Cryptococcus neoformans is a heterothallic fungal pathogen of humans and animals. Although the fungus grows primarily as a yeast, hyphae are produced during the sexual phase and during a process called monokaryotic fruiting, which is also believed to involve sexual reproduction, but between cells of the same mating type. Here we report a novel monokaryotic fruiting mechanism that is dependent o...

BACKGROUND Sexual transmission accounts for the majority of HIV-1 infections. In over 75% of cases, infection is initiated by a single variant (transmitted/founder virus). However, the determinants of virus selection during transmission are unknown. Host cell-cell interactions in the mucosa may be critical in regulating susceptibility to infection. We hypothesized in this study that specific im...

Background & aim: Sexual self-efficacy refers to the belief of each individual about his/her ability to be sexually active, his/her desirability for sexual partner, and assessment of the ability and self-efficacy in sexual behavior. Sexual relationship is one of the key pillars of a successful family; accordingly, functionality in this domain largely affects marital satisfaction. The aim of thi...

Secondary sexual traits (SST) are usually thought to have evolved as honest signals of individual quality during mate choice. Honesty of SST is guaranteed by the cost of producing/maintaining them. In males, the expression of many SST is testosterone-dependent. The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis has been proposed as a possible mechanism ensuring honesty of SST on the basis that testostero...

Ovarian tumours are rare in children and account for approximately 1% of all the tumours of childhood (Schultz, 1926). The majority are benign, the commonest being cystic teratoma. Tumours causing sexual precocity and pseudoprecocity are particularly rare; Wilkins (1957), in a long experience of paediatric endocrinology, personally encountered only one case. The ovarian tumour most often respon...

OBJECTIVE It is unknown if "sexting" (i.e., sending/receiving sexually explicit cell phone text or picture messages) is associated with sexual activity and sexual risk behavior among early adolescents, as has been found for high school students. To date, no published data have examined these relationships exclusively among a probability sample of middle school students. METHODS A probability ...

Sexual differentiation in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe promotes cell cycle arrest and extensive changes in gene expression, resulting in cell-to-cell fusion, the exchange of hereditary material and specialized cell division. These events are detrimental to the cell if they are triggered in inappropriate conditions, and therefore the decision to differentiate must be precisely con...

Adult stem cells maintain tissue homeostasis by balancing selfrenewal and differentiation. In Drosophila females, germline stem cells (GSCs) require Sex lethal (Sxl) to exit the stem cell state and to enter the differentiation pathway. Without Sxl GSCs do not differentiate and instead form tumors. Previous studies have shown that these tumors are not caused by a failure in the self-renewal/ dif...