Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) has been implicated as an oncogenic driver in pediatric neuroblastoma and is frequently activated by amplifi cation and gain-of-function mutations. However, results from phase I trials have suggested that, in contrast to other tumor types such as non–small cell lung cancer, single-agent therapy with the ALK inhibitor crizotinib is not effective in pediatric pati...

An amphiphilic aryl-ether AB2-type dendron（1）bearing oligo ethylene glycol（OEG）chains exhibited lower critical solution temperature behavior in aqueous solutions. In the presence of salting-out salts（Na2SO4, NaCl, and NaBr）, cloud points 1 decreased linearly with increasing salt concentration. The slope linear decrease changed anion type order, SO42－ > Cl－ Br－. salting-in salts（NaSCN NaI）, incr...

Sihto et al. ( 1 ) recently analyzed 114 formalinfixed and paraffin-embedded Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) samples from a Finnish cohort for the presence of Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) DNA. They reported that the prevalence of MCPyV DNA in MCC was 79.8% and, surprisingly, that MCPyV DNA – positive MCCs were preferentially located on the limbs compared with MCPyV DNA – negative MCCs. Their da...

The properties of the cGMP-dependent channel present in membrane vesicles prepared from intact isolated bovine rod outer segments (ROS) were investigated with the optical probe neutral red. The binding of neutral red is sensitive to transport of cations across vesicular membranes by the effect of the translocated cations on the surface potential at the intravesicular membrane/water interface (S...

Water hydrogen bond dynamics in concentrated salt solutions are studied using polarization-selective IR pump-probe spectroscopy and 2D IR vibrational echo spectroscopy performed on the OD hydroxyl stretching mode of dilute HOD in H(2)O/salt solutions. The OD stretch is studied to eliminate vibrational excitation transfer, which interferes with the dynamical measurements. Though previous researc...

COMPONENTS OF THE PCR The fi ve components of the basic PCR are: 1 A source of template DNA containing the target sequence to be amplifi ed (Fig. 1). This template can be either total genomic DNA containing exons* and introns*, or complex cDNA* mixtures. 2 Two short single-stranded sequences of DNA termed ‘primers’ or ‘amplimers’, designed on the basis of previous knowledge of the DNA target se...

horses and 1 from Cx. tarsalis mosquitoes. Notably, our sequence is distantly related to GQ287646, which was isolated from Culex spp. mosquitoes in Chaco, Argentina. The nucleotide sequence of the positive control VEEV-Tc83 is correctly placed in the VEEV clade. Clinical and laboratory fi ndings showed that the illness described here was compatible with viral encephalitis. Using a generic RT-PC...

Background: Aptamers are single stranded DNA (ssDNA) or RNA molecules. The potential of aptamers for binding to the different targets has made them be widely used as the preferred diagnostic and therapeutic tools. DNA aptamers present several advantages over the RNA oligonucleotides due to their higher stability, easier selection, and production. Selection of DNA aptamers which...

To the Editor: Van Loo et al. described the presence of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) type III in some methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus sequence type (ST) 398 isolates related to pig farming (1). SCCmec types are based on the allotype of ccr genes and the mec gene complex. Class A mec has intact mecI/R regulator genes. Type III SCCmec has type 3 ccr genes and class ...