Previous analysis of the salivary gland transcriptome of Culex quinquefasciatus showed the potential presence of an endonuclease with sequence similarities to shrimp, crab and two tsetse salivary proteins. Indeed, not only was the cloned cDNA shown to encode an active double-stranded endonuclease, but also the same activity was demonstrated to be secreted by salivary glands of Cx. quinquefascia...

In this study, it was shown that the mammalian sterile 20-like serine/threonine protein kinase 3 (Mst3) plays an essential role in the staurosporine-induced apoptosis of HeLa cells. The staurosporine-induced apoptosis was reduced by around 65% by the selective knockdown of Mst3 in stable clones, HeLa(siMst3). Although caspases were shown to be involved in the Mst3-mediated apoptosis, only 15-20...

Escherichia coli endonuclease IV hydrolyses the C(3')-O-P bond 5' to a 3'-terminal base-free deoxyribose. It also hydrolyses the C(3')-O-P bond 5' to a 3'-terminal base-free 2',3'-unsaturated sugar produced by nicking 3' to an AP (apurinic or apyrimidinic) site by beta-elimination; this explains why the unproductive end produced by beta-elimination is converted by the enzyme into a 3'-OH end ab...

The oligonucleotide [5'-32P]pdT8d(-)dT., containing an apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site [d(-)], yields three radioactive products when incubated at alkaline pH: two of them, forming a doublet approximately at the level of pdT8dA when analysed by polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis, are the result of the f-elimination reaction, whereas the third is pdT8p resulting from ,8-elimination. The incubati...

Homing endonuclease genes are "selfish" mobile genetic elements whose endonuclease promotes the spread of its own gene by creating a break at a specific target site and using the host machinery to repair the break by copying and inserting the gene at this site. Horizontal transfer across the boundary of a species or population within which mating takes place has been thought to be necessary for...

The genus of Salmonella is very polymorphic and comprised of a number of genetically closely related serotypes. It is one of the emerging pathogen in food-borne disease which is often found in contaminated chicken eggs. Salmonella enterica is considered one of the major pathogens in public health worldwide. A total of 31 Salmonella isolates identified by specific antisera, which included Salmon...

Saccharomyces cerevisiae Dna2 possesses both helicase and endonuclease activities. Its endonuclease activity is essential and well suited to remove RNA-DNA primers of Okazaki fragments. In contrast, its helicase activity, although required for optimal growth, is not essential when the rate of cell growth is reduced. These findings suggest that DNA unwinding activity of Dna2 plays an auxiliary r...

tRNA splicing endonucleases, essential enzymes found in Archaea and Eukaryotes, are involved in the processing of pre-tRNA molecules. In Archaea, three types of splicing endonuclease [homotetrameric: α(4), homodimeric: α(2), and heterotetrameric: (αβ)(2)] have been identified, each representing different substrate specificity during the tRNA intron cleavage. Here, we discovered a fourth type of...