Stimulation of b-adrenergic receptors (BAR) by clenbuterol (CLE) increases nerve growth factor (NGF) biosynthesis in the rat cerebral cortex but not in other regions of the brain. We have explored the transcription mechanisms that may account for the cortex-specific activation of the NGF gene. Although the NGF promoter contains an AP-1 element, AP-1-binding activity in the cerebral cortex was n...

The unprecedented amount of data resulting from next-generation sequencing has opened a new era in phylogenetic estimation. Although large datasets should, in theory, increase phylogenetic resolution, massive, multilocus datasets have uncovered a great deal of phylogenetic incongruence among different genomic regions, due both to stochastic error and to the action of different evolutionary proc...

Fine roots of forest trees form together with certain soil fungi symbiotic structures (ectomycorrhizas), where fungal hyphae are in intimate contact with plant cells. Due to root cell degeneration, plant DNA is released and could be taken up by the fungus. The possibility that horizontal gene transfer might result in a risk for the environment should be evaluated before a massive release of gen...

Abstract The full-heavy tetraquarks $$cc{\bar{c}}{\bar{b}}$$ c ¯ b and $$bb{\bar{b}}{\bar{c}}$$ are systematically investigated within a quark model. meson–meson structure, diquark–antidiquark structure K-structure considered in...

Bin-Amphiphysin-Rvs (BAR) domain proteins play essential roles in diverse cellular processes by inducing membrane invaginations or membrane protrusions. Among the BAR superfamily, the `classical' BAR and Fes/CIP4 homology BAR (F-BAR) subfamilies of proteins usually promote membrane invaginations, whereas the inverse BAR (I-BAR) subfamily generally incur membrane protrusions. Despite possessing ...

Bin3 encodes an evolutionarily conserved and ubiquitously expressed member of the BAR superfamily of curved membrane and GTPase-binding proteins, which includes the BAR, PCH/F-BAR, and I-BAR adapter proteins implicated in signal transduction and vesicular trafficking. In humans, Bin3 maps to chromosome 8p21.3, a region widely implicated in cancer suppression that is often deleted in non-Hodgkin...

The coordinated regulation of cell fate and cell survival is crucial for normal pattern formation in developing organisms. In Drosophila compound eye development, crystalline arrays of hexagonal ommatidia are established by precise assembly of diverse cell types, including the photoreceptor cells, cone cells and interommatidial (IOM) pigment cells. The molecular basis for controlling the number...

I-BAR (inverse-Bin/amphiphysin/Rvs)-domain-containing proteins such as IRSp53 (insulin receptor substrate of 53 kDa) associate with outwardly curved membranes and connect them to proteins involved in actin dynamics. Research on I-BAR proteins has focussed on possible roles in filopod and lamellipod formation, but their full physiological function remains unclear. The social amoeba Dictyostelium...

Sequence variations in regulatory DNA regions are known to cause functionally important consequences for gene expression. DNA sequence variations may have an essential role in determining phenotypes and may be linked to disease; however, their identification through analysis of massive genome-wide sequencing data is a great challenge. In this work, a new computational pipeline, a Bayesian metho...