Jasinski, S. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2025

The menstrual cycle through the lens of a wearable device: insights into physiology, sleep, and cycle variability

Women on average have 450 menstrual cycles in a lifetime, but we lack a characterization of physiological biometrics across the cycle and lifespan. We analyzed 1.2 million days of data from 2,596 women who logged 42,759 menstrual cycles and wore a device that collected sleep and biometric data including resting heart rate (RHR), heart rate variability, respiratory rate, skin temperature, and blood oxygen saturation level. We generated novel quantifications of daily biometrics across ages and cycle lengths, finding that cycle length is strongly associated with how much cardiorespiratory metrics vary across the cycle. We observed greater cycle variability for participants who slept 6 versus 8 hours. A within-participant natural experiment showed that decreased sleep resulted in biometric changes regardless of cycle phase (e.g., RHR increased 1.2% with a 10% decrease in weekly sleep duration). These results lay a foundation to better understand and optimize female health and performance.

physiology↗

bioRxiv2024

Innovative mutant screening identifies TRANSPARENT TESTA7 as a player in seed oil/protein partitioning

Brassicaceae species mainly accumulate oil and protein in their seeds, which are essential to human life as a source of food, but also as animal feed and resources for green chemistry. To date, Brassicaceae crops such as rapeseed have been selected mainly for their oil content. However, there is a growing interest in their seed protein content. A strong negative correlation between oil and protein content makes it difficult to increase both compounds simultaneously. In this study, an Arabidopsis thaliana homozygous EMS mutant library was screened by near-infrared spectroscopy for seed oil and protein content, with the aim of identifying mutants with impaired oil-protein correlation. The mutant most affected in this correlation was found to be in the TRANSPARENT TESTA7 gene, which is involved in the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway. Analysis of different mutants in the flavonoid pathway revealed that the tt7 mutants were the only ones to show such a significant reduction in seed oil content, highlighting a phenotype never described before for the tt7 mutants and suggesting a specific role for TT7 in the interplay between the oil and flavonoid biosynthetic pathways. Untargeted metabolomic analysis allowed the identification of metabolic features that are highly accumulated and specific to tt7 seeds compared to the other genotypes and genetic analysis established that the accumulation of kaempferol-3-O-rhamnoside seems to be responsible for the seed oil reduction of tt7 mutants. Significance StatementBrassicaceae species accumulate oil and protein in their seeds and understanding how the partitioning of these compounds is regulated is necessary to engineer seeds for specific purposes. By screening an Arabidopsis EMS mutant library, we identified mutants affected in seed oil/protein partitioning, including tt7, highlighting a link between oil and flavonoid biosynthetic pathways, that we explore further in this paper.

plant biology↗