Substantial evidence has shown that DNA methylation regulates the initiation of ovarian and sexual maturation. Here, we investigated the genome-wide profile of DNA methylation in porcine ovaries at single-base resolution using reduced representation bisulfite sequencing. The biological variation was minimal among the three ovarian replicates. We found hypermethylation frequently occurred in reg...

The New Zealand South Hampshire sheep have been well characterised as an animal model for variant late-infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (vLINCL) in humans. The disease causing gene has been identified as CLN6, but so far no mutation has been identified. A sheep BAC containing CLN6 and flanking region (~120kb) was sequenced at 13.49-fold sequence coverage using the 454 sequencing method ...

Uridine phosphorylase (UPase) plays an important role in the activation of 5-fluorouracil and in the regulation of tissue and plasma concentration of uridine, a potential biochemical modulator of 5-fluorouracil therapy. UPase expression is affected by the c-H-ras oncogene and various cytokines through unknown mechanisms. To understand its expression and regulation, we cloned the murine UPase ge...

A total of 172 persons from nine South Amerindian, three African and one Eskimo populations were studied in relation to the Paired box gene 9 (PAX9) exon 3 (138 base pairs) as well as its 5'and 3'flanking intronic segments (232 bp and 220 bp, respectively) and integrated with the information available for the same genetic region from individuals of different geographical origins. Nine mutations...

Accumulated research has suggested the importance of the adhesion molecules modulation as therapeutic approach for bronchial asthma. Adhesion molecules expression alteration contributes to the pathogenesis of asthma. In order to probe the roles of expression imbalance of adhesion molecules in asthma pathogenesis, expression profiling of adhesion molecules was performed using cDNA microarray ass...

Chloroplast DNA replication in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is initiated by the formation of a displacement loop (D-loop) at a specific site. One D-loop site with its flanking sequence was cloned in recombinant plasmids SC3-1 and R-13. The sequence of the chloroplast DNA insert in SC3-1, which includes the 0.42-kilobase (kb) D-loop region, as well as 0.2 kb to the 5' end and 0.43 kb to the 3' end ...

Metallothionein (MT) has been used widely as a potential molecular marker to detect the deleterious effects of heavy metals in aquatic ecosystem. Here we exposed ayu, Plecoglossus altivelis, to zinc (Zn) and tested the distribution as well as the induction of MT in various tissues such as liver, kidney, intestine and stomach. MT induction was significant in liver tissue, followed by kidney and ...

We have observed changes in the chromatin structure of a human histone gene promoter that may be functionally related to variations in transcription during the cell cycle. A detailed analysis of the chromatin structure of a cell cycle-dependent human H4 histone gene and its flanking sequences was performed using DNase I, S1 nuclease, and restriction endonucleases. This gene was previously shown...

The influence of negative supercoiling and of flanking (dC-dG) tracts in either right-handed B- or left-handed Z-structures on the interaction of the Escherichia coli lac repressor was investigated. The operator was embodied within the lac control sequence, which was 95, 59, or 29 base pairs in length. Thus, the (dC-dG) regions (in either B- or Z-conformations) were at different distances from ...

OBJECTIVE Nanog, a homeodomain protein, has been investigated in humans and mice using embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Because of the limited availability of ESCs, few studies have reported the function and role of Nanog in porcine ESCs. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the location of the porcine Nanog chromosome and its basal promoter activity, which might have potential applications in...