Friedreich’s ataxia is an autosomal recessively inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by expansions of an unstable GAA trinucleotide repeat in the STM7/X25 gene on chromosome 9q. This disease can be associated with many abnormalities: cerebellar and sensory ataxia, heart disease – aproximately two third of the patients, musculoskeletal deformities – scoliosis being the most common, diabet...

Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA) is a rare autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia which in the majority of cases is associated with a GAA-trinucleotide repeat expansion in the first intron of Frataxin gene located on chromosome 9. The clinical features include progressive gait and limb ataxia, cerebellar dysarthria, neuropathy, optic atrophy, and loss of vibration and proprioception. Ataxia with ...

For a long time, the human genome was considered an intrinsically stable entity; however, it is currently known that our human genome contains many unstable elements consisting of tandem repeat elements, mainly Short tandem repeats (STR), also known as microsatellites or Simple sequence repeats (SSR) (Ellegren, 2000). These sequences involve a repetitive unit of 1-6 bp, forming series with leng...

Two patients with a progressive ataxia are presented with clinical features consistent with classic Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA), but also with features unusual for FRDA. Analysis of DNA showed that each patient is heterozygous for the expanded GAA repeat of FRDA, but carries a base change on his other frataxin allele. For one patient a non-conservative arginine to cysteine amino acid change is p...

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Fuchs' endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is a progressive, vision impairing disease. Common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and a trinucleotide repeat polymorphism, thymine-guanine-cytosine (TGC), in the TCF4 gene have been associated with the risk of FECD in some populations. We previously reported association of SNPs in TCF4 with FECD risk in the Australian population. The aim of th...

Rosa roxburghii Tratt is an important commercial horticultural crop in China that is recognized for its nutritional and medicinal values. In spite of the economic significance, genomic information on this rose species is currently unavailable. In the present research, a genome survey of R. roxburghii was carried out using next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. Total 30.29 Gb sequence da...

Our long term goal is to determine the role that pMGA hemagglutinins play in Mycoplasma gallisepticum F-strain (termed as F-strain for brevity) persistence in poultry. To do this however, we first had to identify the pMGA genes expressed by an isolate of the F-strain. To identify F-strain pMGA genes, a genomic library was constructed in bacteriophage lambda and screened with polyclonal antisera...

BACKGROUND Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) is the most common form of hereditary ataxia characterized by the presence of a GAA trinucleotide repeat expansion within the first intron of the FXN gene. The expansion inhibits FXN gene expression resulting in an insufficiency of frataxin protein. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDING In this study, computational analyses were performed on the 21.3 kb region upst...

Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by neurodegeneration and cardiomyopathy. The presence of a GAA trinucleotide repeat expansion in the first intron of the FXN gene results in the inhibition of gene expression and an insufficiency of the mitochondrial protein frataxin. We previously generated BAC-based transgenic mice containing an FXN-EGFP genomic reporte...