Sir, We are grateful for the opportunity to respond to the correspondence from Oegema et al. (2013) and we thank the authors for their interest in our recent review article discussing the three known neurological disorders associated with defective single strand break repair, namely ataxia oculomotor apraxia 1 (AOA1), spinocerebellar ataxia with neuronal neuropathy 1 (SCAN1) and microcephaly, e...

Diversity and abundance of ammonia-oxidizing Betaproteobacteria (beta-AOB) and archaea (AOA) were investigated in a New England salt marsh at sites dominated by short or tall Spartina alterniflora (SAS and SAT sites, respectively) or Spartina patens (SP site). AOA amoA gene richness was higher than beta-AOB amoA richness at SAT and SP, but AOA and beta-AOB richness were similar at SAS. beta-AOB...

Human polynucleotide kinase/phosphatase (hPNKP) is a 57.1-kDa enzyme that phosphorylates DNA 5'-termini and dephosphorylates DNA 3'-termini. hPNKP is involved in both single- and double-strand break repair, and cells depleted of hPNKP show a marked sensitivity to ionizing radiation. Therefore, small molecule inhibitors of hPNKP should potentially increase the sensitivity of human tumors to gamm...

DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair by non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) in human cells is initiated by Ku heterodimer binding to a DSB, followed by recruitment of core NHEJ factors including DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs), XRCC4-like factor (XLF), and XRCC4 (X4)-DNA ligase IV (L4). Ku also interacts with accessory factors such as aprataxin and polynucleotide kinase/...

This paper is a pioneering attempt to utilize a Brownian motion (BM) process with drift to model the mobile radio channel under non-stationary conditions. It is assumed that the mobile station (MS) starts moving in a semi-random way, but subject to follow a given direction. This moving scenario is modelled by a BM process with drift (BMD). The starting point of the movement is a fixed point in ...

The diachronic development of Afrikaans phonotactics is characterized by a considerable number of processes that affect consonant clusters, i.e. sequences of two or more consonants, especially when occurring in the word-final coda position (cf. Watermeyer 1996; Roberge 2002). For example, clusters were reduced in direk /dɪrək/ ('direct', Dutch direct) or nag /nɑx/ ('night', Dutch nacht). Nevert...

A fast and cost-effective melamine detection approach has been developed based on surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) using a novel hydrogen bonding-assisted supramolecular matrix. The detection utilizes Fe3O4/Au magnetic nanoparticles coated with 5-aminoorotic acid (AOA) as a SERS active substrate (Fe3O4/Au–AOA), and Rhodamine B (RhB) conjugated AOA as a Raman reporter (AOA–RhB). Upon m...

Introduction The preliminary examination of Stardust samples has yielded a number of surprising findings, such as the presence of large refractory mineral grains, including materials resembling CAIs, chondrules, and AOA fragments [1-3]. Furthermore, intact organics and fine grained materials are unexpectedly rare in Stardust tracks [4,5]. The fact that intact fine grained materials are uncommon...

Ataxia with oculomotor apraxia (AOA) is characterized by early-onset cerebellar ataxia, ocular apraxia, early areflexia, late peripheral neuropathy, slow progression, severe motor handicap, and absence of both telangiectasias and immunodeficiency. We studied 13 Portuguese families with AOA and found that the two largest families show linkage to 9p, with LOD scores of 4.13 and 3.82, respectively...