DNA immunization induces B and T cell responses to various pathogens and tumors. However, these responses are known to be relatively weak and often transient. Thus, novel strategies are necessary for enhancing immune responses induced by DNA immunization. Here, we demonstrated that co-immunization of influenza virus nucleoprotein (NP) gene significantly enhances humoral and cell-mediated respon...

The regularly repeating periodic nucleosome organization is clearly resolved in the chromatin of the isolated salivary chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster. A new microsurgical procedure of isolation in buffer A of Hewish and Burgoyne (1973, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 52:504-510) yielded native Drosophila salivary chromosomes. These chromosomes were then swollen and spread by a modified ...

Seventy-seven rabies virus (RV) isolates originating from Brazilian cattle were genetically characterized. Partial nucleoprotein gene sequences of these isolates were phylogenetically and geographically analyzed. Cattle isolates, which clustered with the vampire bat-related RV group, were further subdivided into nine genetic subgroups. These subgroups were distributed widely in lowland regions,...

A method based on RT-PCR and restriction endonuclease digestion of amplified PCR product was used to differentiate rabies laboratory “fixed” and “street” viruses. The primer sets from glycoprotein and nucleoprotein gene of rabies virus were used to amplify 406 and 533 bp amplicons, respectively. After amplification in RT-PCR, the PCR product was digested with HaeIII restriction endonuclease and...

In the present study sensitivity of diagnosis of rabies with Nested RT-PCR was compared with Immunofluorescence on 20 brain samples. RNA extraction was done using Qiazol method. Synthesis of cDNA was done using rabies specific primers. Nested set of primers were used to amplify highly conserved 762bp nucleoprotein gene region. Nested RT-PCR was able to diagnose rabies viral RNA in 12 out of 13 ...

The H-NS protein has emerged as one of the leading causes of transcriptional repression in Gram-negative bacteria. In a paper published in this issue, De la Cruz and colleagues shed new light on the role of DNA curvature in the repressive mechanism, using a porin gene promoter from the human pathogen Salmonella Typhi as their experimental system (De la Cruz et al., 2009). Their data help to dee...

Amino acid residues 81-100 of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) nucleoprotein contain a cytotoxic T cell epitope that is recognized by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) in association with human leukocyte antigen B44. With panels of truncated and overlapping peptides, the minimal and optimal epitope recognized by CTLs was shown to be a 9-mer peptide (residues 88-96). The peptide can stimulate effectivel...

v

Simian virus 40 (SV40) nucleoprotein complexes were prepared from lytically infected cells and used as primer-templates for DNA replication in protein extracts from Xenopus eggs. We found that nucleoprotein containing replicating SV40 DNA served as primer-template while nucleoprotein with nonreplicating SV40 DNA was ineffective. In vitro DNA synthesis begins with short DNA fragments ("Okazaki f...