UNLABELLED Recent studies of surface waters in North America, Japan and Europe have reported the presence of steroidogenic agents as contaminants. The current study has three objectives: 1) to determine if steroidogenic compounds are present in the Elkhorn River, 2) to determine if sediments collected from the Elkhorn River can act as a source of steroidogenic compounds to aquatic organisms, an...

ytoplasmic structures are sites of active mammalian mRNA decay, according to Cougot et al. (page 31). The group had previously identified cytoplasmic foci that included two human mRNA decapping enzymes. They now add subunits of a deadenylase, exonuclease, and possible helicase to the list of proteins found at these sites. After inhibition of a 5 –3 exonuclease, poly(A) RNA accumulates at the sa...

Departments of Pediatrics and Obstetrics/Gynecology, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, and Department of Pediatrics, Taiwan Provincial Kee-Lung Hospital, Keelung. Received: 15 August 2001. Revised: 11 December 2001. Accepted: 5 February 2002. Reprint requests and correspondence to: Dr. Mei-Hwan Wu, Department of Pediatrics, National Taiwan University Hospital, 7 Chung-Shan South Road...

We have used immunofluorescent localization to examine the distribution of MLH1 (MutL homolog) foci on synaptonemal complexes (SCs) from juvenile male mice. MLH1 is a mismatch repair protein necessary for meiotic recombination in mice, and MLH1 foci have been proposed to mark crossover sites. We present evidence that the number and distribution of MLH1 foci on SCs closely correspond to the numb...

BRCA1, which is mutated in the familial forms of breast and ovarian cancer, plays important roles in genome stability through its participation in DNA damage response (DDR) following double-stranded breaks (DsBs). BRCA1 activates the checkpoint pathway to retard cell cycle progression and stimulates repair of the DsBs (reviewed in ref. 1). it is recruited to the damaged chromatin through an int...

Steroidogenic factor SF-1, a constitutively active nuclear hormone receptor, is essential to the development of adrenal and gonadal glands and acts as a shaping factor of sexual determination and differentiation. Its effects are exerted primarily through the control of the synthesis of steroid hormones. The functional cell-based assay Receptor Selection and Amplification Technology (R-SAT) was ...

Although recent research has focused on the fundamental role(s) of steroids synthesized de novo in the brain on development, the mechanism by which production of these neurosteroids is regulated remains unclear. Steroid production in peripheral tissues is acutely regulated by the steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) protein, which mediates the rate-limiting step in steroid biosynthesis: the in...