Oxygen homeostasis represents an organizing principle for understanding metazoan evolution, development, physiology, and pathobiology. The hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) are transcriptional activators that function as master regulators of oxygen homeostasis in all metazoan species. Rapid progress is being made in elucidating homeostatic roles of HIFs in many physiological systems, determining...

Regulated initiation of DNA replication relies on the firing of initiator proteins that bind specifically to origin DNA. The discovery of the first eukaryotic initiator, the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Origin Recognition Complex (ORC) has allowed us to discern some aspects of how the onset of replication is regulated. However, understanding the specifics of replication in metazoan organisms can on...

Ankyrins are a ubiquitously expressed family of membrane-adaptor proteins found in most vertebrate tissues. Since the first ankyrin polypeptide was identified over 25 years ago, studies in humans, mice, and lower organisms have implicated critical roles for ankyrins in normal metazoan physiology. This review will provide an overview of the ankyrin family and highlight seminal findings in the fi...

Forty five specimens of the short beaked garfish Belone svetovidovi, a rare belonid species largely confused with the garfish Belone belone from Tunisian coast Sea were examined for metazoan parasite. Nine metazoan parasites species were identified: one monogenean (Axine sp.), 4 digeneans (Lecithostaphylus retroflexus, Tergestia acanthocephala, Aponurus laguncula and Condylocotyla pilodora meta...

Multiple observations suggest that certain parasitic infections can be oncogenic. Among these, neurocysticercosis is associated with increased risk for gliomas and hematologic malignancies. We report the case of a 71-year-old woman with colocalization of a metazoan parasite, possibly cysticercosis, and a WHO grade IV neuroepithelial tumor with exclusively neuronal differentiation by immunohisto...

One of the most interesting challenges facing paleobiologists is explaining the Cambrian explosion, the dramatic appearance of most metazoan animal phyla in the Early Cambrian, and the subsequent stability of these body plans over the ensuing 530 million years. We propose that because phenotypic variation decreases through geologic time, because microRNAs (miRNAs) increase genic precision, by t...

The product of the yeast SNP1 gene has high homology to two domains of the metazoan U1 snRNP protein 70K, which binds to stem/loop I of the U1 RNA. However, the absence of other domains conserved in metazoan 70K and the minimal effect of yeast U1 RNA stem/loop I deletion make the assignment of SNP1 as yeast 70K less clear. To address this question, we have expressed the SNP1 gene as a fusion pr...

Differences in biomolecular sequence and function underlie dramatic ranges of appearance and behavior among species. We studied the basic region-leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors and quantified bZIP dimerization networks for five metazoan and two single-cell species, measuring interactions in vitro for 2891 protein pairs. Metazoans have a higher proportion of heteromeric bZIP interact...

§ We have addressed the concern of the panel over whether Trichoplax should be the first lower metazoan sequenced by comparing the case for Trichoplax with that of traditional lower metazoan model organisms. § We have also reworked our discussion of the expected utility of the Trichoplax genome to emphasize those points of immediate utility. § A reevaluation of the existing data on the phylogen...

We recently described a novel, non-host-derived, phage-mediated immunity active at mucosal surfaces, the main site of pathogen entry in metazoans. In that work, we showed that phage T4 adheres to mucus glycoproteins via immunoglobulin-like domains displayed on its capsid. This adherence positions the phage in mucus surfaces where they are more likely to encounter and kill bacteria, thereby bene...