To explore functional domains in the hepatitis B virus (HBV) polymerase, two naturally occurring HBV isolates (56 and 2-18) with 98.7% nucleic acid sequence homology but different replication efficiencies were studied. After transfection into HepG2 cells, HBV DNA isolated from intracellular virus core particles was much higher in 56-transfected cells than in cells transfected with 2-18. The str...

Studies of the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication cycle have been made possible with the development of subgenomic selectable RNAs that replicate autonomously in cultured cells. In these replicons the region encoding the HCV structural proteins was replaced by the neomycin phosphotransferase gene, allowing the selection of transfected cells that support high-level replication of these RNAs. Su...

The search efficiency problem in unstructured peer-to-peer network has not been adequately addressed so far, especially concerning search for rare objects. In this paper, we propose a proactive replication strategy to improve the search efficiency for rare objects. It uses object probing technique for peers to decide whether to establish replications for their objects or not when they join the ...

Self-replication of genetic information is one of the central functions of living systems. This function enables the living system to reproduce itself, introduce mutations, and evolve. How could a self-replication system be constructed from non-living materials on the earth? What conditions are required? The answers to these questions are largely unknown. Here, we attempted to construct an arti...

Legionella pneumophila translocates multiple bacterial effector proteins into host cells to direct formation of a replication vacuole for the bacterium. The emerging consensus is that formation of this compartment involves recruitment of membrane material that traffics between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi. To investigate this model, a targeted approach was used to knock down express...

The virus-host interactions that influence hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication are largely unknown but are thought to involve those that disrupt components of the innate intracellular antiviral response. Here we examined cellular antiviral pathways that are triggered during HCV RNA replication. We report that (i) RNA replication of HCV subgenomic replicons stimulated double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)...

BACKGROUND During S. pombe S-phase, initiation of DNA replication occurs at multiple sites (origins) that are enriched with AT-rich sequences, at various times. Current studies of genome-wide DNA replication profiles have focused on the DNA replication timing and origin location. However, the replication and/or firing efficiency of the individual origins on the genomic scale remain unclear. M...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection develops into chronicity in 80% of all patients, characterized by persistent low-level replication. To understand how the virus establishes its tightly controlled intracellular RNA replication cycle, we developed the first detailed mathematical model of the initial dynamic phase of the intracellular HCV RNA replication. We therefore quantitatively measured vira...

Unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) networks have become a very popular architecture for content distribution in large-scale and dynamic environments. The search efficiency problem in unstructured P2P networks has not been adequately addressed so far, especially concerning search for rare objects. In this paper, we propose a proactive replication strategy to improve search efficiency for rare objec...

File replication is a widely used technique for high performance in peer-to-peer content delivery networks. A file replication technique should be efficient and at the same time facilitates efficient file consistency maintenance. However, most traditional methods do not consider nodes’ available capacity and physical location in file replication, leading to high overhead for both file replicati...