In Drosophila melanogaster, hybrid dysgenesis occurs in the germline of flies produced by crosses between females lacking P elements and males carrying 25-55 P elements. We have previously shown that a complete maternally inherited repression of P transposition in the germline (P cytotype) can be elicited by only two autonomous P elements located at the X chromosome telomere (cytological site 1...

The two-component histidine kinase Chk1p of Candida albicans has been implicated in the regulation of cell wall biosynthesis. Deletion of CHK1 results in avirulence that in part may be due to the increased sensitivity of mutant strains to polymorphonuclear leukocytes. The mutant also does not adhere to human oesophageal tissue in vitro, probably as a consequence of its altered cell wall. In the...

We have investigated HO endonuclease-induced double-strand break (DSB) recombination and repair in a LACZ duplication plasmid in yeast. A 117-bp MATa fragment, embedded in one copy of LACZ, served as a site for initiation of a DSB when HO endonuclease was expressed. The DSB could be repaired using wild-type sequences located on a second, promoterless, copy of LACZ on the same plasmid. In contra...

Molecular dissection of mechanisms that govern the differentiated cardiac phenotype has, for cogent technical reasons, largely been undertaken to date in neonatal ventricular myocytes. To circumvent expected limitations of other methods, the present study was initiated to determine whether replication-deficient adenovirus would enable efficient gene transfer to adult cardiac cells in culture. A...

We have previously reported the use of a recombinant nonreplicating adenovirus type 5, Ad5HCMVsp1 lacZ, expressing the lacZ gene under control of the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) immediate early promoter to assess repair of a UV-damaged reporter gene in UV and heat shock (HS) treated cells. Heat shock and UV-enhanced reactivation (HSER and UVER) of beta-galactosidase (beta-gal) activity for UV-...

The annexin A5 gene (Anxa5) was recently found to be expressed in the developing and adult vascular system as well as the skeletal system. In this paper, the expression of an Anxa5-lacZ fusion gene was used to define the onset of expression in the vasculature and to characterize these Anxa5-lacZ-expressing vasculature-associated cells. After blastocyst implantation, Anxa5-lacZ-positive cells we...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) replicates by reverse transcription of an RNA intermediate, the pregenomic RNA. The first step of HBV genome replication is the encapsidation of the pregenomic RNA encoding the encapsidation signal, termed epsilon, into the core particles, which is preceded by recognition and binding of HBV DNA polymerase to epsilon. The pregenomic RNA contains two identical epsilon elem...

Mutator phenotypes, a common and largely unexplained attribute of human cancer, might be better understood in mouse tumors containing reporter genes for accurate mutation enumeration and analysis. Previous work on peritoneal plasmacytomas (PCTs) in mice suggested that PCTs have a mutator phenotype caused by Myc-deregulating chromosomal translocations and/or phagocyte-induced mutagenesis due to ...

The alc gene cluster of Bordetella pertussis includes three genes, alcA, alcB, and alcC, which are involved in alcaligin siderophore biosynthesis in response to iron starvation. The production of AlcA, AlcB, and AlcC in Bordetella cells and the transcriptional organization of alcA, alcB, and alcC were investigated by using a set of three alc'-'lacZ gene fusion constructs that were contiguous wi...