Rickettsia felis is a human pathogen transmitted by the cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis (Bouché) (str. LSU), as well as an obligate symbiont of the parthenogenic booklouse Liposcelis bostrychophila (Badonnel) (str. LSU-Lb). The influence of genetic variability in these two strains of R. felis on host specialization and fitness and possible resulting differences on infection and transmission kin...

We investigated evolutionary relationships among deuterostome subgroups by obtaining nearly complete large-subunit ribosomal RNA (LSU rRNA)-gene sequences for 14 deuterostomes and 3 protostomes and complete small-subunit (SSU) rRNA-gene sequences for five of these animals. With the addition of previously published sequences, we compared 28 taxa using three different data sets (LSU only, SSU onl...

1Tumor Immunology Program, Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center, Louisiana State University–Health Sciences Center (LSU-HSC), New Orleans; 2Department of Radiation Oncology and Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, Atlanta, GA; 3Department of Pediatrics, LSU-HSC, New Orleans; 4School of Public Health, Louisiana State University, New Orleans; 5Ochsner Clinic Foundation, New Orleans, LA; and 6Dep...

Terpenes (isoprenoids), derived from isoprenyl pyrophosphates, are versatile natural compounds that act as metabolism mediators, plant volatiles, and ecological communicators. Divergent evolution of homomeric prenyltransferases (PTSs) has allowed PTSs to optimize their active-site pockets to achieve catalytic fidelity and diversity. Little is known about heteromeric PTSs, particularly the mecha...

The compendium presented here is the immediate successor of the collection of large subunit (LSU; 23S-like) rRNA secondary structures compiled by Gutell and Fox [1] in 1988. As in [1], we present each LSU rRNA sequence in the form of a secondary structure, as it is this structure that is a fundamental aspect of the biological activity of the LSU rRNA molecule. As such, the secondary structure p...

We studied the evolutionary relationships among basal metazoan lineages by using complete large subunit (LSU) and small subunit (SSU) ribosomal RNA sequences for 23 taxa. After identifying competing hypotheses, we performed maximum likelihood searches for trees conforming to each hypothesis. Kishino-Hasegawa tests were used to determine whether the data (LSU, SSU, and combined) reject any of th...

Yeast large ribosomal subunit (LSU) precursors are subject to substantial changes in protein composition during their maturation due to coordinated transient interactions with a large number of ribosome biogenesis factors and due to the assembly of ribosomal proteins. These compositional changes go along with stepwise processing of LSU rRNA precursors and with specific rRNA folding events, as r...

A total of 290 florideophyte samples from the Hawaiian Rhodophyta Biodiversity Survey, spanning 17 orders of red algae, were sequenced for the mitochondrial COI DNA barcode, partial nuclear LSU rRNA gene, and plastid UPA rRNA marker. COI was A-T rich (> 60% overall) in comparison to the two rRNA markers, and was also the least conserved, with the third codon position showing the most substituti...