Fractionation of the culture supernatant fluids of Serratia marcescens, strain BG, by ammonium sulfate precipitation, isoelectric focusing, ion-exchange chromatography, hydroxyapatite adsorption chromatography, and gel filtration failed to separate the rabbit cornea-damaging activity and the in vitro protease activity of the preparations. Two proteases having similar molecular weights (44,000),...

Quantifying the number of deleterious mutations per diploid human genome is of crucial concern to both evolutionary and medical geneticists. Here we combine genome-wide polymorphism data from PCR-based exon resequencing, comparative genomic data across mammalian species, and protein structure predictions to estimate the number of functionally consequential single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)...

Many plant species can be cryopreserved by treating shoot tips with complex cryoprotectant solutions before rapidly cooling them to liquid nitrogen temperatures. Plant vitrification solution 2 (PVS2), a commonly selected cryoprotectant, can be lethal with extended exposure times. To determine potentially toxic combinations, we have exposed mint shoot tips to one-, two-, three-, and four-compone...

BACKGROUND Mutations in the leptin gene (LEP) can alter the secretion or interaction of leptin with its receptor, leading to extreme early-onset obesity. The purpose of this work was to estimate the prevalence of heterozygous and homozygous mutations in the leptin gene with the help of the Exome Aggregation Consortium (ExAC) database ( http://exac.broadinstitute.org/about ). RESULTS The ExAC ...

The robustness of neural network (NN) based information processing systems with respect to component failure (damaging of nodes/links) is studied. The damaging/component failure process has been modeled as a Poisson process. To choose the instants or moments of damaging, statistical sampling technique is used. The nodes/links to be damaged are determined randomly. As an illustration, the model ...

Several authors have suggested that the cells of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have defects of DNA repair. Cells from patients with the classical chromosomal instability syndromes, thought to be due to defects in DNA repair, are hypersensitive to the chromosome damaging effects of some DNA damaging agents, measured as sister chromatid exchange (SCE). We have observed that lym...