Chloroplasts are plant-specific organelles that perform photosynthesis and responsible for the world’s primary productivity. Using light energy, chloroplasts produce many important products, including starch, amino acids, lipids, pigments and various secondary products. Therefore, chloroplasts are essential to the lives of all plants and animals alike. Chloroplast transformation is a unique tec...

RNA polymerase sigma factor sigma(F) initiates the prespore-specific program of gene expression during Bacillus subtilis sporulation. sigma(F) governs transcription of spoIIIG, encoding the late prespore-specific regulator sigma(G). However, transcription of spoIIIG is delayed relative to other genes under the control of sigma(F), and after synthesis, sigma(G) is initially kept in an inactive f...

BACKGROUND Novel therapeutics are urgently needed to control tuberculosis (TB). Thioridazine (THZ) is a candidate for the therapy of multidrug and extensively drug-resistant TB. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We studied the impact of THZ on Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) by analyzing gene expression profiles after treatment at the minimal inhibitory (1x MIC) or highly inhibitory (4x MIC) co...

We show that any finitely generated metabelian group can be embedded in a metabelian group of type F3. The proof builds upon work of G. Baumslag [4], who independently with V. R. Remeslennikov [10] proved that any finitely generated metabelian group can be embedded in a finitely presented one. We also rely essentially on the Sigma theory of R. Bieri and R. Strebel [7], who introduced this geome...

Six Sigma has been considered a powerful business strategy that employs a wellstructured continuous improvement methodology to reduce process variability and drive out waste within the business processes using effective application of statistical tools and techniques. Although there is a wider acceptance of Six Sigma in many organizations today, there appears to be virtually no in-depth case st...

Sigma factors, often in conjunction with other transcription factors, regulate gene expression in prokaryotes at the transcriptional level. Specific transcription factors tend to co-occur with specific sigma factors. To predict new members of the transcription factor regulon, we applied Bayes rule to combine the Bayesian probability of sigma factor prediction calculated from microarray data and...

The Bacillus subtilis genome encodes two members of the Lon family of prokaryotic ATP-dependent proteases. One, LonA, is produced in response to temperature, osmotic, and oxidative stress and has also been implicated in preventing sigma(G) activity under nonsporulation conditions. The second is encoded by the lonB gene, which resides immediately upstream from lonA. Here we report that transcrip...

The sigma(S) (RpoS) subunit of RNA polymerase is the master regulator of the general stress response in Escherichia coli and related bacteria. While rapidly growing cells contain very little sigma(S), exposure to many different stress conditions results in rapid and strong sigma(S) induction. Consequently, transcription of numerous sigma(S)-dependent genes is activated, many of which encode gen...

Human SK-N-SH neuroblastoma cells expressed sigma-1 and sigma-2 receptors with similar pharmacological profiles to those of rodent-derived tissues, although sigma-2 receptors exhibited some affinity differences that might suggest heterogeneity or species differences. Structurally diverse sigma ligands produced two types of increases in intracellular (cytosolic) Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)](i)...