Although studies of population genetic structure are very common, whether genetic structure is stable over time has been assessed for very few taxa. The question of stability over time is particularly interesting for frogs because it is not clear to what extent frogs exist in dynamic metapopulations with frequent extinction and recolonization, or in stable patches at equilibrium between drift a...

Mycobacterium marinum causes long-term subclinical granulomatous infection in immunocompetent leopard frogs (Rana pipiens). These granulomas, organized collections of activated macrophages, share many morphological features with persistent human tuberculous infection. We examined organs of frogs with chronic M. marinum infection using transmission electron microscopy in conjunction with immunoh...

Population genetic diversity is widely accepted as important to the conservation and management of wildlife. However, habitat features may differentially affect evolutionary processes that facilitate population genetic diversity among sympatric species. We measured genetic diversity for two pond-breeding amphibian species (Dwarf salamanders, Eurycea quadridigitata; and Southern Leopard frogs, L...

An epithelial tumor with acidophilic intranuclear inclusions frequently occurs in the kidneys of leopard frogs. This tumor usually has the appearance of an infiltrating and destructive adenocarcinoma, which, when large, not uncommonly metastasizes; less often it is more orderly and adenomatous. When inoculated as living fragments or cell suspensions into the lymph sacs, the cranial cavity, or t...

Noonan syndrome (NS) is a relatively common, clinically variable and genetically heterogeneous developmental disorder characterized by postnatally reduced growth, distinctive facial dysmorphism, cardiac defects and variable cognitive deficits. Other associated features include ectodermal and skeletal defects, cryptorchidism, lymphatic dysplasias, bleeding tendency, and, rarely, predisposition t...

OBJECTIVES To describe 11 patients with cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome (CFC) and compare them with 130 patients with other RAS-MAPK syndromes (111 Noonan syndrome patients [NS] and 19 patients with LEOPARD syndrome). PATIENTS AND METHODS Clinical data from patients submitted for genetic analysis were collected. Bidirectional sequencing analysis of PTPN11, SOS1, RAF1, BRAF, and MAP2K1 focused o...

Noonan syndrome is one of the most common causes of human congenital heart disease and is frequently associated with missense mutations in the protein phosphatase SHP-2. Interestingly, patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) and LEOPARD syndrome frequently carry a second, somatically introduced subset of missens...

Carney complex is a multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) syndrome that affects the adrenal cortex, the pituitary and thyroid glands, and the gonads. The complex is also associated with skin and mucosa pigmentation abnormalities and myxoid and other neoplasms of mesenchymal and neural crest origin. Thus, this syndrome also belongs to another group of genetic disorders, the lentiginoses (or lentige...