BACKGROUND When cyclophosphamide and preparations of fragmented exogenous genomic double stranded DNA were administered in sequence, the regressive effect on the tumor was synergic: this combined treatment had a more pronounced effect than cyclophosphamide alone. Our further studies demonstrated that exogenous DNA stimulated the maturation and specific activities of dendritic cells. This sugges...

A thymine-requiring mutant of Bacillus subtilis strain 168 accumulates short DNA chains after brief pulses with [(3)H]thymidine. Reversion of the thy mutation to thy(+) abolishes the accumulation of short DNA chains, suggesting that the accumulation is related to the thy mutation. The reason for this accumulation has been further investigated by analysis of a mutant with a defective uracil-DNA ...

April M. Single strand breaks (SSBs) are among the most frequent DNA lesions caused by endogenous and exogenous agents. The most utilized alkaline-based assays for SSB detection frequently give false positive results due to artifactual SSBs arising from cleaved alkali-labile sites. Here we developed a specific SSB assay using alkaline gel electrophoresis (AGE) coupled with an O-hydroxylamine, O...

Background: Sperm that bypasses natural apoptosis may find their way into semen. In order to avoid the insemination of such sperm during an intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) treatment, novel sperm selection procedures such as the Zeta procedure have been implemented. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate whether this procedure, in addition to reducing the number of immature or ...

When the use of traditional forensic identification methods such as fingerprints or dental radiographs is difficult or impossible, identification by DNA analysis has proven valuable. In situations such as explosions or airplane crashes, identification is even more difficult because human remains are often fragmented and may be commingled. Teeth are a useful source of DNA and can often survive e...

A perfluorocarbon nanodroplet formulation is shown to be an effective cavitation enhancement agent, enabling rapid and consistent fragmentation of genomic DNA in a standard ultrasonic water bath. This nanodroplet-enhanced method produces genomic DNA libraries and next-generation sequencing results indistinguishable from DNA samples fragmented in dedicated commercial acoustic sonication equipmen...

BACKGROUND Duplex real-time PCR assays have been widely used to determine amounts and concentrations of free circulating DNA in human blood plasma samples. Circulatory plasma DNA is highly fragmented and hence a PCR-based determination of DNA concentration may be affected by the limited availability of full-length targets in the DNA sample. This leads to inaccuracies when counting PCR target co...

The quality of embryos produced by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is variable. Many embryos contain unequal sized blastomeres and multiple cellular fragments. Embryos with excessive fragmentation have limited developmental potential both in vitro and in vivo. Histologically, some blastomeres of fragmented embryos resemble cells undergoing apoptosis as a result of programmed cell death (PCD). The ...

Objective The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of swim-up and density gradient centrifugation (DGC) for reducing the amount of sperm with fragmented DNA, sex chromosome aneuploidy, and abnormal chromatin structure. Methods Semen samples were obtained from 18 healthy male partners who attended infertility clinics for infertility investigations and were processed with swim-up and D...

To clarify whether an increased proliferative potential of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC) under diabetic conditions augments the susceptibility of the cells to 7-ketocholesterol-induced apoptosis, we investigated the difference in sensitivity to 7-ketocholesterol between SMC obtained from diabetic Otsuka Long-Evans Tokushima fatty (OLETF) rats and the control Long-Evans Tokushima Otsuka (LE...