Alu repetitive elements represent the most common short interspersed elements (SINEs) found in primates, with an estimated 500,000 members in the haploid human genome. Considerable evidence has accumulated that these elements have dispersed in the genome by active transcription followed by retroposition, and that this process is ongoing. Sequence variation between the individual elements has le...

background and aims: this research aimed to study a possible link between endometriosis and polymorphism of the progesterone receptor gene. materials and methods: the control group consisted of 86 women without endometriosis and the case group comprised 86 patients with a diagnosis of endometriosis by laparoscopy. genotypes for alu insertion polymorphisms (a1/a1, a1/a2 and a2/a2) were described...

The main objective of the present study was to develop an efficient and reliable probe to be routinely used for detection of chromosome 13 copy numbers by interphase FISH. To achieve this, a Yeast Artificial Chromosome (YAC) containing sequences specific for human 13q12 (744D11), was cultured and the whole yeast genomic DNA was extracted. The human insert within the isolated DNA was amplified b...

The dominant family of interspersed repetitive DNA sequences in the human genome has been termed the Alu family. We have found that more than 75% of the lambda phage in a recombinant library representing an African green monkey genome hybridize with a human Alu sequence under stringent conditions. A group of clones selected from the monkey library with probes other than the Alu sequence were an...

A decrease in genomic methylation commonly occurs in aging cells; however, whether this epigenetic modification leads to age-related phenotypes has not been evaluated. Alu elements are the major interspersed repetitive DNA elements in humans that lose DNA methylation in aging individuals. Alu demethylation in blood cells starts at approximately 40 years of age, and the degree of Alu hypomethyla...

Alu elements are short interspersed elements (SINEs) approximately 300 nucleotides in length. More than 1 million Alus are found in the human genome. Despite their being genetically functionless, recent findings suggest that Alu elements may have a broad evolutionary impact by affecting gene structures, protein sequences, splicing motifs and expression patterns. Because of these effects, compil...

Integration of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) genome into the host chromosome is a vital step in the HIV life cycle. The highly conserved cytosine-adenine (CA) dinucleotide sequence immediately upstream of the cleavage site is crucial for integrase (IN) activity. As this viral enzyme has an important role early in the HIV-1 replication cycle, interference with the IN substrate ...

BACKGROUND Most cases of Sotos syndrome are caused by intragenic NSD1 mutations or 5q35 microdeletions. It is uncertain whether allelic or genetic heterogeneity underlies the residual cases and it has been proposed that other mechanisms, such as 11p15 defects, might be responsible for Sotos cases without NSD1 mutations or 5q35 microdeletions. OBJECTIVE To develop a multiplex ligation dependen...

Transposable elements are one of major sources to cause genomic instability through various mechanisms including de novo insertion, insertion-mediated genomic deletion, and recombination-associated genomic deletion. Among them is Alu element which is the most abundant element, composing ~10% of the human genome. The element emerged in the primate genome 65 million years ago and has since propag...

are likely to be harmful and prevented from spreading in the population by natural selection. This implies no functional importance for an Alu sequence itself, but merely that, as the deletions of Alus are very unlikely to be precise, a deletion event removing an Alu is also likely to remove valuable sequences around it, and the chromosome bearing the deletion will be lost by selection. The exp...