Maternal transmission of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in animals is thought to prevent the spread of selfish deleterious mtDNA mutations in the population. Various mechanisms have been evolved independently to prevent the entry of sperm mitochondria in the embryo. However, the increasing number of instances of paternal mtDNA leakage suggests that these mechanisms are not very effective. The destru...

In order to obtain data concerning the involvement of Mannheimia haemolytica in bovine respiratory disease (BRD) outbreaks, a serological survey was carried out on paired (acuteconvalescent) sera from 1310 beef and 810 dairy cattle collected in 262 BRD outbreaks in Italian herds during 2002-2006. No vaccination program to M. haemolytica A1 was applied in the investigated herds. For each outbrea...

In laboratory animals, less is known about the neural circuits that mediate paternal behavior than those that influence maternal behavior. In mice, we recently reported that when sires are separated with their mate dams from their pups, ultrasound and pheromonal signals from the dams can evoke and initiate maternal-like retrieval behavior in the sires upon reunion with the offspring; this is te...

Appropriate parental care by fathers can greatly facilitate healthy human family life. However, much less is known about paternal behavior in animals compared to those regarding maternal behavior. Previously, we reported that male ICR strain laboratory mice, although not spontaneously parental, can be induced to display maternal-like parental care (pup retrieval) when separated from their pups ...

The repeated discovery of adult dinosaurs in close association with egg clutches leads to speculation over the type and extent of care exhibited by these extinct animals for their eggs and young. To assess parental care in Cretaceous troodontid and oviraptorid dinosaurs, we examined clutch volume and the bone histology of brooding adults. In comparison to four archosaur care regressions, the re...

The evolutionary divergence of cues for mate recognition can contribute to early stages of population separation. We compare here two allopatric populations of house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) that have become separated about 3000 years ago. We have used paternity assignments in semi-natural environments to study the degree of mutual mate recognition according to population origin under con...

BACKGROUND Recently, we found that a 30-mer peptide derived from apoprotein E (apoE) 133-162 has antibiotic activity that is comparable with the classic antibiotics and neutrophil-derived antibiotic peptide. In this study, we tested if apoE 133-162 also has anti-tumor activity against several cancer cell lines. MATERIALS AND METHODS Two gastric cancer cell lines (MKN-7, MNN-1), two pancreatic...

Conflicting data still exist regarding the extent of paternal pronuclear DNA demethylation in one cell-stage mammalian embryos. Demethylation of paternal pronuclear DNA was observed in in vivo produced porcine zygotes, whereas in vitro produced embryos do not show any or only weak paternal genome demethylation. In our experiments, we have used and compared two in vitro techniques commonly used ...

Faecal samples from 162 wild animals were collected from 32 distinct sites of Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lakeland (eastern Poland). The presence of Giardia duodenalis (Stiles, 1902) was assessed by a Direct Fluorescence Assay (DFA) and by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and sequencing of a fragment of the beta-giardin gene. DFA showed the presence of cysts of G. duodenalis in 12 of 162 faecal samples...

The behavior of parental chromosomes during the first mitosis of Drosophila simulans zygotes obtained from unidirectional incompatible crosses is described and it is demonstrated that the condensation of parental chromatin complements was asynchronous. The timing of paternal chromatin condensation appeared to be delayed in these embryos, so that condensed maternal chromosomes and entangled prop...