The predominant organizational theme by which the transcription machinery and chromatin regulators are positioned within promoter regions or throughout genes in a genome is largely unknown. We mapped the genomic location of diverse representative components of the gene regulatory machinery in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to an experimental resolution of <40 bp. Sequence-specific gene regulators, ch...

Pol III core is the three-subunit subassembly of the E. coli replicative DNA polymerase III holoenzyme. It contains the catalytic polymerase subunit α, the 3' → 5' proofreading exonuclease ε, and a subunit of unknown function, θ. We employ optical tweezers to characterize pol III core activity on a single DNA substrate. We observe polymerization at applied template forces F < 25 pN and exonucle...

The normal flora furnishes the host with ecological barriers that prevent pathogen attack while maintaining tissue homeostasis. Urinary tract infections (UTIs) constitute a highly relevant model of microbial adaptation in which some patients infected with Escherichia coli develop acute pyelonephritis, while other patients with bacteriuria exhibit an asymptomatic carrier state similar to bacteri...

Bypass of replication blocks by specialized DNA polymerases is crucial for cell survival but may promote mutagenesis and genome instability. To gain insight into mutagenic sub-pathways that coexist in mammalian cells, we examined N-2-acetylaminofluorene (AAF)-induced frameshift mutagenesis by means of SV40-based shuttle vectors containing a single adduct. We found that in mammalian cells, as pr...

DNA polymerase λ (DNA pol λ) is the only reported X-family DNA polymerases in plants and has been shown to play a significant role in dry quiescent seeds, growth, development and nuclear DNA repair. cDNA for DNA pol λ has been reported in Arabidopsis and japonica rice cultivar and has been characterized from E. coli expressed protein, but very little is known about its activity at protein level...

DNA is constantly exposed to chemical and environmental mutagens, causing lesions that can stall replication. In order to deal with DNA damage and other stresses, Escherichia coli utilizes the SOS response, which regulates the expression of at least 57 genes, including umuDC. The gene products of umuDC, UmuC and the cleaved form of UmuD, UmuD', form the specialized E. coli Y-family DNA polymera...

Wh at are the relation s be tween cultural polic ie and cu ltura l pol it ics? Too often, none at al l. In the histor y of cultura l studies so fa r, there has been no shor tage of discu ssion of cultu ral pol itics. Onl y rarely, how ever, have such di scu ssions taken account of the poli cy instruments through which cultura l activities and inst itution s are f unded and regul ated in the mun...

The base analog 6-Nhydroxylaminopurine (HAP) induces bidirectional GC + AT and AT + GC transitions that are enhanced in DNA polymerase E and 6 3' + 5' exonuclease-deficient yeast mutants, po12-4 and pol?-01, respectively. We have constructed a set of isogenic strains to determine whether the DNA polymerases 5 and E contribute equally to proofreading of replication errors provoked by HAP during ...

The alpha,beta-unsaturated aldehydes (enals) acrolein, crotonaldehyde, and trans-4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) are products of endogenous lipid peroxidation, arising as a consequence of oxidative stress. The addition of enals to dG involves Michael addition of the N(2)-amine to give N(2)-(3-oxopropyl)-dG adducts, followed by reversible cyclization of N1 with the aldehyde, yielding 1,N(2)-dG exocycli...