When starved, Myxococcus xanthus cells send signals to each other that coordinate their movements, gene expression, and differentiation. C-signaling requires cell-cell contact, and increasing contact brought about by cell alignment in aggregates is thought to increase C-signaling, which induces expression of many genes, causing rod-shaped cells to differentiate into spherical spores. C-signalin...

Human Platt neuroblastoma cells were transfected with the marker gene, bacterial lacZ, to track cells at the earliest stages after ectopic injection at two different sites in athymic nude mice. Three clones (LZPt-1,-2 and -3) of differing morphologies were analysed. All clones yielded large primary tumours subcutaneously or intradermally with similar latency. While LZPt-2 and -3 clones generate...

This study examined transgenic mice whose expression of a β-galactosidase (lacZ) reporter is driven by a GATA6 gene enhancer. Previous investigations established that transcription of the transgene was associated with precardiac mesoderm and primary heart tube myocardium, which decreased progressively, so that its expression was no longer observed within ventricular myocardium by midgestation. ...

objective(s):diabetic nephropathy is an important long-term complication of diabetes mellitus which appears to be partially mediated by an increase in secretion of transforming growth factor-β (tgf-β). fibromodulin, the small leucine-rich proteoglycan, has been proposed to be the potent tgfβ1 modulator. in this study, the therapeutic effects of recombinant adenoviral vectors expressing fibromod...

The use of gene fusion technologies for transcriptional analysis of gene expression, especially of those genes whose products are difficult to assay, has been well documented (12–15). Many narrow and broad-host-range plasmid-based systems are available for constructing such gene fusions (6,7, 14). To circumvent some of the inherent problems of plasmid-based systems, which have been discussed be...

BACKGROUND A method for inhibiting the expression of particular genes using external guide sequences (EGSs) has been developed in bacteria, mammalian cells and maize cells. RESULTS To examine whether EGS technology can be used to down-regulate gene expression in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), we generated EGS-Ngfp-lacZ and EGS-Mtgfp that are targeted against Ngfp-lacZ and Mtgfp mRNA, re...

The genetics of lactose utilization within the slow-lactose-fermenting Lactococcus lactis strain NCDO2054 was studied with respect to the organization, expression, and evolution of the lac genes. Initially the beta-galactosidase gene (lacZ) was cloned by complementation of an Escherichia coli mutant on a 7-kb HpaI fragment. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the complete fragment revealed part of ...

Escherichia coli possesses two distinct nitrite reductase enzymes encoded by the nrfA and nirB operons. The expression of each operon is induced during anaerobic cell growth conditions and is further modulated by the presence of either nitrite or nitrate in the cells' environment. To examine how each operon is expressed at low, intermediate, and high levels of either nitrate or nitrite, anaerob...

BACKGROUND The safety and efficiency of gene therapies for cystic fibrosis (CF) need to be assessed in pre-clinical models. Using the normal ferret, this study sought to determine whether ferret airway epithelia could be transduced with a lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) pre-treatment followed by a VSV-G pseudotyped HIV-1 based lentiviral (LV) vector, in preparation for future studies in CF ferret...

This study was designed to elucidate the therapeutic effect of transfering the brain-specific angiogenesis inhibitor 1 (BAI1) gene to a mouse renal cell carcinoma cell line (Renca). Female BALB/c mice were inoculated subcutaneously with wild-type Renca (Renca/Wild) cells or Renca cells transfected with the BAI-1 (Renca/BAI-1) or LacZ (Renca/LacZ) gene. Tumor growth was observed every other day ...