In recent years, the incidence of tsutsugamushi disease has increased in Nan Peng Lie Islands in China, and the disease has not been recorded in this region. The natural foci of tsutsugamushi disease were investigated in this paper. Isolation of Orientia tsutsugamushi and the study of preventive measures were also performed. The region was the island natural foci of south subtropical zone. The ...

The distribution of RNase activity and the occurrence of hyperbasophilic foci and tumors have been examined in rat liver during diethylnitrosamine carcinogenesis. A focal loss of RNase activity was found to occur in the hyperplastic liver nodules prior to the development of hy perbasophilic foci and hepatomas. The RNase-negative areas were widely distributed in livers of rats treated with dieth...

Brostallicin is a DNA minor groove binder in phase II clinical trials. Here, we show that brostallicin induces gamma-H2AX nuclear foci that colocalize with 53BP1 and are dependent on glutathione, as shown by inhibition of those gamma-H2AX foci by l-buthionine sulfoximine. To differentiate brostallicin from the clinically approved minor groove binder trabectedin (ecteinascidin 743), we tested wh...

Myotonic dystrophy type I (DM1), which is caused by a non-coding CTG-repeat expansion in the dystrophia myotonica-protein kinase (DMPK) gene, is an RNA-mediated disease. Expanded CUG repeats in transcripts of mutant DMPK form nuclear foci that recruit muscleblind-like (MBNL) proteins, a family of alternative splicing factors. Although transcripts of mutant DMPK and MBNL proteins accumulate in n...

Chromosome rearrangement is clinically and physiologically important because it can produce oncogenic fusion genes. Chromosome rearrangement requires DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) at two genomic locations and misrejoining between the DSBs. Before DSB misrejoining, two DSB-containing chromatin regions move and pair with each other; however, the molecular mechanism underlying this process is la...

Cone beam computed tomography is a useful technique for imaging the craniofacial lesions. It produces more realistic images that facilitate interpretation. Juvenile ossifying fibroma (JOF) is a rare and benign fibro-osseous neoplasm that arises within the craniofacial bones, especially in the maxilla. Mandibular lesions can be seen in 10% of the cases.In both jaws, it has a predilection for the...

XRCC2 protein shares weak amino acid sequence similarity with Rad51, which is a central player in homologous recombinational repair (HRR). Rad51 proteins assemble at the sites of HRR and form visible nuclear foci in response to DNA damage. Xrcc2 hamster mutant irs1 cells are incapable of forming Rad51 foci after ionizing irradiation or DNA cross-linking agent mitomycin C treatment, though the R...

BACKGROUND Multifocality of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is common. BRAF and NRAS mutations are the most frequent genetic alterations in PTC. The purpose of this study was to determine the distribution and relevance of BRAFT1799A and NRAS mutations in PTC. METHODS BRAFT1799A and NRAS mutations were evaluated in 195 intrathyroid or metastatic foci from 29 patients with multifocal PTC. R...

During infection, hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS4B protein remodels host membranes to form HCV replication complexes (RC) which appear as foci under fluorescence microscopy (FM). To understand the role of Rab proteins in forming NS4B foci, cells expressing the HCV replicon were examined biochemically and via FM. First, we show that an isolated NS4B-bound subcellular fraction is competent for HCV RN...

Nonsynonymous SNPs (nsSNPs) in DNA repair genes may be important determinants of DNA damage and cancer risk. We applied a set of screening criteria to a large number of nsSNPs and selected a subset of SNPs that were likely candidates for phenotypic effects on DNA double-strand break repair (DSBR). In order to induce and follow DSBR, we exposed panels of cell lines to gamma irradiation and follo...