Molecular phylogeography suggests that Micromys minutus, the sole extant species of the genus, colonized its extensive range quite recently, during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene period. Rich Pliocene and Pleistocene fossil records both from Europe and China suggest rather continuous and gradual in situ phenotype rearrangements from the Pliocene to the Recent periods. To elucidate the discrepanc...

BACKGROUND Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is one of the leading causes of vaginal complaints among women of childbearing age. The role of Gardnerella vaginalis remains controversial due to its presence in healthy and BV-type vaginal microflora. The phenotypic and genotypic heterogeneity of G. vaginalis suggested the existence of strain variants linked with different health conditions. We sought to an...

We used an integrative genetics approach using sequences of (1) nuclear ribosomal rDNA (internal transcribed spacers and partial large subunit rDNA), (2) single-copy microsatellite nuclear DNA, (3) chloroplast-encoded 23S rDNA, (4) mitochondrial cytochrome b, and (5) repeat variation at eight microsatellite markers, to test the hypothesis that the stress-tolerant, ‘morphologically cryptic’ Clad...

BACKGROUND Second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) has proven to contain useful biological information at higher taxonomic levels. OBJECTIVES This study was carried out to unravel the biological information in the ITS2 region of An. culicifacies and the internal relationships between the five species of Anopheles culicifacies. METHODOLOGY In achieving these objectives, twenty two ITS2 seq...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the resistance patterns to food-related stresses of Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 strains belonging to specific genotypes. A total of 33 E. coli O157:H7 strains were exposed to seven different stress conditions acting as potential selective pressures affecting the transmission of E. coli O157:H7 to humans through the food chain. These s...

Recent phylogenetic studies of non-passerine birds provide congruent support for a clade formed by owlet-nightjars (Aegothelidae) and swifts and hummingbirds (Apodiformes). This clade is here named Daedalornithes (new clade name) based on the principles of phylogenetic taxonomy.

Phylogenetic relationships of the Uncinula lineage, which is the basal group in the genus Erysiphe, were investigated with 167 sequences of nuc ITS1-5. 8S-ITS2 and the 28S rDNA regions. Backbone tree analyses with six datasets and two tree-constructing methods revealed that the Uncinula lineage is divided into seven distinct clades. Clades 1-5 each contained a representative powdery mildew spec...

The Drosophila obscura clade consists of about 41 species, of which 20 were used for analyses of wing and thorax length. Our primary goal was to investigate the magnitude of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) of these traits within this clade and to test Rensch's Rule [when females are larger than males, SSD (e.g., female/male ratio) should decrease with body size]. Our secondary goal was methodologi...

In a very influential paper Avise et al. [1] introduced the term “phylogeography” to refer to evolutionary studies lying at the interface of population genetics and systematics. An important property of molecular sequences is that the degree of difference among them contains information about their relatedness. Avise et al. proposed combining information derived from the phylogenetic relationsh...

We present detailed studies of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses to clade A or C HIV type 1 in three donors infected in East Africa. We define several novel non-clade B CTL epitopes, including some restricted by HLA alleles common in Africans. Although cross-clade CTL recognition of these epitopes does occur, recognition can also be highly clade ...