The enhancer elements from either simian virus 40 or murine sarcoma virus activate the expression of a transfected rat insulin 1 (r11) gene when placed within 2.0 kilobases or less of the rl1 gene cap site. Inclusion of 4.0 kilobases of upstream r11 sequence, however, results in a substantial reduction in the enhancer-dependent insulin gene expression. These observations suggested that a negati...

BACKGROUND Detection of Mycobacterium leprae in slit skin smear (SSS) is a gold standard technique for the leprosy diagnosis. Over recent years, molecular diagnosis by using PCR has been increasingly used as an alternative for its diagnosis due to its higher sensitivity. This study was carried out for comparative evaluation of PCR and SSS microscopy in a cohort of new leprosy cases diagnosed in...

Correspondence between two distinct genetic traits, 16S rRNA gene sequences and repetitive element-sequence-based BOX-PCR DNA fingerprints, and antibiotic inhibition and resistance phenotypes was explored for a spatially explicit sample of Streptomyces from a prairie soil. There was no correspondence between 16S rRNA gene sequence groups and antibiotic phenotypes. However, 16S rRNA gene sequenc...

In the hypotrichous ciliated protozoan Oxytricha nova, approximately 95% of the micronuclear genome, including all of the repetitive DNA and most of the unique sequence DNA, is eliminated during the formation of the macronuclear genome. We have examined the interspersion patterns of repetitive and unique and eliminated and retained sequences in the micronuclear genome by characterizing randomly...

Microbial source tracking (MST) results, obtained using identical sample sets and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), repetitive element PCR (rep-PCR) and ribotyping techniques were compared. These methods were performed by six investigators in analysis of duplicate, blind sets of water samples spiked with feces from five possible sources (sewage, human, dog, cow and seagull). Investigator...

Repetitive and transposable elements comprise more than half of the human genome and play diverse roles in many biological processes. Mobile elements including retrotransposons are implicated in the organization of the epigenetic landscape, the progression of tumorigenesis, and the enhancement of genetic diversity. Despite the importance of repetitive and transposable elements these sequences a...