Mycobacterium chelonae and Mycobacterium terrae were reported to be frequently present in the environment of the Mycobacterium bovis BCG trial area in south India. Six isolates of M. chelonae and four isolates of M. terrae obtained from different sources in this area were analyzed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to examine large-restriction-fragment (LRF) polymorphism using the chrom...

There have been few studies of the associations of genetic polymorphisms with precancerous gastric lesions. We conducted a cross-sectional study to compare the prevalences of several genetic polymorphisms in 302 subjects with mild chronic atrophic gastritis with prevalences in 606 subjects with deep intestinal metaplasia or dysplasia. This stratified random sample of 908 subjects was selected a...

BACKGROUND Mycobacterium tuberculosis genotyping can effectively improve tuberculosis (TB) control programs by controlling disease transmission. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is a particularly powerful tool for determination of clonal identity of bacteria providing information for understanding and controlling the spread of disease. OBJECTIVES The aim of present study was to investi...

BACKGROUND Cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1), an ethanol-inducible enzyme, has been shown to metabolically activate various carcinogens, which is critical for the development and progression of cancers. It has demonstrated that CYP2E1 polymorphisms alter the transcriptional activity of the gene. However, studies on the association between CYP2E1 polymorphisms (PstI/RsaI or DraI) and gastric cancer h...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Ra is an attenuated tubercle bacillus closely related to the virulent type strain M. tuberculosis H37Rv. Despite extensive study, the reason for the decreased virulence of M. tuberculosis H37Ra has not been determined. A genomic approach was therefore initiated to identify genetic differences between M. tuberculosis H37Rv and M. tuberculosis H37Ra as a means of pin...

We studied the population genetics of Mycobacterium kansasii isolates from the United States by PCR restriction enzyme analysis (PRA) of the 441-bp Telenti fragment of the hsp-65 gene and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) of genomic DNA with the restriction endonucleases AseI, DraI, and XbaI, and we compared the patterns to those previously reported from France and Japan. By PRA, 78 of 81...

DNA degradation (which results in a smear pattern) occurs with almost 50% of Mycobacterium abscessus strains during pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). We assessed the potential benefit of using thiourea-containing buffer with M. abscessus by studying 69 isolates not previously typeable by PFGE (i.e., those with a smear pattern). Random (epidemiologically unrelated) isolates that were type...

Centris spp are oil-collecting solitary bees that are valuable pollinators of crops such as Brazil nut, cashew, and acerola. We investigated the genetic variability of populations of C. aenea in the northeastern region of Brazil. Total DNA was extracted from 59 individuals from 6 locations in the States of Pernambuco and Bahia and a 600-650-bp fragment of the mitochondrial COI/COII region ampli...

Cytochrome P450 2E1 and GSTM1 play major roles in metabolic activation and detoxification of many carcinogens and polymorphisms in the encoding genes have been reported to be individually associated with increased susceptibility to certain cancer. In the present study, we investigated the RsaI, PstI and DraI polymorphisms of the CYP2E1 gene and the null GSTM1 genotype in a Thai population. DNA ...