We have previously shown that yeast scaffold attachment regions (SARs) flanking a chimeric 0-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene increased per-copy expression levels by 24-fold in tobacco suspension cell lines stably transformed by microprojectile bombardment. In this study, we examined the effect of a DNA fragment originally identified in a tobacco genomic clone by its activity in an in vitro bi...

Nitrogen (N) is a major limiting factor for plant growth and vegetable production. Understanding the regulatory mechanisms of N uptake, transport, assimilation key to improving use efficiency in plants. Ammonium transporters (AMTs) play an important role metabolism. In this study, we isolated AMT1 subfamily member (BcAMT1;5) with highly conserved signatural motif from flowering Chinese cabbage....

In this study we have examined the mechanism underlying the contact-mediated transfer of a lysosomal enzyme from lymphocytes to fibroblasts in culture. We found that although antibody against the mannose 6-phosphate lysosomal targetting receptor (MPR) completely inhibited fibroblast uptake of the lysosomal enzyme beta-glucuronidase (Gus) from the culture medium, it had no effect on the transfer...

A helper-dependent expression system based on transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus (TGEV) has been developed using a minigenome of 3.9 kb (M39). Expression of the reporter gene beta-glucuronidase (GUS) (2-8 microg per 10(6) cells) and the porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome virus (PRRSV) ORF5 (1-2 microg per 10(6) cells) has been shown using a TGEV-derived minigenome. GUS express...

A polyubiquitin clone (ubi7) was isolated from a potato (Solanum tuberosum) genomic library using a copy-specific probe from a stress-induced ubiquitin cDNA. The genomic clone contained a 569-bp intron immediately 5' to the initiation codon for the first ubiquitin-coding unit. Two chimeric beta-glucuronidase (GUS) fusion transgenes were introduced into potato. The first contained GUS fused to a...

Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter, widely used in transgenic crop plants, is known to be recognized in widely differing kinds of cells. Its activity in human cells may have impact on the risk assessment for the environmental release of genetically modified plants. In this study, transient expression of several constructs containing beta-glucuronidase (GUS) gene driven by cauliflower mosaic ...

In Arabidopsis the promoter of the gene encoding S-adenosyl-L-methionine synthetase (SAM-S) Psam-1 confers expression preferentially in the vascular tissue. In search for promoters that drive expression in particular cells of the lignifying tissues in trees, we have analyzed the expression pattern conferred by the Psam-1 promoter in transgenic poplar. Histochemical analyses demonstrated beta-gl...

Lateral gene transfer (LGT) from prokaryotes to microbial eukaryotes is usually detected by chance through genome-sequencing projects. Here, we explore a different, hypothesis-driven approach. We show that the fitness advantage associated with the transferred gene, typically invoked only in retrospect, can be used to design a functional screen capable of identifying postulated LGT cases. We hyp...

Delivering therapeutic levels of lysosomal enzymes across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) has been a pivotal issue in treating CNS storage diseases, including the mucopolysaccharidoses. An inherited deficiency of beta-glucuronidase (GUS) causes mucopolysaccharidosis type VII that is characterized by increased systemic and CNS storage of glycosaminoglycans. We previously showed that the neonate us...

Tobacco plants were transformed with constructs in which the transgene was a cDNA of replicating potato virus X (PVX) RNA. The constructs, referred to here as amplicons, were the intact genome of PVX and PVX constructs modified to carry the beta-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene either as an additional gene or as a replacement for the coat protein gene (PVX/GUS/CP and PVX/GUS respectively). Tra...