We have investigated the recombinase activity of recA441 protein by comparing its in vitro DNA strand exchange activity to that of wild-type recA protein. Consistent with its proficiency in recombination in vivo, recA441 protein is able to catalyze the in vitro exchange of a circular single-stranded DNA molecule for a homologous strand in a linear double-stranded DNA molecule. Under conditions ...

placental lactogen is a polypeptide hormone that is produced by the placenta, also known as chorionic somatomammotropin hormone. it has both growth hormone and prolactin activities on growth, lactation, and luteal steroid production. the objective of this study was to investigate the bovine placental lactogen (bpl) gene polymorphism of holstein cows in razavi khorasan province. blood samples we...

A fluorescence-based method for polymerase chain reaction-single-strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) analysis, F-SSCP, was developed in which the target sequence is amplified by the PCR using fluorescent primers. The amplified products are then heat-denatured and applied to a water-jacket controlled gel in an automated DNA sequencer. The separated strands are detected as laser-excited f...

In eukaryotes, the complex comprised of Mcm2–7, Cdc45 and GINS (CMG) is essential for DNA replication. Several lines of evidence indicate that the Mcm2–7 complex is the motor of the replicative helicase (reviewed in ref. 1), which is activated by its association with Cdc45 and GINS. Recently, we described the isolation and characterization of the human (h) CMG complex. In HeLa cells, this compl...

We prepared an oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN) bearing two 4-hydroxy-2-mercaptobenzimidazole nucleobase analogues (SB(NV) and SB(NB)) modified with different photolabile groups. This ODN enabled a light-triggered strand exchange reaction in a wavelength-selective manner.

RecA recombinases play a central role in homologous recombination. Once assembled on single-stranded (ss) DNA, RecA nucleoprotein filaments mediate the pairing of homologous DNA sequences and strand exchange processes. We have designed two experiments based on tethered particle motion (TPM) to investigate the fates of the invading and the outgoing strands during E. coli RecA-mediated pairing an...

A method to identify arbuscular endomycorrhizal fungi based on the amplification of portions of the nuclear gene coding for the small subunit rRNA is presented. By coupling the sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction and the specificity afforded by taxon-specific primers, a variety of samples can be analyzed, including small amounts of colonized roots. Family-specific primers as well as ge...