Bacteriophage Pookie is a novel podophage, isolated from soil, which infects Bacillus megaterium. B. megaterium is an important host for large-scale recombinant protein production. Here, we present the complete genome of phage Pookie and describe its core features.

The present study aimed to investigate neural stem cell (NSC)-specific regulatory promoter elements. PCR was employed to amplify the full sequence (4,000 bp) and core sequence (400 bp) of the promoter and intron-2 of the mouse nestin gene. pcDNA3.1 was used as a template to construct 6 different recombinant plasmids. CMV, CMV + intron-2, the full sequence of the nestin gene promoter, the full s...

A mammalian N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) transferase I (GnT I)-independent fucosylation pathway is revealed by the use of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) and negative-ion nano-electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry of N-linked glycans from natively folded recombinant glycoproteins, expressed in both human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293S and Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) L...

A novel fucose-binding lectin (SL2-1) from the bacterium Streptomyces rapamycinicus was identified by analysis of metagenomic DNA sequences. SL2-1 belongs to a new group of bacterial fucose-specific lectins that have no similarity to known bacterial fucose-binding proteins, but are related to certain eukaryotic fucose-binding lectins. The 17 kDa protein was expressed recombinantly in E. coli an...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) assembly remains a poorly understood process. Lipid droplets (LDs) are thought to act as platforms for the assembly of viral components. The JFH1 HCV strain replicates and assembles in association with LD-associated membranes, around which viral core protein is predominantly detected. In contrast, despite its intrinsic capacity to localize to LDs when expressed individua...

Author details 1 Division of Structural Biochemistry, Research Center Borstel, Leibniz-Center for Medicine and Biosciences, Parkallee 1-40, D-23845 Borstel, Germany. 2 Research Corporation Technologies, Inc,, 5210 East Williams Circle, Suite 240, Tucson, AZ 85711-4410, USA. 3 Division of Immunobiophysics, Research Center Borstel, Leibniz-Center for Medicine and Biosciences, Parkallee 1-40, D-23...

Rotavirus is a nonenveloped virus with a three-layered capsid. The inner layer, made of VP2, encloses the genomic RNA and two minor proteins, VP1 and VP3, with which it forms the viral core. Core assembly is coupled with RNA viral replication and takes place in definite cellular structures termed viroplasms. Replication and encapsidation mechanisms are still not fully understood, and little inf...

We have previously demonstrated that the 21-residue peptide pMOG(35-55) from myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) contains an antigenic epitope that activates CD8(+) encephalitogenic T cells in C57BL/6 (B6) mice. To identify the core encephalitogenic epitope of CD8(+) MOG-specific T cells, we have prepared a panel of highly purified peptides of varying lengths, which span the entire length...

Lewy bodies (LBs), which mainly consist of α-synuclein (α-syn), are neuropathological hallmarks of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). The fine structure of LBs is unknown, and LBs cannot be made artificially. Nevertheless, many studies have described fibrillisation using recombinant α-syn purified from E. coli. An extremely fundamental problem is whether the structure of LBs is the same as...

Two forms of hepatitis B virus (HBV) C/D recombinant have been identified in western China, but little is known about their geographical and ethnic distributions, and particularly the clinical significance and specific mutations in the pre-core region. To address these questions, a total of 624 chronic HBV carriers from four ethnic populations representing five provinces in western China were e...