The genus Phlebotomus (Diptera: Psychodidae: Phlebotominae) comprises a group of small winged insect species medical importance. To date, ten are known to be present in Greece; yet their evolutionary history is poorly studied due the lack comprehensive phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies. Herein, we aim clarify relationships amongst local collected from 12 Aegean Islands, Cyprus Turkey; id...

Population genetic structure using nine polymorphic nuclear microsatellite loci was assessed for the tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) at seven locations across the Indo-Pacific, and one location in the southern Atlantic. Genetic analyses revealed considerable genetic structuring (FST > 0.14, p < 0.001) between all Indo-Pacific locations and Brazil. By contrast, no significant genetic differences...

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is highly susceptible to mutations that result in polymorphisms and diseases including diabetes. We analyzed heteroplasmy, polymorphisms related to diabetes, and complementation by fusogenic proteins. Cytoplast fusion and microinjection allow, defects in mutated mtDNA inside a heteroplasmic cell to be complemented by fusing two mitochondria via human fusogenic proteins...

Nuclear and mitochondrial organelles must maintain a communication system. Loci on the mitochondrial genome were recently reported to interact with nuclear loci. To determine whether this is part of a DNA based communication system we used genome conformation capture to map the global network of DNA-DNA interactions between the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes (Mito-nDNA) in Saccharomyces cere...

The conformation of DNA modified in vitro by the covalent binding of N-OH-AF was investigated by ultraviolet absorbance, circular dichroism and by radioimmunoassay using specific antibodies against Guo-AAF and nDNA-AAF. The results obtained by both physico-chemical and immunological methods are in agreement with a model involving destabilized regions in the double helical DNA around the carcino...

James M. Cummins published "The Role of Maternal Mitochondria during Oogenesis, Fertilization and Embryogenesis" 30 January 2002 in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online. In the article, Cummins examines the role of the energy producing cytoplasmic particles, organelles called mitochondria. Humans inherit mitochondria from their mothers, and mechanisms have evolved to eliminate sperm [2] ...

Introduction For more than a decade, the search for pathogenic mutations in human diseases due to respiratory chain dysfunction has been focused on the mitochondrial genome. Over 100 mutations affecting both tRNA genes and genes specifying subunits of respiratory chain complexes have now been found (11, 36). In the past few years, the focus of attention has shifted to the search for mutations w...

Mitochondrial diseases are a group of disorders due to a mitochondrial respiratory chain deficiency. They may depend on mitochondrial genome (mtDNA-related disorders) as well as on a nuclear genome defect (nDNA-related disorders). mtDNA-related disorders encompass an increasing number of clinical pictures associated with more than 250 different provisional or confirmed pathogenic changes in mtD...

Mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM), the first well-characterized transcription factor from vertebrate mitochondria, is closely related to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) maintenance and repair. Recent evidence has shown that the ratio of mtDNA to nuclearDNA (nDNA) is increased in both human cells and murine tissues after ionizing radiation (IR). However, the underlying mechanism has not as y...