A cell can be thought of as a highly sophisticated micro factory: in a pool of billions of molecules - metabolites, structural proteins, enzymes, oligonucleotides - multi-subunit complexes assemble to perform a large number of basic cellular tasks, such as DNA replication, RNA/protein synthesis or intracellular transport. By purifying single components and using them to reconstitute molecular p...

Chinese giant salamander iridovirus (CGSIV) is the emerging causative agent to farmed Chinese giant salamanders in nationwide China. CGSIV is a member of the common midwife toad ranavirus (CMTV) subset of the amphibian-like ranavirus (ALRV) in the genus Ranavirus of Iridoviridae family. However, viral protein information on ALRV is lacking. In this first proteomic analysis of ALRV, 40 CGSIV vir...

A replication-defective mutant of herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) was engineered by replacing the ICP8 gene of HSV-2 strain 186 with an ICP8-lacZ fusion gene from the herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) HD-2 mutant strain. The resulting virus, HSV-2 5BlacZ, is defective for growth in Vero cells but is capable of growth in a cell line that expresses HSV-1 ICP8. In Vero cells, the mutant virus is defec...

Some bacterial plasmids carry antibiotic resistance genes and replicate by an asymmetric, rolling circle mechanism, in which replication of the two strands is not concurrent. Initiation of this replication occurs via an initiator protein that nicks one DNA strand at the double-stranded origin of replication. In this work, RepD protein from the staphylococcal plasmid pC221 carries this function ...

Replication of a low-copy-number IncIalpha plasmid ColIb-P9 depends on expression of the repZ gene encoding the replication initiator protein. repZ expression is negatively controlled by the small antisense Inc RNA, and requires formation of a pseudoknot in the RepZ mRNA consisting of stem-loop I, the Inc RNA target, and a downstream sequence complementary to the loop I. The loop I sequence com...

Latent infection of mice with wild-type herpes simplex virus is established during an acute phase of ganglionic infection in which there is abundant viral replication and productive-cycle gene expression. Thymidine kinase-negative mutants establish latent infections but are severely impaired for acute ganglionic replication and productive-cycle gene expression. Indeed, by in situ hybridization ...

Human parainfluenza virus type 1 (HPIV-1) is the most common cause of croup in infants. The aim of this study was to describe molecular mechanisms associated with IL-8 production during HPIV-1 infection and the role of viral replication in MAPK synthesis and activation. An in vitro model of HPIV-1 infection in the HEp-2 and A549 cell lines was used; a kinetic-based ELISA for IL-8 detection was ...

The RNA world hypothesis views modern organisms as descendants of RNA molecules. The earliest RNA molecules must have been random sequences, from which the first genomes that coded for polymerase ribozymes emerged. The quasispecies theory by Eigen predicts the existence of an error threshold limiting genomic stability during such transitions, but does not address the spontaneity of changes. Fol...

242 words, Introduction647 words, Discussion1499 words. 17 Disclosures / Conflict of Interests 18 The authors declare that no competing interests exist. BR, JG, and KMC performed 19 experiments and data analysis, and BR and KMC wrote the paper. 20

We review the state-of-the-art in the modelling of the aggregation and collective behavior of interacting agents of similar size and body type, typically called swarming. Starting with individual-based models based on “particle”-like assumptions, we connect to hydrodynamic/macroscopic descriptions of collective motion via kinetic theory. We emphasize the role of the kinetic viewpoint in the mod...