Dickkopf-1 (DKK1) is an inhibitor of canonical Wnt signaling pathway and regulates hair follicle morphogenesis and cycling. To investigate the potential involvement of DKK1 in wool production and quality traits, we characterized the genomic structure of ovine DKK1, performed polymorphism detection and association analysis of ovine DKK1 with wool production and quality traits in Chinese Merino. ...

Hedgehog (Hh) signaling has been implicated in the development of osteoblasts and osteoclasts whose balanced activities are critical for proper bone formation. Since many mouse mutants in the Hh pathway are embryonic lethal, questions on the exact effects of Hh signaling on osteogenesis remain. Using zebrafish larvae mutant in Indian Hedgehog, patched1, patched2 and suppressor of fused (dre), w...

Internal organs in vertebrates show distinctive left–right asymmetry. To establish left–right patterning, creation of a leftward flow plays a critical role. However, how this flow function or how this flow is sensed is still debated, because a flow sensor itself has not been identified yet. Here we show a medaka mutant abecobe (abc), isolated by our recent ENU-mediated mutagenesis screening wit...

phology. We have generated a Tg(phd3:GFP)/+; vhl1/+ transgenic line, which exhibit robust GFP expression in the vhl1/vhl1 background, essentially acting as an in vivo fluorescent reporter to identify the mutant cells/embryos. To induce VHL kidney tumors in fish, we have utilized this transgenic line to generate donor embryos and transplanted the mutant blastomeres to the wild type host embryos,...

We use Shelah’s theory of possible cofinalities in order to solve some problems about ultrafilters. Theorem 1. Suppose that λ is a singular cardinal, λ′ < λ, and the ultrafilter D is κ-decomposable for all regular cardinals κ with λ′ < κ < λ. Then D is either λ-decomposable, or λ-decomposable. Corollary 2. If λ is a singular cardinal, then an ultrafilter is (λ, λ)-regular if and only if it is e...

microorganisms are important components of soil. some soil filamentous fungi such aspenicilium produce many bioactive small molecules, or secondary metabolites, that range frombeneficial bioactive compounds to harmful toxins. in this study, the metabolites of threepenicillium species (p. goditanum, p. moldavicum and p. corylophilum) were extracted byadding ethyl acetate to liquid cultures. the ...

Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) is a multifunctional decapeptide that possess endocrine as well as neuromodulatory roles and is present in all vertebrates. Endocrine GnRH cells play a crucial role in the establishment of the hypothalamic–pituitary– gonadal axis in many species. Recent studies have found that the prokineticin2 (pk2) and prokineticin receptor2 (pkr2) genes are involved in t...