Neurotropism is one of the most important characteristics of Mycobacterium leprae (M. leprae). It is believed that nerve damage of leprosy is caused by various immune mechanisms 1), and so called "autoimmune reaction" is suspected to have one of the role in nerve damage. M. leprae 65 kDa heat shock protein (hsp 65) has noticeable characteristics. Hsp 65 is a highly conserved protein2). It belon...

A third member of the ZTL gene family was identified in the Arabidopsis genome and was named LKP2 (for LOV kelch protein2). A cDNA was isolated corresponding to this gene, and plants overexpressing LKP2 were generated. The overexpression of LKP2 resulted in arrhythmic phenotypes for a number of circadian clock outputs in both constant light and constant darkness, long hypocotyls under multiple ...

NAC domain transcription factors are important regulators that activate the secondary wall biosynthesis in wood formation. In this work, we investigated the possible functions of an NAC family member SECONDARY WALL-ASSOCIATED NAC DOMAIN PROTEIN2 (PtSND2) using chimeric repressor silencing technology. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, subcellular localization and transcriptional a...

Significant recent progress toward understanding directional expansion in diffusely growing plant cells concerns actin. Tools for imaging actin, including both live-cell reporters and fixation protocols, have been improved. Proteins that interact with actin have been identified and their functions probed biochemically and genetically. Specifically, members of the actin-related protein2/3 (ARP2/...

Secondary metabolites derived from benzoic acid (BA) are of central importance in the interactions of plants with pests, pathogens, and symbionts and are potentially important in plant development. Peroxisomal b-oxidation has recently been shown to contribute to BA biosynthesis in plants, but not all of the enzymes involved have been defined. In this report, we demonstrate that the peroxisomal ...

Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated genetic transformation is an efficient tool for genetic engineering of plants. VirE2 is a single-stranded DNA binding Agrobacterium protein that is transported into the plant cell and presumably protects the T-DNA from degradation. Using a yeast two-hybrid system, we identified Arabidopsis thaliana VIRE2-INTERACTING PROTEIN2 (VIP2) with a NOT domain that is co...