Significance: Diapause is an alternative developmental pathway exploited by insects and other invertebrates to survive inimical seasons. Like many insects that enter an adult diapause, the mosquito Culex pipiens responds to the short day lengths of autumn by feeding extensively on sugar, stockpiling huge fat reserves, halting reproduction, suppressing metabolism, boosting defense responses, and migrating to protected sites where it can safely bridge the winter months. In the experiments presented here, we propose that many of the diverse features of the diapause phenotype are the consequence of activating forkhead transcription factor (FOXO), a transcription factor downstream of insulin and juvenile hormone signaling. Our experimental results reveal how these upstream hormonal signaling pathways act through FOXO to generate the complex phenotype known as diapause.

Diapause is a critical eco-physiological adaptation for winter survival in the West Nile Virus vector, Culex pipiens, but little is known about the molecular mechanisms that distinguish diapause from non-diapause in this important mosquito species. We used Illumina RNA-seq to simultaneously identify and quantify relative transcript levels in diapausing and non-diapausing adult females. Among 65,623,095 read pairs, we identified 41 genes with significantly different transcript abundances between these two groups. Transcriptome divergences between these two phenotypes include genes related to juvenile hormone synthesis, anaerobic metabolism, innate immunity and cold tolerance.

To assess the agreement of decentration measurements between tangential curvature topography and tomography pachymetry difference maps after a small-incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) procedure. Yonsei University College of Medicine and Eyereum Eye Clinic, Seoul, South Korea. Retrospective case series. Decentrations and pupillary offset (angle κ) were analyzed and compared using two different methods. A difference map of the tangential curvature was generated with a Placido corneal topographer (Keratron Scout) and a pachymetry difference map was generated with a Scheimpflug tomographer (Pentacam) for each eye, using preoperative and 3-month postoperative scans. Decentrations were also compared using a vector difference plot for the two maps. The study comprised 155 eyes (155 patients). The magnitude of decentration was 0.27 mm ± 0.17 (SD) (range 0.02 to 0.88 mm) with the tangential curvature difference maps and 0.26 ± 0.20 mm (range 0.00 to 0.91 mm) with the pachymetry difference maps, showing no significant difference in the arithmetic values of decentration (P = .124). However, the vector difference in pupillary offset between preoperative and postoperative measurements from the pachymetry difference map significantly correlated with the magnitude of vector differences of decentration between the two maps (P = .007). The vector difference plot also showed a wide distribution spread to all 4 quadrants, demonstrating a lack of agreement. Although there was no significant difference between the scalar magnitude of decentration with the tangential topography difference maps and tomography pachymetry difference maps, the vector differences did not agree and increasing error was present with increasing differences in pupillary offset in the pachymetry difference maps.