Increasing reports of cylindrospermopsins (CYNs) in freshwater ecosystems have promoted the demand for identifying all of the potential CYN-producing cyanobacterial species. The present study explored the phylogenetic distribution and evolution of cyr genes in cyanobacterial strains and water samples from China. Four Cylindrospermopsis strains and two Raphidiopsis strains were confirmed to prod...

Giant clams (tridacnine shellfishes) are large bivalves that inhabit tropical and subtropical waters and harbor the symbiotic microalgae zooxanthellae, which consist of diverse phylotypes (clades). Each clade exhibits unique physiological characteristics, and the cladal composition may influence the host's survival and its ability to tolerate environmental changes. Using quantitative PCR (qPCR)...

The genus Colletotrichum contains many important plant pathogens mainly distributed in tropical areas. Previous studies that utilized morphology or single genes have failed to resolve the phylogenetic relationships among the species. In this study, sequences of β-tubulin, 28S ribosomal DNA, and ITS region from nine species were analyzed separately and combined to establish a fast method to infe...

• Phylogenetic relationships within the genus Cinclodes, a group of South American furnariids, were studied using complete sequences of the mitochondrial genes COII and ND3. The 13 species of Cinclodes formed a monophyletic group consisting of three major lineages: (1) the southeastern Brazilian isolate C. pabsti, which was sister to the rest of the genus; (2) a clade of five primarily Patagoni...

The outer domain (OD) of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 gp120 represents an attractive, if difficult, target for a beneficial immune response to HIV infection. Unlike the entire gp120, the OD is structurally stable and contains the surfaces that interact with both the primary and secondary cellular receptors. The primary strain-specific neutralizing target, the V3 loop, lies within the OD...

UNLABELLED The sequence diversity of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) presents a formidable challenge to the generation of an HIV-1 vaccine. One strategy to address such sequence diversity and to improve the magnitude of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) is to utilize multivalent mixtures of HIV-1 envelope (Env) immunogens. Here we report the generation and characterization of three nov...

BACKGROUND Despite substantial interest in biomarkers, their impact on clinical outcomes and variation with bacterial strain has rarely been explored using integrated databases. METHODS From September 2006 to May 2011, strains isolated from Clostridium difficile toxin enzyme immunoassay (EIA)-positive fecal samples from Oxfordshire, United Kingdom (approximately 600,000 people) underwent mult...

Caffeine isthe mostwidely consumed and excreted psychoactive drug in the world. It is a ubiquitous tracer of urban wastewater, but its ecological effects are notwell understood. We hypothesized that caffeine exposure is associated with coral bleaching. Here we report the effects of caffeine on four species of coral algae endosymbionts belonging to three widely distributed clades: Clade A Symbio...

Cellulose synthases are found in a wide range of organisms, from bacteria to land plants. However, the cellulose synthases found in land plants (CESAs) form large, multimeric, rosette-shaped cellulose synthase complexes (CSCs) and have three unique regions not found in other cellulose synthases; the N-terminal zinc-binding domain, the Plant Conserved Region (P-CR) and the Class Specific Region ...

Here, we report the results of a species level phylogenetic study of Cephaloleia beetles designed to clarify relationships and patterns of host plant taxon and tissue use among species. Our study is based on up to 2088bp of mtDNA sequence data. Maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian methods of phylogenetic inference consistently recover a monophyletic Cephaloleia outside of a basal...