BACKGROUND There are a number of informal trading sites across cities in sub-Saharan Africa, of which the markets of Warwick is one example. Since the informal economy is an important contributor to a city's economy as well as a source of employment, it is important for these sites to be accessible for all persons. Whilst the South African government has put structures in place to identify and ...

The replication origin of Escherichia coli (oriC) was probed for specific binding proteins, using the gel shift assay. A 33-kDa protein that binds specifically to the right border of oriC, next to the rightmost of the binding sites of the initiator protein, DnaA, was identified and purified. The stoichiometry of protein to DNA is about 6 to 1. Around 5000 monomers of the protein, named Rob (rig...

A set of AT-rich repeats is a common motif in prokaryotic replication origins. We have screened for proteins binding to the AT-rich repeat region in plasmids F, R1 and pSC101 using an electrophoretic mobility shift assay with PCR-amplified DNA fragments from the origins. The IciA protein, which is known to bind to the AT-rich repeat region in the Escherichia coli origin of chromosome replicatio...

The human telomere plays crucial roles in maintaining genome stability. In the presence of suitable cations, the repetitive 5'-TTAGGG-3' human telomere sequence can fold into G-quadruplexes that adopt the hybrid, basket, or propeller fold. The telomere sequence is hypersensitive to UV-induced thymine dimer (T=T) formation, yet it does not cause telomere shortening. In this work, the potential s...

Comparative analysis of the inducible elements of the mouse interferon A4 and A11 gene promoters (IE-A4 and IE-A11) by transient transfection experiments, DNase 1 footprinting and electrophoretic mobility shift assays resulted in identification of a virus-induced binding activity suggested to be involved in NDV-induced activation of transcription of these genes. The virus-induced factor, termed...

Background. It is widely accepted that the introduction of the First International Standard for PSA assay (WHO96/670) improved the agreement between total PSA immunoassay. Less attention was given to the fact that the results obtained with WHO calibration turned out to be lower by 16-20% than the original Hybritech assay with the inevitable consequences on positive/negative false results. The a...

TfoX (Sxy) and CRP are two important competence activators. The link between tfoX and CRP has been shown in H. influenza but lacking evidence of direct interaction. Recently a Sxy-dependent CRP (CRP-S) site autoregulating Sxy was reported in E. coli. Here, we show that the cAMP-CRP complex transcriptionally regulates tfoX expression through multiple canonical CRP (CRP-N) sites in Vibrios. This ...

Gene cassettes are short, monogenic DNA elements that translocate between integrons through site-specific excision and integration. These events require that an integron-coded tyrosine recombinase forms a reactive complex with two sites, at least one of which belongs to the attC class. An attC site can be divided into two pairs of short repeats flanking a palindromic central region. The nucleot...

HU, a nonspecific histone-like DNA binding protein, participates in a number of genomic events as an accessory protein and forms multiple complexes with DNA. The HU-DNA binding interaction was characterized by fluorescence, generated with the guanosine analogue 3-methyl-8-(2-deoxy-beta-D-ribofuranosyl)isoxanthopterin (3-MI) directly incorporated into DNA duplexes. The stoichiometry and equilibr...

OBJECTIVES The serum concentrations of somatotrophin axis hormones (growth hormone--GH, insulin-like growth factor-I--IGF-I and insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3--IGFBP-3) in the patients with psoriasis in its active stage have been evaluated in relation to the control group consisting of healthy people in order to see whether these hormones may play a role in the psoriasis aetiopath...