Glucocorticoids control the expression of a small number of transcriptionally active genes by increasing or decreasing mRNA concentration. Either effect can result from a transcriptional or a post-transcriptional mechanism. Induction of mouse mammary tumour virus RNA results from a stimulation of transcription initiation and depends on the presence of defined regions in proviral DNA. These regi...

Tetracycline-based inducible systems provide powerful methods for functional studies where gene expression can be controlled. However, the lack of tight control of the inducible system, leading to leakiness and adverse effects caused by undesirable tetracycline dosage requirements, has proven to be a limitation. Here, we report that the combined use of genome editing tools and last generation T...

DNA damage-inducible (din) genes in Bacillus subtilis are coordinately regulated and together compose a global regulatory network that has been termed the SOS-like or SOB regulon. To elucidate the mechanisms of SOB regulation, operator/promoter regions from three din loci (dinA, dinB, and dinC) of B. subtilis were cloned. Operon fusions constructed with these cloned din promoter regions rendere...

Transgenic mice have been used to study gene function and regulation by introducing inducible or tissue-specific transgenes. This approach is generally limited to studying gene function in adult mice since ectopic expression of many interesting genes is disease causing or may be lethal to the developing embryo. To extend the utility of the transgenic mouse system to the early stages of embryoge...

cat-86 is a plasmid gene specifying chloramphenicol-inducible chloramphenicol acetyltransferase activity in Bacillus subtilis. Inducibility has been suggested to result primarily from activation of the translation of cat-86 mRNA by subinhibitory levels of chloramphenicol. To directly test the involvement of transcription in cat-86 induction, the gene was transcriptionally activated with a stron...

Cold stress resulting from chilling and freezing temperatures substantially reduces crop production worldwide. To identify genes critical for cold tolerance in plants, we screened Arabidopsis thaliana mutants for deregulated expression of a firefly luciferase reporter gene under the control of the C-REPEAT BINDING FACTOR2 (CBF2) promoter (CBF2:LUC). A regulator of CBF gene expression1 (rcf1-1) ...

Shoot–root systemic defense signaling of hybrid poplar (Populus trichocarpa Torr. & A. Gray Populus deltoides Bartr. ex Marsh.) was investigated with molecular techniques to extend existing knowledge of poplar defense. Treatment of roots with methyl jasmonate demonstrated that transcripts of PtdTI3, a poplar trypsin inhibitor and marker of poplar defense responses, can be induced in poplar root...

Identification of essential genes by construction of conditional knockouts with inducible promoters allows the identification of essential genes and creation of conditional growth (CG) mutants that are then available as genetic tools for further studies. We used large-scale transposon delivery of the rhamnose-inducible promoter, PrhaB followed by robotic screening of rhamnose-dependent growth t...

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells in the immune system and can be generated in vitro from hematopoietic progenitor cells, DC precursors, and monocytes in peripheral blood. Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) was conducted in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated mature and activated DCs (MADCs) derived from human blood monocytes. A total of 31 837 tag sequences...

Five hundred and seventy-eight strains of group A streptococci (GAS) isolated mostly from paediatric pharyngeal swabs were tested to evaluate their susceptibility to erythromycin. Resistant strains were then tested for their MICs to erythromycin and clindamycin, their phenotype of resistance to macrolides-lincosamides-streptogramin (MLS(B)) and for the presence of macrolide resistance genes. Th...