In aWestNile virus (WNV)-free ecosystem, it is essential to verify the integrity ofRNA before concluding thatRNAextracted frommosquito specimens is negative forWNVgene sequences. Theprimaryobjectiveofour studywas todevelopa rapidmolecular assay to rapidly screenmosquitoes for the presence of 18S RNA andWNV gene sequences. Mosquitoes, collected frommultiple sites on the island of OÔahu, were poo...

The U3 small nucleolar ribonucleoprotein (snoRNP) is required for three cleavage events that generate the mature 18S rRNA from the pre-rRNA. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, depletion of Mpp10, a U3 snoRNP-specific protein, halts 18S rRNA production and impairs cleavage at the three U3 snoRNP-dependent sites: A0, A1, and A2. We have identified truncation mutations of Mpp10 that affect 18S rRNA synt...

The genetic diversity of photosynthetic picoeukaryotes was investigated in the South East Pacific Ocean. Genetic libraries of the plastid 16S rRNA gene were constructed on picoeukaryote populations sorted by flow cytometry, using two different primer sets, OXY107F/OXY1313R commonly used to amplify oxygenic organisms, and PLA491F/OXY1313R, biased towards plastids of marine algae. Surprisingly, t...

Bodonid flagellates (class Kinetoplastea) are abundant, free-living protozoa in freshwater, soil and marine habitats, with undersampled global biodiversity. To investigate overall bodonid diversity, kinetoplastid-specific PCR primers were used to amplify and sequence 18S rRNA genes from DNA extracted from 16 diverse environmental samples; of 39 different kinetoplastid sequences, 35 belong to th...

The quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (Q-RT-PCR) technique has been increasingly used in endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) research. Usually, an appropriate endogenous control gene is critical for Q-RT-PCR to normalize the errors and sample-to-sample variations that occur in the course of tissue collection, RNA isolation, and RT-PCR. In this study, we cl...

At the heart of the ribosome lie rRNAs, whose catalytic function in translation is subtly modulated by posttranscriptional modifications. In the small ribosomal subunit of budding yeast, on the 18S rRNA, two adjacent adenosines (A1781/A1782) are N(6)-dimethylated by Dim1 near the decoding site, and one guanosine (G1575) is N(7)-methylated by Bud23-Trm112 at a ridge between the P- and E-site tRN...

Ribosome biogenesis is a complex process that requires >150 transacting factors, many of which form macromolecular assemblies as big and complex as the ribosome itself. One of those complexes, the SSU processome, is required for pre-18S rRNA maturation. Although many of its components have been identified, the endonucleases that cleave the pre-18S rRNA have remained mysterious. Here we examine ...

In this study the term 'rates of synthesis' does not refer to rates of transcription but to rates of accumulation of newly synthesized RNA. The rates of synthesis and half-lives of tRNA, 18S and 28S rRNA of 14-day and 17-day embryonic chick muscle were determined by following the accumulation of radioactive AMP in RNA after administration of [3H]8-adenosine to chick embryos and correcting for t...

Due to their widespread distribution and virulence, protozoan species of the genus Perkinsus are especially worrisome parasites for shellfish farmers. In the present paper, we investigate the organization and the structural features of the nuclear ribosomal genes of Perkinsus atlanticus as well as the use of DNA sequence information from this region for phylogenetic analyses. This information h...