian time-bomb hypothesis were true. They found
that maternal inactivation of growth-enhancing genes can arise under a wide
range of conditions, but only if the risk of cancer exceeds a certain threshold.
For intermediate levels of risk, imprinting will not evolve. But once a gene
is imprinted, an intermediate level of risk is sufficient to maintain the imprint.
Paternal inactivation, by contrast, can't evolve where a risk of cancer is the
only driving force. However, it could evolve to compensate for the increased
levels of growth inhibitors produced by the mother's genes in the egg. If both
the mother's and father's genes produced high levels of growth inhibitors, a
fertilised egg would never develop.
Therefore, because the mother's genes are producing high levels of growth inhibitors
to prevent cancer, the father's genes must produce correspondingly less to allow
foetal growth. Ultimately, this could lead to complete inactivation of the father's
growth-inhibiting genes.
This study confirms that the ovarian time-bomb hypothesis can, in principle,
explain the evolution of all forms of imprinting. The researchers are also now
able to make specific predictions that will help test the hypothesis against
the observed patterns of imprinting in various animals.
Marsden Update is published quarterly by the Marsden Fund
and is available free on request. Editor: Glenda Lewis Email: glenda.lewis@rsnz.org
