Smallpox vaccination carries a high risk of adverse events in recipients with a variety of contra-indications for live vaccines. Although alternative non-replicating vaccines have been described in the form of replication-deficient vaccine viruses, DNA vaccines, and subunit vaccines, these are less efficacious than replicating vaccines in animal models. DNA and subunit vaccines in particular ha...

background: alpinia galanga l. belonging to the family zingiberaceae is widely grown in the state of kerala, india. they are effective antioxidant and free radical scavenger under both in vitro and in vivo condition. the efficacy of the isolated flavonoids in conferring protection from radiation induced damages to genomic dna was studied. materials and methods: the bioflavonoids, galangin and k...

Telomere binding proteins protect chromosome ends from degradation and mask chromosome termini from checkpoint surveillance. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Cdc13 binds single-stranded G-rich telomere repeats, maintaining telomere integrity and length. Two additional proteins, Ten1 and Stn1, interact with Cdc13 but their contributions to telomere integrity are not well defined. Ten1 is known to pr...

DNA binding regions I, II, and III at the origin of replication have different arrangements of A protein (T antigen) recognition pentanucleotides. The A protein also protects each region from DNase in distinctly different patterns. Footprint and fragment assays led to the following conclusions: (i) in some cases a single recognition pentanucleotide is sufficient to direct the binding and accura...

Several aspects of Drosophila telomere biology indicate that telomere protection can be regulated by an epigenetic mechanism. First, terminally deleted chromosomes can be stably inherited and do not induce damage responses such as apoptosis or cell cycle arrest. Second, the telomere protection proteins HP1 and HOAP localize normally to these chromosomes and protect them from fusions. Third, unp...

The degree and characteristics of physical degradation of macro-DNA molecules by common laboratory manipulations are reported. With linearized lambda-phage viral DNA as the model DNA, fragmentation of macro-DNA by various indispensable laboratory manipulations were investigated using a high sensitivity flow cytometric setup. Investigated manipulations included pipetting, vortexing, rocking, fre...

Chitosan (CS), a biocompatible and biodegradable material, can act as a non-viral delivery vehicle with low toxicity. In this study, plasmid DNA (pDNA) and siRNA were encapsulated in CS nanoparticles (NPs) to prepare CS-DNA and CS-siRNA NPs using a complex coacervation process. The CS-DNA particle size was within the range of 180-370 nm with a surface charge ranging from 0 to 18 mV at pH 5.5. T...

Despite the vaccine Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guérin is used worldwide, tuberculosis (TB) remains the first killer among infectious diseases. An effective vaccine is urgently required. DNA vaccine has shown prophylactic as well as therapeutic effects against TB, while its weak immunogenicity hinders the application. As a strong inducer of Th1-biased immune response, DMT, consisting ...

Positively charged trimethylammonium-modified mixed monolayer protected clusters (MMPCs) interact with DNA by complementary electrostatic binding, serving as efficient DNA delivery systems. The stability of gold nanoparticle-bound DNA toward biological, physical, and chemical agents is investigated. The MMPC-bound DNA is efficiently protected from DNAse I digestion and experiences nicking/cleav...

The stabilization of the replisome complex is essential in order to achieve highly processive DNA replication and preserve genomic integrity. Conversely, it would also be advantageous for the cell to abrogate replisome functions to prevent inappropriate replication when fork progression is adversely perturbed. However, such mechanisms remain elusive. Here we report that replicative DNA polymera...