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Objective: We aimed to describe the experiences of Canadians who seek diagnosis and treatment for Lyme disease outside of the conventional Canadian health-care system.Methods: Forty-five individuals who had sought treatment for Lyme disease outside of the conventional Canadian health-care system were recruited from Lyme support and advocacy groups across Canada to answer open-ended questions about their experiences.Results: Respondents sought treatment outside of the conventional medical system due to extensive diagnostic procedures and treatments that did not resolve symptoms. Escalating health concerns, lack of effective treatment, and stigma produced a sense of abandonment and desperation. Respondents accessed alternative forms of care based on the recommendations of peers, yet considerable financial and emotional stress was experienced.Conclusions: Many individuals with Lyme or Lyme-like diseases are deeply dissatisfied with the care received within the conventional Canadian health-care system and therefore felt both pushed and pulled to seek treatments either from international physicians using different treatment protocols or from alternative medicine providers in Canada.

Ixodes scapularis, a known vector of Borrelia burgdorferisensu stricto (Bbss), is undergoing range expansion in many parts of Canada. The province of New Brunswick, which borders jurisdictions with established populations of I. scapularis, constitutes a range expansion zone for this species. To better understand the current and potential future distribution of this tick under climate change projections, this study applied occupancy modelling to distributional records of adult ticks that successfully overwintered, obtained through passive surveillance. This study indicates that I. scapularisoccurs throughout the southern-most portion of the province, in close proximity to coastlines and major waterways. Milder winter conditions, as indicated by the number of degree days <0 °C, was determined to be a strong predictor of tick occurrence, as was, to a lesser degree, rising levels of annual precipitation, leading to a final model with a predictive accuracy of 0.845 (range: 0.828–0.893). Both RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 climate projections predict that a significant proportion of the province (roughly a quarter to a third) will be highly suitable for I. scapularisby the 2080s. Comparison with cases of canine infection show good spatial agreement with baseline model predictions, but the presence of canine Borrelia infections beyond the climate envelope, defined by the highest probabilities of tick occurrence, suggest the presence of Bbss-carrying ticks distributed by long-range dispersal events. This research demonstrates that predictive statistical modelling of multi-year surveillance information is an efficient way to identify areas where I. scapularisis most likely to occur, and can be used to guide subsequent active sampling efforts in order to better understand fine scale species distributional patterns.

Chromosomes are not inert structures that haul the genome through cell division. The dynamic properties of chromosomes, during the cell cycle, the lifetime of the organism and across evolutionary time, featured prominently at the 49th Annual Drosophila Research Conference. Platform presentations, workshops and posters focused on many aspects of chromosome structure and function including chromosome interactions such as trans-silencing and pairing between homologous and non-homologous chromosomes, specialized portions of the chromosome including the centromere and telomeres, the structure, function and evolution of the large heterochromatic domains such as the Y and 4th chromosomes, centric heterochromatin and subtelomeric heterochromatin. The speed of evolutionary changes in these regions, and the consequences for speciation and hybrid-incompatibility were recurring themes. Finally, there was considerable new insight offered into the mechanics by which chromosomes are rearranged and changes in the types of alterations occurring over the lifetime of the organism, which can result in novel genes and gene flow between chromosomes. The availability of the twelve sequenced Drosophila genomes has allowed new insights into the structure, function and evolutionary transformation of chromosomes and genomes that will continue to transform our view of the chromosome as a dynamic and flexible entity that houses and regulates the genome.

The birth of Dolly the sheep in 1996 transformed nuclear transplantation from an arcane technique to a technology at the core of medical biotechnology. Transplantation of nuclei allows the generation of new individuals and is being exploited to create genetically tailored stem cells for replacement tissues and organs. The list of cloned animals reared to adulthood currently includes the frog, sheep, mouse, cow, goat, pig, rabbit, cat, zebrafish, mule, horse, rat and dog. The addition of Drosophilato this elite bestiary of cloned animals has prompted the question – why clone flies? Organisms generated by nuclear transplantation suffer from a high rate of associated defects. This review summarizes recent literature that demonstrates that the majority of these defects, in both mammals and flies, arise from mis-regulation of imprinted genes. The regulation of imprinted genes relies on a suite of highly conserved chromatin-modifying genes, first identified in Drosophila. Thus, Drosophilacan be used to rapidly assess epigenetic dysfunction in cloned animals and could be used to screen for genes that allow the production of healthy clones.

Several mutants that enhance the gene inactivation associated with position-effect variegation [E(var) mutants] have been characterized. These include three ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS)-induced lesions and a second chromosome duplication. Each of the EMS mutations maps to a discrete euchromatic site on the third chromosome. One is located within the chromosomal region occupied by a cluster of Su(var) mutations. All four E(var) mutants enhance the inactivation of several different variegators and therefore they appear to influence position-effect variegation generally. However, the enhancement caused by the single site E(var) mutations is less striking than that caused by the duplication or by loss of the Y chromosome. The interaction between the E(var) mutants and selected Su(var) mutations, as well as the effects of extra Y heterochromatin on E(var) expression, have also been investigated. Based on the results of these studies, various hypothetical functions of the E(var)+ products are suggested.