Transposon-based technologies have many applications in molecular biology and can be used for gene delivery into prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Common transpositional activity measurement assays suitable for many types of transposons would be beneficial, as diverse transposon systems could be compared for their performance attributes. Therefore, we developed a general-purpose assay to enable...

We introduce a new stress dilatometer with exactly the same size and weight as world's smallest miniature capacitance (height x width depth = 15 mmx14 mmx15 mm, weight: 12 g). To develop this device, only single part of most recently developed mini-dilatometer, so-called 'body', needs to be replaced. Therefore, mini an interchangeable body can used for high-resolution measurements thermal expan...

Legionnaires disease is an acute respiratory disease that is often fatal for immunocompromised patients. The causative agent of this disease, Legionella pneumophila, is a Gram-negative bacterium that is present in a variety of aquatic environments. L. pneumophila is a facultative intracellular parasite; it grows within human phagocytic cells and eventually causes their destruction. In contrast ...

To facilitate molecular analyses of a previously uncharacterized gene involved in alanine synthesis, attempts were made to clone the wild-type allele of this gene, alaA, with a mini-Mu plasmid element used for in vivo cloning. Seventy-six independent Ala+ plasmids were isolated and characterized. Physiological, enzymological, and restriction endonuclease analyses indicated that three different ...

Most parasympathetic regulation of heart rate originates from preganglionic cardiac vagal neurons within the nucleus ambiguus. Little is known regarding the modulation of glycinergic transmission to these neurons. However, the presence of mu-opioid receptors and opioid-receptor-like (ORL1) receptors within the ambiguus, together with the presence of endogenous ligands for both receptor types in...

The discovery of super-Earth and mini-Neptune exoplanets means that atmospheric signals from low-mass, temperate are being increasingly studied. signal acquired as the planet transits its host star, known transit depth, is smaller for these planets and, such, more difficult to analyze. launch space telescopes James Webb (JWST) & Ariel will give rise an explosion in quality quantity spectroscopi...

Bacteriophage Mu in vitro transposition constitutes a versatile tool in molecular biology, with applications ranging from engineering of single genes or proteins to modification of genome segments or entire genomes. A new strategy was devised on the basis of Mu transposition that via a few manipulation steps simultaneously generates a nested set of gene constructions encoding deletion variants ...

To enable effective use of phoA gene fusions in Legionella pneumophila, we constructed MudphoA, a derivative of the mini-Mu phage Mu dII4041, which is capable of generating gene fusions to the Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase gene (EC 3.1.3.1). Although an existing fusion-generating transposon, TnphoA, has been a useful tool for studying secreted proteins in other bacteria, this transposon...