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SCIENCE KOLKATA WEDNESDAY 25 JULY 2012 10

The Monarch stays The routes of

penetration
on course Monarch Genome and Migration

Sun compass
tapan kumar maitra explains the
mechanisms of transmission of
causative agents of infectious diseases

Circadian system IN the process of evolution, pathogenic microbes

This species of butterfly is
found to have a fail-proof
means of navigation, says
s ananthanarayanan
THE Monarch Butterfly, Danaus Plexippus,
each year performs the impressive feat of flying
from Canada to Mexico for the winter and
returning in the spring. In fact, the Monarch can
carry out a trans-Atlantic crossing, and in
Australia, where it is also found, it is known by
the name “Wanderer”. Steven Reppert and
colleagues at the University of Massachusetts at
Worcester report their work on the navigation
apparatus of this remarkable insect.
The Monarch is orange and black and has a
wingspan of 3.5 to four inches. It is the only
butterfly that regularly migrates seasonally, both
south and north, like birds. But unlike birds, the
Monarch has a normal life span of just two
months and cannot complete the round trip
within a single generation. Butterflies born in
late summer enter a non-reproducing phase and
enjoy a longer life span of seven months and
they first make the flight down to the south for
“overwintering”.
When the winter is over, in February or March,
a new generation is born and these butterflies
start to move northward. It is this second, or
even the third or fourth generations, that actually
make it to the northern locations later in the
spring. How the tendency to move consistently
south or north is monitored and passed on has
been a matter of wonder and research.
Initial work has shown that the migratory
movement is controlled with the help of the
butterflies’ antennae. The antennae contain a
circadian — or 24-hour cycle – mechanism that
helps the Monarch fly true, due south or north,
with the help of the sun. The clock action inside
the antennae provides compensation for the
changes in the sun’s position during the course
of the day. It has been noted that Monarchs
whose antennae have been removed or painted
black, to cut out the illumination signal, cannot
orient themselves with respect to the direction of
light. Study of the action, in the antennae, of
genes that react to light shows that these genes
do not express, through causing synthesis of
proteins, in the regulated 24-hour cycle when
antennae are blacked out.
While it is thus settled that it is in the
antennae that the clock mechanism resides, a
question that arises, as there are two antennae, is
whether there is a relationship between the
signals from the two antennae. For starters, it has
been found that surgically removing either
antenna does not affect the ability of the
Monarch to orient — both antennae are thus not
necessary, either one will do. And further, that
each antenna is equally good — there is no
asymmetry, unlike in the case of scent sensitivity
of the honeybee or the bumblebee.
Steven Reppert.
Bee and bumblebee
In the case of bees, the detection of odours, for
food location and foraging, is through the pair of
antennae. The bees’ antennae have structures
that are sensitive to touch, taste and smell. Thus,
they can make out wind direction or force,
vibrations, sweetness of nectar or, most
sensitively, the presence of odours with the help
of antennae. The bee, in fact, is highly trainable
and a number of experiments have been carried
out using odours and the Proboscis Extension
Reflex, or the extension of a feeding organ when
odours are associated with sweetened water. But
the interesting thing in the case of bees is the
laterality — it has been seen that the learning
response of bees is positively better with odours
detected by the right antenna than the left
antenna. In fact, even in the circling flight around
a flower, before descent and feeding, it is seen
that there is laterality, or a preferred direction of
circling. And the same tendency to prefer one
side is seen in a number of other small animals.
That there is no similar preference in the case
of light sensing by the antennae of the Monarch
Butterfly seems to be connected with the
Orientation genes
miRNA differences
Chemoreception
difference of the environmental feature being
sensed — in the case of the honeybee, there are
smells all around and different smells of
preferred feeding at different times of the day.
The smells then need to be remembered — there
is processing and storage of the smell
information in the brain. It has been seen that
where long-term memories are involved,
lateralisation or neural paths seem to be the way
to go in many invertebrate species. In the case of
the Monarch Butterfly, there is genetic
programming for flight in a particular direction —
there is no learning by repeated response and
reward — and hence no purpose in separating
the signal of one antenna from that of the other.
Blacking one antenna
But there has been a peculiar observation —
when one antenna was not removed but only
blackened, the Monarch was disoriented, just like
when both antennae were blackened or
removed. Which antenna had been blackened —
the right one or the left one — made no
difference — there was no laterality — but it did
seem that the signals from both antennae were
processed together, and blackening one antenna
caused disruption. And then, surgical removal of
that blackened antenna brought directional
orientation right back!
The finding seems to indicate that both
antennae have separate, but similar functions of
calibrating the sun’s directional guide with
reference to the time of day, but how the data
from the two antennae is integrated is not clear.
The desynchronising of information from the
blackened antenna seems to disrupt the
processing of the data from the other antenna,
leading to disorientation.
Reppert and colleagues followed through with
analyses of the gene-protein generating activity in
the antennae and the brain, with reference to the
timing of the light signals at the antennae. It was
found that the molecular-level activity was closely
related to the light signal data, showing peaks
and lows. But when the antenna was blackened,
the activity was “flat”, with no variation with the
timing. The blackening of one or other antenna
also had no significant effect on the molecular-
level activity of the other.
Comparison with the circadian information
from the eyes, as in the case of the cockroach or
cricket or sea slugs, does not clarify the nature of
the integration of the olfactory signals from the
antennae by the brain. It does appear, however,
that the provision of a pair of equivalent
navigation apparatus, in the case of the Monarch
Butterfly, is to make sure that the loss of one set
during the long flight does not make the migrant
go off course.
The writer can be contacted at simple-
science@gmail.com
have evolved the ability to penetrate the human body
in several ways and to localise selectively in the
tissues and organs in which they develop, causing a
specific response reaction of the macro-organism. In
medical microbiology, the aetiological principle,
based on the specific action of pathogenic micro-
organisms, serves as the basis for the classification
of infectious diseases.
Since the amount of pathogenic species of
microbes is comparatively great, it has become
necessary to group all infectious diseases according
to a certain principle — that is, according to the
mechanism of transmission from the source of
infection to the susceptible human body. Thus, for
each causative agent, there are definite mechanisms
of transmission providing for its localisation. Not only
are the routes of penetration of pathogenic micro-
organisms specific, but also the mechanisms of
excreting them from the body. These peculiarities of
causative agents of infectious diseases are taken
into account when carrying out anti-epidemic and
preventive measures.
The dynamics of the development of the infectious
process consists of the incubation and prodromal
periods, the height of the disease and period of
recovery (convalescence). A certain period of time
elapses from the moment of penetration of the path-
ogenic microbe to the onset of the first signs of the
disease, which has been named the incubation
period. It varies from several hours (in cholera,
toxinfections and plague) to several months and
years (in leishmaniasis, leprosy).
The duration of the incubation period depends on
Causative
Agents
Susceptible Reservoir
Host
Portal of Portal of
Entry Exit
Mode of
Transmission
Causative agents are capable of causing infectious
diseases. The Reservoir represents a place in which
an infectious agent can survive but may or may not
multiply. The Portal of Exit is associated with human
reservoirs – respiratory tract, genitourinary tract,
gastrointestinal tract, skin/mucous membrane,
transplacental (mother to foetus) and blood. Mode of
Transmission involves the mechanism for transfer of
an infectious agent from a reservoir to a susceptible
host. Portal of Entry is the path by which an
infectious agent enters a susceptible host. A
Susceptible Host is a person usually lacking effective
resistance to a particular pathogenic agent.

A ringside seat... the degree of the general and specific immunity of

... to see Saturn
and its moons.
steve connor reports
THESE stunning images of
Saturn and its moons were taken by
the Cassini space probe which, for
the first time in two years, has been
able to get a good view of the
planet’s famous rings owing to a
recent change in the spacecraft’s
angle of orbit. It took seven years for
Cassini to travel the two billion
miles to Saturn.
Since arriving in 2004, the probe
has been surveying the gas giant
from the advantage of its elaborate
elliptical orbits. The main image on
the left was taken from a distance of
about 621,000 miles from Saturn and
shows how the rings cast distinctive
shadows on the planet’s surface.
The other black-and-white
photographs, taken from about 1.1
million miles away, show the moons
Titan and Tethys and Saturn’s
elaborate ring system, which is
created by the reflected light of
particles of dust and debris caught
up in orbit around the equator.
Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004
and six months later it separated
from a second probe, called
Huygens, which landed successfully
on Titan after a breathtaking 12-hour
descent. The first images from Titan
showed a world that may have
looked remarkably similar to the
early earth before life evolved.
Scientists believe Titan has many
similar features to earth, such as
lakes, rivers, channels, dunes, rain,
snow, clouds, mountains and
possibly volcanoes.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a
joint enterprise between the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, the European Space
Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
It is named after two famous
European astronomers, Giovanni
Domenico Cassini and Christiaan
Saturn as its rings
cast shadows on the
planet.
Huygens.
The spacecraft, launched in 1997,
is currently in an extended mission
expected to last until 2017. “It has
been nearly two years since Nasa’s
Cassini spacecraft has had views like
these of Saturn’s glorious rings,” said
a spokesman for Nasa’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. “These views
are possible again because Cassini
has changed the angle at which it
orbits Saturn and regularly passes
above and below the planet’s
equatorial plane.”
The Independent, London
A shadow cast by Saturn’s moon
Tethys across the A ring as the
planet’s own shadow blocks light
from the lower part of the rings.
Pandora
Enceladus
Janus
Rhea
Saturn’s moons as they orbit the huge planet.
the human body, its reactivity, sensitiszation
(increased sensitivity), the influence of harmful
environmental factors and social conditions of life,
and on the dose and virulence of the causative
agent.
Reproduction and accumulation of the microbes
and their toxins, the sum of the resulting irritations,
the increase of the reactivity of the human body to
the causative agent and its toxins take place during
the incubation period. Infection can end with the
development of the disease. The disease will not
develop if the organism proves to be capable of
actively mobilising its defence forces, and of
rendering harmless the introduced causative agent.
In some diseases, the prodromal period ensues
after the incubation period, during which
characteristic symptoms of the disease are absent
and non-specific characters develop, common to
many diseases (indisposition, loss of appetite,
weakness, sometimes subfebrile temperature), with
the exception of measles (red spots on the mucous
membrane of the mouth, Filatov’s spots), and
smallpox (prodromal rash on the face and limbs).
At the height of the disease, when the infectious
process attains its highest intensity, it remains at
such a level for some time, the duration of which
depends on the type of disease. During a favourable
course, the disease enters the stage of
convalescence, while in some cases it terminates in
a crisis, involving a rapid decrease in temperature
accompanied by perspiration and, frequently, by the
phenomenon of vascular collapse. In other cases,
convalescence is characterised by lysis, a gradual
lowering of the temperature and lessening of the
disease.
The most typical features of infectious disease are
fever, inflammation and the central and vegetative
nervous systems being affected. Besides, there are
functional and organic disturbances in the respira-
tory, digestive and urinary organs, and in some
infections, dermal changes such as various rashes.
The writer is associate professor and head, Department
of Botany, Ananda Mohan College, Kolkata

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