The order of discovery can have a profound effect upon the way in which we think about the function of a gene. In E. coli, recA is nearly essential for cell survival in the presence of DNA damage. However, recA was originally identified, as a gene required to obtain recombinant DNA molecules in conjugating bacteria. As a result, it has been frequently assumed that recA promotes the survival of ...

During a study of florfenicol-resistant porcine staphylococci from Denmark, the genes cfr and fexA were detected in the chromosomal DNA or on plasmids of Staphylococcus hyicus, Staphylococcus warneri, and Staphylococcus simulans. A novel variant of the phenicol resistance transposon Tn558 was detected on the ca. 43-kb plasmid pSCFS6 in S. warneri and S. simulans isolates. Sequence analysis of a...

UNLABELLED Breast cancer malignancy is promoted by the small GTPases RhoA and RhoC. SmgGDS is a guanine nucleotide exchange factor that activates RhoA and RhoC in vitro. We previously reported that two splice variants of SmgGDS, SmgGDS-607, and SmgGDS-558, have different characteristics in binding and transport of small GTPases. To define the role of SmgGDS in breast cancer, we tested the expre...

BACKGROUND The deep-sea environment harbors a vast pool of novel enzymes. Owing to the limitations of cultivation, cultivation-independent has become an effective method for mining novel enzymes from the environment. Based on a deep-sea sediment metagenomics library, lipolytic-positive clones were obtained by activity-based screening methods. RESULTS Two novel esterases, DMWf18-543 and DMWf18...

Cytochrome c-557 from Crithidia oncopelti and cytochrome c-558 from Euglena gracilis are mitochondrial cytochromes c that have an atypical haem-binding site. It was of interest to know whether the loss of one thioether bond affected the physicochemical properties of these cytochromes. The thermodynamic parameters of the redox potential were measured. The reaction with imidazole, the kinetics an...

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2008;15:554–558. DOI 10.1197/jamia.M2676.

Effect of Septilin, an Ayurvedic formulation proven to be effective in the therapy of chronic infections, was investigated on the phagocytic system and humoral response in rats and mice. Septilin exhibited significant protection in E. coli-induced abdominal sepsis in normal mice and in Staphylococcus aureus-induced sepsis in neutropenic mice. It significantly reduced the viable E. coli cells wh...