The fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans (Cn) is a serious threat to immunocompromised individuals, especially for HIV patients who develop meningoencephalitis. For effective cryptococcal treatment, novel antifungal drugs or innovative combination therapies are needed. Recently, sphingolipids have emerged as important bioactive molecules in the regulation of microbial pathogenesis. Previousl...

Hydroxyurea (HU) has been used for the treatment of multiple diseases, such as cancer. The therapeutic effect is generally believed to be due to the suppression of ribonucleotide reductase (RNR), which slows DNA polymerase movement at replication forks and induces an S phase cell cycle arrest in proliferating cells. Although aberrant mitosis and DNA damage generated at collapsed forks are the l...

Physical inactivity leads to muscle atrophy and capillary regression in the skeletal muscle. Intermittent loading during hindlimb unloading attenuates the muscle atrophy, meanwhile the capillary regression in the skeletal muscle is not suppressed. Nucleoprotein has antioxidant capacity and may prevent capillary regression. Therefore, we assessed the combined effects of intermittent loading with...

The histone-like protein HU is the most-abundant DNA-binding protein in bacteria. The HU protein non-specifically binds and bends DNA as a hetero- or homodimer, and can participate in DNA supercoiling and DNA condensation. It also takes part in DNA functions such as replication, recombination, and repair. HU does not recognize any specific sequences but shows a certain degree of specificity to ...

This study characterizes the time course of change in single soleus muscle fiber size and function elicited by hindlimb unweighting (HU) and analyzes the extent to which varying durations of HU altered maximal velocity of shortening (Vo), myofibrillar adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase), and relative content of slow and fast myosin in individual soleus fibers. After 1, 2, or 3 wk of HU, soleus mus...

In vivo, RNA polymerases (RNAPs) do not transcribe naked DNA but do transcribe protein-associated DNA. Studies with the model enzyme T7 RNAP have shown that, in eukaryotic cells or in vitro, nucleosomes can inhibit both transcription initiation and elongation. We examine here whether the presence of HU, one of the major histone-like proteins in Escherichia coli cells (the genuine milieu for T7 ...

BACKGROUND The Escherichia coli heterodimeric HU protein is a small DNA-bending protein associated with the bacterial nucleoid. It can introduce negative supercoils into closed circular DNA in the presence of topoisomerase I. Cells lacking HU grow very poorly and display many phenotypes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We analyzed the transcription profile of every Escherichia coli gene in the...

BACKGROUND Dense red blood cells (DRBCs) are associated with chronic clinical manifestations of sickle-cell-disease (SCD). Hydroxyurea (HU) decreases the percent (%) DRBCs, thereby improving its therapeutic benefits, especially the prevention of SCD clinical complications, but parameters influencing %DRBCs remain unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine predictive biological paramete...