Disease-causing mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are typically heteroplasmic and therefore interpretation of genetic tests for mitochondrial disorders can be problematic. Detection of low level heteroplasmy is technically demanding and it is often difficult to discriminate between the absence of a mutation or the failure of a technique to detect the mutation in a particular tissue. The re...

A comprehensive gene collection for S. oneidensis was constructed using the lambda recombinase (Gateway) cloning system. A total of 3584 individual ORFs (85%) have been successfully cloned into the entry plasmids. To validate the use of the clone set, three sets of ORFs were examined within three different destination vectors constructed in this study. Success rates for heterologous protein exp...

OBJECTIVES Information about epilepsy in mitochondrial disorders is scarce although a number or syndromic and non-syndromic mitochondrial disorders frequently manifest with focal or generalized seizures. Aim of the review was to describe epilepsy in syndromic and non-syndromic mitochondrial disorders with epilepsy as a dominant or collateral feature of the phenotype. METHODS Literature search...

The gene encoding a nitric oxide reductase has been identified in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The norB gene product shares significant identity with the nitric oxide reductases in Ralstonia eutropha and Synechocystis sp. and, like those organisms, the gonococcus lacks a norC homolog. The gonococcal norB gene was found to be required for anaerobic growth, but the absence of norB did not dramatically ...

NG2 protein-expressing oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPC) are a persisting and major glial cell population in the adult mammalian brain. Direct synaptic innervation of OPC by neurons throughout the brain together with their ability to sense neuronal network activity raises the question of additional physiological roles of OPC, supplementary to generating myelinating oligodendrocytes. In thi...

The Escherichia coli K-12 nrf operon encodes a periplasmic nitrite reductase, the expression of which is driven from a single promoter, pnrf. Expression from pnrf is activated by the FNR transcription factor in response to anaerobiosis and further increased in response to nitrite by the response regulator proteins, NarL and NarP. FNR-dependent transcription is suppressed by the binding of two n...

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations cause a wide range of serious diseases with high transmission risk and maternal inheritance. Tissue heterogeneity of the heteroplasmy rate ("mutant load") accounts for the wide phenotypic spectrum observed in carriers. Owing to the absence of therapy, couples at risk to transmit such disorders commonly ask for prenatal (PND) or preimplantation diagnosis (PGD)...

The expression of Mannheimia haemolytica A1 genes during in vivo growth was examined by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using total RNA extracted directly from M. haemolytica A1 recovered from pneumonic lungs of cattle. Primers specific for three groups of genes were used. Group 1 includes virulence-related genes: lktC, tbpB, ahs, nmaA, gs60 and gcp. Group 2 includes ge...

MOTIVATION Transcription regulatory protein factors often bind DNA as homo-dimers or hetero-dimers. Thus they recognize structured DNA motifs that are inverted or direct repeats or spaced motif pairs. However, these motifs are often difficult to identify owing to their high divergence. The motif structure included explicitly into the motif recognition algorithm improves recognition efficiency f...