The failure of animals to fit all life-cycle stages into an annual cycle could reduce the chances of successful breeding. In some cases, non-optimal strategies will be adopted in order to maintain the life-cycle within the scope of one year. We studied trade-offs made by a High Arctic migrant shorebird, the red knot Calidris canutus islandica, between reproduction and wing feather molt carried ...

BACKGROUND Sexual signals, such as bright plumage coloration in passerine birds, reflect individual quality, and testosterone (T) may play a critical role in maintaining signal honesty. Manipulations of T during molt have yielded mixed effects on passerine plumage color, in most cases delaying molt or leading to production of drab plumage. However, the majority of these studies have been conduc...

In a search for effective HIV-1 transcription inhibitors, we have evaluated more than 75,000 compounds for their inhibitory effects on Tat-induced human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) long terminal repeat (LTR)-driven reporter gene expression and found that EM2487, a novel small-molecule substance produced by a Streptomyces species, is a potent and selective inhibitor of HIV-1 replicatio...

AIMS To elucidate genes that participate in the process of oncogenesis, primers based on the E6 genes of genital human papillomaviruses (HPVs) were used to amplify potential expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from the MOLT-4 T lymphoblastic leukaemia cell line. METHODS Using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with human papillomavirus E6 gene primers, an EST from the MOLT-4 T lymphoblastic leuka...

In the present study, the effects of bilateral eyestalk ablation on molt interval, ovarian development, and hemolymph levels of ecdysteroid and vitellogenin were investigated in the giant freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii in order to examine the roles of the eyestalk hormones. In destalked males and females, ecdysteroid levels increased rapidly, and molt intervals were significantly s...

This is a proof of concept paper based on chronological samples of growing feathers from geese thought to be molt-migrants. When molt-migrant birds initiate molt shortly after migrating to a new isoscape, isotope values measured along the length of their feathers should change continuously. To assess long-term changes and daily cycling in δ (15)N and δ (13)C values, we serially sampled a growin...