Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) serves a primary function in metastasis and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the present study, in order to evaluate the analytical performance and clinical value of the liquid biopsy-based platform, a novel integrated subtraction enrichment and immunostaining-fluorescence in situ hybridization (iFISH®) platform was applied to analyze CTCs in patie...

In the first cytogenetic study of the recently proposed family Myerslopiidae the male karyotype of Mapucheachilensis (Nielson, 1996) was analyzed using conventional chromosome staining, AgNOR- and C-bandings, and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with 18S rDNA and (TTAGG) n telomeric probes. A karyotype of 2n = 16 + XY, NOR on a medium-sized pair of autosomes, subterminal location of C-...

AIMS Accurate determination of HER-2 status is critical to identify patients for whom trastuzumab treatment will be of benefit. Although the recommended primary method of evaluation is immunohistochemistry, numerous reports of variability in interpretation have raised uncertainty about the reliability of results. Recent guidelines have suggested that image analysis could be an effective tool fo...

The cryosphere is an integral part of the global climate system and one of the major habitable ecosystems of Earth's biosphere. These permanently frozen environments harbor diverse, viable and metabolically active microbial populations that represent almost all the major phylogenetic groups. In this study, we investigated the microbial diversity in the surface snow surrounding the Concordia Res...

Obligate intracellular bacteria are commonly found as endosymbionts of acanthamoebae; however, their survival in and ability to transfer to amoebae are currently uncharacterized. In this study, six bacterial endosymbionts, found in five environmental Acanthamoeba isolates (S13, R18, S23, S31, S40) from different locations of Sapporo city, Japan, were characterized. Phylogenetic analysis reveale...

Hoplias malabaricus (Bloch, 1794), a predatory freshwater fish with a wide distribution throughout South America, represents a species complex with seven well characterized karyomorphs at the cytogenetic level. Although this species has been extensively studied in several Brazilian basins, data are still scarce for hydrographic systems from other South American countries. This study aims to cha...

Fish constitute a paraphyletic and profusely diversified group that has historically puzzled ichthyologists. Hard efforts are necessary to better understand this group, due to its extensive diversity. New species are often identified and it leads to questions about their phylogenetic aspects. Cytogenetics is becoming an important biodiversity-detection tool also used to measure biodiversity evo...

Robertsonian translocations are the most common chromosomal rearrangements in humans. The vast majority of the ten possible nonhomologous types of Robertsonian translocations ascertained are rob(13q14q) and rob(14q21q). Recombination between homologous sequences on nonhomologous chromosomes has been proposed as a mechanism leading to the preferential formation of rob(13q14q) and rob(14q21q). Ho...

We have localized the human gene encoding the 13.3-kDa subunit of mitochondrial complex III (UQCRB) to chromosome 8 using both radioactive in situ hybridization and fluorescence in situ hybridization. The additional peak obtained with the former method is attributed to the higher sensitivity of this technique, which results in hybridization of the probe to the less conserved pseudogene. We ther...

In bacterial communities one bacterium can influence the growth of other members of the population. These interactions may be based on nutritional factors or may occur via bacterial signaling molecules that are released in the medium. We present an example, showing that in addition to the above means of interactions, muramidases, enzymes that specifically cleave peptidoglycan chains, can also m...