Articles

Interactions within the mammalian DNA methyltransferase family

In mammals, epigenetic information is established and maintained via the postreplicative methylation of cytosine residues by the DNA methyltransferases Dnmt1, Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b. Dnmt1 is required for maintenan...

Authors: Jean B Margot, Ann E Ehrenhofer-Murray and Heinrich Leonhardt

The kinase MSK1 is required for induction of c-fos by lysophosphatidic acid in mouse embryonic stem cells

The regulation of the immediate-early gene c-fos serves as a paradigm for signal-activated gene induction. Lysophosphatidic acid is a potent serum-borne mitogen able to induce c-fos.

Authors: Sebastian Schuck, Ana Soloaga, Gerhard Schratt, J Simon C Arthur and Alfred Nordheim

Accumulation of large non-circular forms of the chromosome in recombination-defective mutants of Escherichia coli

Double-strand breakage of chromosomal DNA is obviously a serious threat to cells because various activities of the chromosome depend on its integrity. However, recent experiments suggest that such breakage may...

Authors: Naofumi Handa and Ichizo Kobayashi

Genetic heterogeneity in response to adenovirus gene therapy

After intravenous delivery of the adenoviral vector into rats or mice, 95–99% of the encoded protein is produced in the hepatocytes. We observed, as have others, that the early expression levels of the vector ...

Authors: Pierre Lefesvre, Joline Attema, Angelique Lemckert, Menzo Havenga and Dirk van Bekkum

Fragile X (CGG)_n repeats induce a transcriptional repression in cis upon a linked promoter: Evidence for a chromatin mediated effect

Expansion of an unstable (CGG)_n repeat to over 200 triplets within the promoter region of the human FMR1 gene leads to extensive local methylation and transcription silencing, resulting in the loss of FMRP protei...

Authors: Simon P Chandler, Pushpa Kansagra and Mark C Hirst

Viable nonsense mutants for the essential gene SUP45 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Termination of protein synthesis in eukaryotes involves at least two polypeptide release factors (eRFs) – eRF1 and eRF3. The highly conserved translation termination factor eRF1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is enc...

Authors: Svetlana E Moskalenko, Svetlana V Chabelskaya, Sergei G Inge-Vechtomov, Michel Philippe and Galina A Zhouravleva

Phage annealing proteins promote oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis in Escherichia coli and mouse ES cells

The phage protein pairs, RecE/RecT from Rac or Redα/Redβ from λ, initiate efficient double strand break repair (DSBR) in Escherichia coli that has proven very useful for DNA engineering. These phage pairs initiat...

Authors: Youming Zhang, Joep PP Muyrers, Jeanette Rientjes and A Francis Stewart

Mutations in the Lactococcus lactis Ll.LtrB group II intron that retain mobility in vivo

Group II introns are mobile genetic elements that form conserved secondary and tertiary structures. In order to determine which of the conserved structural elements are required for mobility, a series of domai...

Authors: Lisa M D'Souza and Jin Zhong

Cyclooxygenase-2 is a neuronal target gene of NF-κB

NF-κB is implicated in gene regulation involved in neuronal survival, inflammmatory response and cancer. There are relatively few neuronal target genes of NF-κB characterized.

Authors: Barbara Kaltschmidt, Ralf A Linker, Jinbo Deng and Christian Kaltschmidt

Aggregation and retention of human urokinase type plasminogen activator in the yeast endoplasmic reticulum

Secretion of recombinant proteins in yeast can be affected by their improper folding in the endoplasmic reticulum and subsequent elimination of the misfolded molecules via the endoplasmic reticulum associated pro...

Authors: Michael O Agaphonov, Nina V Romanova, Polina M Trushkina, Vladimir N Smirnov and Michael D Ter-Avanesyan

Binding of the baculovirus very late expression factor 1 (VLF-1) to different DNA structures

Baculovirus genomes encode a gene called very late expression factor 1 (VLF-1) that is a member of the integrase (Int) family of proteins. In this report we describe the binding properties of purified Autographa ...

Authors: Victor S Mikhailov and George F Rohrmann

Retroviral vectors for establishing tetracycline-regulated gene expression in an otherwise recalcitrant cell line

Tetracycline-regulated systems have been used to control the expression of heterologous genes in such diverse organisms as yeast, plants, flies and mice. Adaptation of this prokaryotic regulatory system avoids...

Authors: Paraic A Kenny, Tariq Enver and Alan Ashworth

A comparison of efficacy and toxicity between electroporation and adenoviral gene transfer

Electroporation of skeletal muscle after injection of naked DNA was shown by others to increase transgene expression. Information regarding tissue damage caused by electroporation is conflicting. It is also no...

Authors: Pierre Lefesvre, Joline Attema and Dirk van Bekkum

Loss of cellular adhesion to matrix induces p53-independent expression of PTEN tumor suppressor

The tumor suppressor gene PTEN has been found mutated in many types of advanced tumors. When introduced into tumor cells that lack the wild-type allele of the gene, exogenous PTEN was able to suppress their ab...

Authors: Ray-Chang Wu, Martina Blumenthal, Xinwei Li and Axel H Schönthal

USF2 inhibits C/EBP-mediated transcriptional regulation of the RIIβ subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase

Cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) plays a central role in regulation of energy metabolism. Upon stimulation of testicular Sertoli cells by follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), glycolysis is activated to...

Authors: Maria Krudtaa Dahle, Kjetil Taskén and Kristin Austlid Taskén

Erratum to: A bovine papillomavirus-1 based vector restores the function of the low-density lipoprotein receptor in the receptor-deficient CHO-ldlA7 cell line

Authors: Jaana Tammur, Hiljar Sibul, Ene Ustav, Mart Ustav and Andres Metspalu

Screening for sequence-specific RNA-BPs by comprehensive UV crosslinking

Specific cis-elements and the associated trans-acting factors have been implicated in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. In the era of genome wide analyses identifying novel trans-acting f...

Authors: Rebecca Hartley, Valerie Le Meuth-Metzinger and H Beverley Osborne

Control of dinucleoside polyphosphates by the FHIT-homologous HNT2 gene, adenine biosynthesis and heat shock in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The FHIT gene is lost early in the development of many tumors. Fhit possesses intrinsic ApppA hydrolase activity though ApppA cleavage is not required for tumor suppression. Because a mutant form of Fhit that is ...

Authors: Marta Rubio-Texeira, James M Varnum, Pawel Bieganowski and Charles Brenner

A modification of Representational Difference Analysis, with application to the cloning of a candidate in the Reelin signalling pathway

cDNA-RDA is one of the subtractive cloning techniques used to isolate differentially expressed genes between two complex cDNA populations. In the present study we present a modification of the protocol describ...

Authors: Anelia A Kuvbachieva and Andre M Goffinet

A bovine papillomavirus-1 based vector restores the function of the low-density lipoprotein receptor in the receptor-deficient CHO-ldlA7 cell line

The rationale of using bovine papillomavirus-1 (BPV-1) derived vectors in gene therapy protocols lies in their episomal maintenance at intermediate to high copy number, and stable, high-level expression of the...

Authors: Jaana Tammur, Hiljar Sibul, Ene Ustav, Mart Ustav and Andres Metspalu

Natural antisense RNA inhibits the expression of BCMA, a tumour necrosis factor receptor homologue.

BCMA (B-cell maturation) belongs to the tumour necrosis factor receptor gene family, and is specifically expressed in mature B lymphocytes. Antisense BCMA RNA is produced by transcription from the same locus a...

Authors: Anastassia Hatzoglou, Frédérique Deshayes, Christine Madry, Geneviéve Laprée, Elias Castanas and Andreas Tsapis

Cdc5 influences phosphorylation of Net1 and disassembly of the RENT complex

In S. cerevisiae, the mitotic exit network (MEN) proteins, including the Polo-like protein kinase Cdc5 and the protein phosphatase Cdc14, are required for exit from mitosis. In pre-anaphase cells, Cdc14 is seques...

Authors: Wenying Shou, Ramzi Azzam, Susan L Chen, Michael J Huddleston, Christopher Baskerville, Harry Charbonneau, Roland S Annan, Steve A Carr and Raymond J Deshaies

Molecular cloning of the rat proteinase-activated receptor 4 (PAR4)

The proteinase-activated receptor 4 (PAR4) is a G-protein-coupled receptor activated by proteases such as thrombin and trypsin. Although activation of PAR4 has been shown to modulate rat gastrointestinal motil...

Authors: Willemijntje A Hoogerwerf, Helen Lee Hellmich, Maria Adelaide Micci, John H Winston, Lei Zou and Pankaj J Pasricha

Locations of several novel 2'-O-methylated nucleotides in human 28S rRNA

Ribose 2'-O-methylation, the most common nucleotide modification in mammalian rRNA, is directed by the C/D box small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs). Thus far, more than fifty putative human rRNA methylation guide snoRN...

Authors: Ana Rebane, Hanno Roomere and Andres Metspalu

Receptor protein tyrosine kinase EphB4 is up-regulated in colon cancer

We have used commercially available cDNA arrays to identify EphB4 as a gene that is up-regulated in colon cancer tissue when compared with matched normal tissue from the same patient.

Authors: Sally-Anne Stephenson, Stefan Slomka, Evelyn L Douglas, Peter J Hewett and Jennifer E Hardingham

A human RNA polymerase II subunit is encoded by a recently generated multigene family

The sequences encoding the yeast RNA polymerase II (RPB) subunits are single copy genes.

Authors: Sylvie Grandemange, Sophie Schaller, Shigeru Yamano, Stanislas Du Manoir, George V Shpakovski, Marie-Geneviève Mattei, Claude Kedinger and Marc Vigneron

Expression of c-myc is not critical for cell proliferation in established human leukemia lines

A study was undertaken to resolve preliminary conflicting results on the proliferation of leukemia cells observed with different c-myc antisense oligonucleotides.

Authors: David M Tidd, Richard V Giles, Caroline M Broughton and Richard E Clark

The major transcription initiation site of the p27^Kip1 gene is conserved in human and mouse and produces a long 5'-UTR

The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27^Kip1 is essential for proper control of cell cycle progression. The levels of p27^Kip1 are regulated by several mechanisms including transcriptional and translational contr...

Authors: Jennifer Coleman, Michelle Hawkinson, Robin Miskimins and W Keith Miskimins

Poly purine.pyrimidine sequences upstream of the beta-galactosidase gene affect gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Poly purine.pyrimidine sequences have the potential to adopt intramolecular triplex structures and are overrepresented upstream of genes in eukaryotes. These sequences may regulate gene expression by modulatin...

Authors: Amit K Maiti and Samir K Brahmachari

Transcriptional transactivation by selected short random peptides attached to lexA-GFP fusion proteins

Transcriptional transactivation is a process with remarkable tolerance for sequence diversity and structural geometry. In studies of the features that constitute transactivating functions, acidity has remained...

Authors: Majid Abedi, Giordano Caponigro, Jiaxiang Shen, Steven Hansen, Tanya Sandrock and Alexander Kamb

Itt1p, a novel protein inhibiting translation termination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Termination of translation in eukaryotes is controlled by two interacting polypeptide chain release factors, eRFl and eRF3. eRFl recognizes nonsense codons UAA, UAG and UGA, while eRF3 stimulates polypeptide r...

Authors: Valery N Urakov, Igor A Valouev, Eugeny I Lewitin, Sergey V Paushkin, Vyacheslav S Kosorukov, Vitaly V Kushnirov, Vladimir N Smirnov and Michael D Ter-Avanesyan

HIPK2 overexpression leads to stabilization of p53 protein and increased p53 transcriptional activity by decreasing Mdm2 protein levels

HIPK2 (homeodomain-interacting protein kinase 2) has been identified as a nuclear serine/threonine kinase. A central function of HIPK2 is repressing transcription of homeodomain containing transcription factors.

Authors: Ying Wang, Klaus-Michael Debatin and Hubert Hug

Different effects of antisense RelA p65 and NF-κB1 p50 oligonucleotides on the nuclear factor-κB mediated expression of ICAM-1 in human coronary endothelial and smooth muscle cells

Activation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) is one of the key events in early atherosclerosis and restenosis. We hypothesized that tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) induced and NF-κB mediated expression of intercell...

Authors: Rainer Voisard, Nicola Huber, Regine Baur, Milorat Susa, Oliver Ickrath, Anton Both, Wolfgang Koenig and Vinzenz Hombach

Asymmetric interactions in the adenosine-binding pockets of the MS2 coat protein dimer

The X-ray structure of the MS2 coat protein-operator RNA complex reveals the existence of quasi-synmetric interactions of adenosines -4 and -10 in pockets formed on different subunits of the coat protein dimer...

Authors: Amy J Powell and David S Peabody

The regulation of CD5 expression in murine T cells

CD5 is a pan-T cell surface marker that is also present on a subset of B cells, B-1a cells.Functional and developmental subsets of T cells express characteristic CD5 levels that vary over roughly a 30-fold ran...

Authors: James W Tung, Shaun S Kunnavatana, Leonard A Herzenberg and Leonore A Herzenberg

Coordinate regulation of RARgamma2, TBP, and TAF_II135 by targeted proteolysis during retinoic acid-induced differentiation of F9 embryonal carcinoma cells

Treatment of mouse F9 embryonal carcinoma cells with all-trans retinoic acid (T-RA) induces differentiation into primitive endodermal type cells. Differentiation requires the action of the receptors for all tr...

Authors: Lucia Perletti, Eliezer Kopf, Lucie Carré and Irwin Davidson

UAG readthrough in mammalian cells: Effect of upstream and downstream stop codon contexts reveal different signals

Translation termination is mediated through an interaction between the release factors eRF1 and eRF3 and the stop codon within its nucleotide context. Although it is well known that the nucleotide contexts bot...

Authors: Michel Cassan and Jean-Pierre Rousset

Deficiency of Pten accelerates mammary oncogenesis in MMTV-Wnt-1 transgenic mice

Germline mutations in the tumor suppressor PTEN predispose human beings to breast cancer, and genetic and epigenetic alterations of PTEN are also detected in sporadic human breast cancer. Germline Pten mutations ...

Authors: Yi Li, Katrina Podsypanina, Xiufan Liu, Allison Crane, Lee K Tan, Ramon Parsons and Harold E Varmus

Multiple redundant sequence elements within the fission yeast ura4 replication origin enhancer

Some origins in eukaryotic chromosomes fire more frequently than others. In the fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, the relative firing frequencies of the three origins clustered 4-8 kbp upstream of the ura...

Authors: Soo-Mi Kim, Dong-Yi Zhang and Joel A Huberman

A simple method for generating full length cDNA from low abundance partial genomic clones

PCR amplification of target molecules involves sequence specific primers that flank the region to be amplified. While this technique is generally routine, its applicability may not be sufficient to generate a ...

Authors: Yongxin Wang, Joseph M Fugaro, Fauzia Siddiq, Chandra Mouli V Goparaju, Fulvio Lonardo, Anil Wali, John F Lechner and Harvey I Pass

High affinity binding of proteins HMG1 and HMG2 to semicatenated DNA loops

Proteins HMG1 and HMG2 are two of the most abundant non histone proteins in the nucleus of mammalian cells, and contain a domain of homology with many proteins implicated in the control of development, such as...

Authors: Claire Gaillard and François Strauss