The bacterial Ras-like protein Era has been reported previously to bind 16S rRNA within the 30S ribosomal subunit and to play a crucial role in ribosome assembly. An orthologue of this essential GTPase ERAL1 (Era G-protein-like 1) exists in higher eukaryotes and although its exact molecular function and cellular localization is unknown, its absence has been linked to apoptosis. In the present s...

The phosphorylation status of the pRB family of growth suppressor proteins is regulated in a cell cycle entry-, progression-, and exit-dependent manner in normal cells. We have shown previously that p130, a member of this family, exhibits patterns of phosphorylated forms associated with various cell growth and differentiation stages. However, human 293 cells, which are transformed cells that ex...

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine loci’s mutation frequencies for the four widespread deafness-associated genes in Han Chinese with hearing loss in the southern Fujian region and to establish the correlation between hearing loss levels and nucleotide modifications. Methods: Microarray-based mutation was detected nine hot spot mutations of the most prevalent deafness-related g...

A premature female Dirofilaria species, subsequently identified as Dirofilaria repens by its morphological features and mitochondrial 12S ribosomal RNA (12S rRNA) gene sequence, was removed from a subcutaneous nodule of the right temporal region of the head in a Japanese woman 2 years after she noticed swelling of her left calf following an insect sting during a tour to Europe; headache symptom...

The epidemiological researches show that the mutations of GJB2, mitochondrial 12S rRNA, and SLC26A4 genes have played an important role in the hearing loss. This study aims to investigate the mutation spectrum of GJB2, mitochondrial 12S rRNA, and SLC26A4 genes of Han Chinese, Hui people, and Uyghur ethnicities in sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) patients in northwest of China. Mutational analy...

Although the woodpeckers have long been recognized as a natural, monophyletic taxon, morphological analyses of their intra- and intergeneric relationships have produced conflicting results. To clarify this issue, and as part of a larger study of piciform relationships, nucleotide sequences for the 12S ribosomal RNA (12S; 1123 bp), cytochrome b (Cyt b; 1022 bp), and cytochrome oxidase c subunit ...

How should characters and taxa be sampled to resolve efficiently the phylogeny of ancient and highly speciose groups? We addressed this question empirically in the treefrog family Hylidae, which contains > 800 species and may be nonmonophyletic with respect to other anuran families. We sampled 81 species (54 hylids and 27 outgroups) for two mitochondrial genes (12S, ND1), two nuclear genes (POM...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the molecular etiologic causes of sporadic nonsyndromic hearing loss in Chinese children. METHODS 179 sporadic nonsyndromic hearing loss children were subjected to microarray-based mutation detection for nine hot spot mutations in four of the most common deafness-related genes, including GJB2, SLC26A4, GJB3, and 12s rRNA. RESULTS The incidence of positive genetic er...

The diterpene (1R,3E,7E,11S,12S)-3,7,18-dolabellatriene from the marine brown alga Dilophus spiralis belongs to the dolabellanes natural product family and has antimicrobial activity against multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Recently, we generated a CotB2 diterpene synthase mutant (W288G), which instead of its native product cyclooctat-9-en-7-ol, generates (1R,3E,7E,11S,12S)-3,7,18-do...