Populations of Drosophila mojavensis from the deserts of the Baja California peninsula and mainland Mexico utilize different cactus hosts with different alcohol contents. The enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) has been proposed to play an important role in the adaptation of Drosophila species to their environment. This study investigates the role of ADH in the adaptation of the cactophilic D. m...

Objective(s): We aimed to characterize the phenotype and genotype of Bacillus spp isolated from diabetic patients’ eyes, by studying the drug sensitivity patterns with a disc-diffusion method. Materials and Methods: Fifty eyes of 25 patients with type II diabetes mellitus, with at least 10 years of diabetes history, were included in the study. We analyzed the eyes for the presence of Bacillus ...

Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae are species of cactophilic flies that share a recent duplication of the alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh) locus. One paralog (Adh-2) is expressed in adult tissues and the other (Adh-1) in larvae and ovaries. Enzyme activity measurements of the ADH-2 amino acid polymorphism in D. mojavensis suggest that the Fast allozyme allele has a higher activity on 2-p...

With the sequences of so many organisms’ genomes finished and available for use, comparative genomics has become a rapidly growing scientific discipline. In the spring of 2007, we plan to use comparative genomics to study the 4 chromosome (the ‘dot’ chromosome) of Drosophila by comparing the sequence of the Drosophila mojavensis dot chromosome to the sequences of the Drosophila melanogaster and...

The nucleotide sequences of the 3' end of the 16S rDNA and the 16S-23S internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of 40 Bacillaceae species were determined. These included 21 Bacillus, 9 Paenibacillus, 6 Brevibacillus, 2 Geobacillus, 1 Marinibacillus and 1 Virgibacillus species. Comparative sequence analysis of a 220 bp region covering a highly conserved 150 bp sequence located at the 3' end of the 16S ...

Alkaline proteases have biotechnological importance due to their activity and stability at alkaline pH. 56 bacteria, capable of growing under alkaline conditions were isolated and their alkaline protease activities were carried out at different parameters to determine their optimum alkaline protease production conditions. Seven isolates were showed higher alkaline protease production capacity t...

We have surveyed naturally occurring plasmids in strains of Bacillus subtilis and the closely related species B. mojavensis and B. licheniformis. Previous studies have failed to find host-benefitting functions for plasmids of these species, suggesting that these plasmids are nonmutualistic. Only one type of plasmid was found in each plasmid-bearing strain, suggesting that most of the plasmids i...

Composition, functional properties, and in vitro antioxidant activities of gelatin hydrolysates prepared from cuttlefish skin were investigated. Cuttlefish skin gelatin hydrolysates (CSGHs) were obtained by treatment with crude enzyme preparations from Bacillus licheniformis NH1, Bacillus mojavensis A21, Bacillus subtilis A26, and commercial alcalase. All CSGHs had high protein contents, 74.3-7...

OBJECTIVE(S) We aimed to characterize the phenotype and genotype of Bacillus spp isolated from diabetic patients' eyes, by studying the drug sensitivity patterns with a disc-diffusion method. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty eyes of 25 patients with type II diabetes mellitus, with at least 10 years of diabetes history, were included in the study. We analyzed the eyes for the presence of Bacillus s...