Maternal transmission of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in animals is thought to prevent the spread of selfish deleterious mtDNA mutations in the population. Various mechanisms have been evolved independently to prevent the entry of sperm mitochondria in the embryo. However, the increasing number of instances of paternal mtDNA leakage suggests that these mechanisms are not very effective. The destru...

the green fluorescent protein (gfp) was originally isolated from the jellyfish aequorea victoria that fluoresces green when exposed to blue light. gfp protein is composed of 238 amino acids with the molecular mass of 26.9 kd. the gfp gene is frequently used in cellular and molecular biology as a reporter gene. to date, many bacterial, yeast , fungal, plants, fly and mammalian cells, including h...

Background: RNA interference (RNAi) is a phenomenon uses double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) to specifically inhibit gene expression. The non-specific silencing caused by interferon response to dsRNA in mammalian cells limits the potential of utilizing RNAi to study gene function. Duplexes of 21-nucleotide short interfering dsRNA (siRNA) inhibit gene expression by RNAi. In some organisms, siRNA can als...

Varanids are the only non-avian sauropsids that known to approach warm-blooded mammals in stamina. Furthermore, a much higher maximum metabolic rate (MMR) gives endotherms (including birds) stamina than crocodiles, turtles, and non-varanid lepidosaurs. This has led researchers hypothesize mammalian endothermy evolved as second step after acquisition of elevated MMR non-mammalian therapsids from...

Background: Mammalian preimplantation development is a complex process involving dramatic changes in the transcriptional architecture. However, it is still unclear about the crucial transcriptional network and key hub genes that regulate the proceeding of preimplantation embryos. Materials and Methods: Through single-cell RNAsequencing (RNA-seq) of both human and mouse preimplantation embryos, ...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a serious global health problem. The development of a safe and effective vaccinewould help infection prevention. Previous hepatitis B vaccine production involved the isolation of the noninfectious particle from chronic HBV carriers. DNA recombinant technology has been used for vaccineproduction without having been contaminated with blood-born infectious ag...

Lactoferrin (Lf) is an iron-binding multi-functional glycoprotein which has numerous physiological functions such as iron transportation, anti-microbial activity and immune response. In this study, different in silico approaches were exploited to investigate Lf protein properties in a number of mammalian species. Results showed that the iron-binding site, DNA and RNA-binding sites, signal pepti...