In Drosophila, the Polycomb group (PcG) of genes is required for the maintenance of homeotic gene repression during development. Here, we have characterized the Drosophila ortholog of the products of the mammalian Ring1/Ring1A and Rnf2/Ring1B genes. We show that Drosophila Ring corresponds to the Sex combs extra (Sce), a previously described PcG gene. We find that Ring/Sce is expressed and requ...

The effect of cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II) (cPt) on sister chro111:11 id exchange (S( '!•') induction was determined in 13 human primary tumor cell cultures. Primary cultures were derived from surgical speci mens of solid tumors composed of a variety of histologies. Three to 16 days after biopsy, depending on the growth rate, cultures were treated with graded concentrations of cPt for l h...

There is a worldwide ongoing investigation for novel natural constituents with cytotoxic and antioxidant properties. The aim of this study was to investigate chemical profile and stated biological activities of the supercritical CO2 extract (SCE) of old man's beard compared to the extracts obtained using the conventional techniques (Soxhlet extracts and macerate). The most abundant compound ide...

Electronic system-level (ESL) design is touted as a promising solution to sustain productivity in embedded system design in the presence of increasing complexities and decreasing time-to-market. The System-On-Chip Environment (SCE) provides such a SpecC-based ESL design solution. In this report, we demonstrate SCE as applied to the design of a MP3 decoder. Starting from a reference C code, an i...

As a conventional farming practice, tillage has lasted for thousands of years in Loess Plateau, China. Although recent studies show that tillage is a prominent culprit to soil carbon loss in croplands, few studies have investigated the influences of tillage on the responses of soil CO2 efflux (SCE) to soil temperature and moisture. Using a multi-channel automated CO2 efflux chamber system, we m...

Ethylene oxide (EtO) is a genotoxic carcinogen with widespread uses as an industrial chemical intermediate and sterilant. We examined the effects of glutathione S-transferase T1 (GSTT1) and M1 (GSTM1) genotypes on the levels of N-(2-hydroxyethyl)valine (HEV) adducts in the erythrocytes and sister chromatid exchange (SCE) in lymphocytes from a group of 58 operators of sterilizers that used EtO a...

Using a multidisciplinary approach, we have measured various indicators of DNA damage in peripheral lymphocytes of human populations potentially at increased risk for cancer. Sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-DNA adducts were evaluated in a group of firefighters; chromosomal aberrations and hprt mutations were evaluated in a group of cancer patients unde...

The potential mutagenicity of fluroxene was investigated by the sister chromatid exchange (SCE) test using lymphocytes in peripheral blood from patients before and after anaesthesia. Twenty-five female patients, aged 21 -77 yr (median 36.5yr) were anaesthetized for gynaecological operations with fluroxene in nitrous oxide for 60-220 nun (median 110 min). The number of SCE per cell was the same ...

The aim of the present study was to investigate DNA damage in peripheral blood lymphocytes of breast cancer (BC) patients before and after administration of chemotherapy. We analyzed the frequency of sister chromatid exchange (SCE), occurrence of micronuclei (MN), and lymphocyte proliferation rate index (PRI) as cytogenetic markers in 28 female BC patients before and after chemotherapy, and in ...

This study investigated genetic damage in paint workers mainly exposed to toluene as it is a major solvent used in paint thinners. Sister chromatid exchange (SCE) assay was used as biomarker of genotoxicity. Blood samples were collected from 30 paint workers and 30 control subjects matched with respect to age and other confounding factors except for exposure to toluene. SCE frequency was found ...