Genetic epidemiological studies strongly suggest that additive and interactive genes, each with small effects, mediate the genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia. With the human genome working draft at hand, candidate gene (and ultimately large-scale genome-wide) association studies are gaining renewed interest in the effort to unravel the complex genetics of schizophrenia. Linkage and fine ma...

background there are hoarding documents for the biological importance of cyclooxygenase-2 (cox-2) in pancreatic carcinogenesis. we aimed to thoroughly investigate the dna sequence variations of whole cox-2 exons in a large case-control study of pancreatic cancer by direct sequencing.   methods the entire exonic regions of cox-2 including 10 exons were sequenced in the germline dna of 96 patient...

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), a warm season, C4, perennial grass, is one of the predominant grass species of the North American tall grass prairies. It is viewed as a high-potential bioenergy feedstock species because it can produce large amounts of lignocellulosic material with relatively few inputs. The objectives of this project were to develop an advanced switchgrass population and use...

Decoding genomic sequences and determining their variation within populations has potential to reveal adaptive processes and unravel the genetic basis of ecologically relevant trait variation within a species. The blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus--a long-time ecological model species--has been used to investigate fitness consequences of variation in mating and reproductive behaviour. However, very ...

Genetic lesions causing human male infertility are manifold. Besides gross chromosomal aneuploidies and rearrangements, microdeletions and single gene defects can interfere with male fertility. Male fertility is not only dependent on genes controlling the male germ line but also on genes of the networks functional for male gonad development and male somatic development, respectively. It is popu...