PF20 was first identified in Chlamydomonas rheinhardtii as an essential component of the axoneme central apparatus. We discovered that the mouse Pf20 gene encodes two major transcripts (2.5 and 1.4 kb), which are expressed in different patterns during spermatogenesis, yielding proteins of 71 and 35 kDa, respectively. Both proteins contain contiguous WD repeats in their C termini. The meioticall...

R ter Haar et al. (1) showed that the N-terminal domain of clathrin, the major protein component of clathrin-coated vesicles, is made up of the increasingly commonly recognized b propeller fold. In this issue of PNAS, ter Haar et al. (2) now show that peptides from two clathrin adapters, b-arrestin 2 and the b subunit of AP-3, bind to a groove on the b propeller surface. This appears to be a no...

Background Androgen receptor (AR) mediates androgen actions such as initiation and promotion of spermatogenesis and growth of accessory sex organs. There are two trinucleotide polymorphisms (CAG and GGN repeats) in exon1 of AR gene that are vary in length in population. The CAG and GGN repeats association with infertility is still unknown and this study is planned to assess the distribution of ...

Rosmarinus officinalis L. is a perennial herb that belongs to the Lamiaceae family. It is used as a food flavouring agent, and well known medicinally for its powerful antimutagenic, antibacterial and chemopreventive properties. The most applicable method for extraction of essential oil is water distillation (WD) and steam distillation (SD). It is a traditional technique which is used in most in...

Nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptors (NLRs) are intracellular receptors that control innate immunity and other biotic interactions in animals and plants. NLRs have been characterized in plant and animal lineages, but in fungi, this gene family has not been systematically described. There is however previous indications of the involvement of NLR-like genes in nonself re...

Whipple's disease (WD) is a rare chronic systemic infection with a wide range of clinical symptoms, routinely diagnosed in biopsies from the small intestine and other tissues by periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) diastase staining and immunohistological analysis with specific antibodies. The aim of our study was to improve the pathological diagnosis of WD. Therefore, we analyzed the potential of fluore...

The Drosophila extra sex combs (esc) protein, a member of the Polycomb group (PcG), is a transcriptional repressor of homeotic genes. Genetic studies have shown that esc protein is required in early embryos at about the time that other PcG proteins become engaged in homeotic gene repression. The esc protein consists primarily of multiple copies of the WD repeat, a motif that has been implicated...

wilson’s disease (wd) or hepato-lenticular degeneration is a rare autosomal-recessive disorder. a prevalence rate of 30 cases per million and a birth incidence rate of one per 30,000 to 40,000 are often quoted. in 40 to 50% of individuals with wd, hepatic dysfunction is the initial clinical manifestation. with the exception of liver transplantation, treatment of wd is only palliative and intend...

Factor associated with neutral sphingomyelinase activation (FAN) represents a p55 TNFR (TNF-R55)-associated protein essential for the activation of neutral sphingomyelinase. By means of the yeast interaction trap system, we have identified the scaffolding protein receptor for activated C-kinase (RACK)1 as an interaction partner of FAN. Mapping studies in yeast revealed that RACK1 is recruited t...