BACKGROUND Mn oxides occur in a wide variety of geological settings and exert considerable influences on the components and chemical behaviors of sediments and soils. Microbial reduction of Mn oxides is an important process found in many different environments including marine and freshwater sediments, lakes, anoxic basins, as well as oxic-anoxic transition zone of ocean. Although the pathway o...

The β-globin locus control region (LCR) is contained on a 20 kb DNA fragment and is characterized by the presence of five DNaseI hypersensitive sites in erythroid cells, termed 5′HS1-5. A fully active 6.5 kb version of the LCR, called the μLCR, has been described. Expression of the β-like globin genes is absolutely dependent on the presence of the LCR. The developmental expression pattern of th...

Two regions of the gene coding for 16S rRNA in Nocardia species were selected as genus-specific primer sequences for a PCR assay. The PCR protocol was tested with 60 strains of clinically relevant Nocardia isolates and type strains. It gave positive results for all strains tested. Conversely, the PCR assay was negative for all tested species belonging to the most closely related genera, includi...