The striking similarity displayed at the mechanistic level between tumorigenesis and the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells and the fact that genes and pathways relevant for embryonic development are reactivated during tumor progression highlights the link between pluripotency and cancer. Based on these observations, we tested whether it is possible to use a pluripotency-associated tr...

BACKGROUND Integration of heterogeneous genes is widely applied in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. However, knowledge about the effect of integrative position on gene expression remains limited. RESULTS We established a genome-wide landscape of position effect on gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The expression cassette of red fluorescence protein (RFP) gene was constr...

Genetically identical organisms in homogeneous environments have different lifespans and healthspans. These differences are often attributed to stochastic events, such as mutations and 'epimutations', changes in DNA methylation and chromatin that change gene function and expression. But work in the last 10 years has revealed differences in lifespan- and health-related phenotypes that are not ca...

The orthodenticle-related protein (HpOtx) gene derived from the sea urchin Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus encodes two distinct isoforms, HpOtxE and HpOtxL, which are differentially expressed during early embryogenesis and are driven by TATA-less and TATA-containing promoters, respectively. In order to determine if the TATA element is involved in the establishment of the temporally specific expressi...

A binary system for gene activation and site specific integration based on conditional recombination of transfected sequences mediated by FLP recombinase from yeast was implemented in mammalian cells. In several cell lines, FLP rapidly and precisely recombined copies of its specific target sequences to activate an otherwise silent beta-galactosidase reporter gene. Clones of marked cells were ge...

Rapid detection of the foodborne pathogen Escherichia coli O157:H7 is of vital importance for public health worldwide. Among detection methods, reporter phages represent unique and sensitive tools for the detection of E. coli O157:H7 from food as they are host-specific and able to differentiate live cells from dead ones. Upon infection, target bacteria become identifiable since reporter genes a...

The cis-regulatory systems that control developmental expression of two sea urchin genes have been subjected to detailed functional analysis. Both systems are modular in organization: specific, separable fragments of the cis-regulatory DNA each containing multiple transcription factor target sites execute particular regulatory subfunctions when associated with reporter genes and introduced into...

The preparation of a gapped pUC18 derivative, containing the lacZa reporter gene in the singlestranded region, is described. Gapping is achieved by flanking the lacZa gene with sites for two related nicking endonucleases, enabling the excision of either the coding or non-coding strand. However, the excised strand remains annealed to the plasmid through non-covalent Watson–Crick base-pairing; it...

The limited packaging capacity of adeno-associated virus (AAV) precludes the design of vectors for the treatment of diseases associated with larger genes. Autonomous parvoviruses, such as minute virus of mice and B19, while identical in size (25 nm), are known to package larger genomes of 5.1 and 5.6 kb, respectively, compared to AAV genomes of 4.7 kb. One primary difference is the fact that wi...

BACKGROUND High-throughput methods based on molecular reporters have greatly advanced our knowledge of cell signaling in mammalian cells. However, their ability to monitor various types of cells is markedly limited by the inefficiency of reporter gene delivery. Recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors are efficient tools widely used for delivering and expressing transgenes in diverse an...