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In Diptera (Insecta), alternatively spliced male-specific and female-specific products of the doublesex (dsx) gene play a key role in regulating development of the adult genital structures from the genital disc. Analysis of the pattern of nucleotide substitution of different domains of the dsx gene in 29 dipteran species showed that, over short evolutionary times, purifying selection predominated...
In cattle, bovine leukocyte antigens (BoLAs) have been extensively used as markers for bovine diseases and immunological traits. In this study, we sequenced alleles of the BoLA class II loci, BoLA-DRB3 and BoLA-DQA1, from 650 Japanese cattle from six herds [three herds (507 animals) of Japanese Black cattle and three herds (143 animals) of Holstein cattle] using polymerase chain reaction-sequence-based...
Codon usage in chloroplast mRNAs is different from that in prokaryotic and cytosolic mRNAs. We previously devised an in vitro assay for translation efficiencies using synthetic mRNAs, and measured translation efficiencies of five synonymous codon groups in tobacco chloroplasts. Using this assay, we here report our analysis of four additional synonymous codon groups in tobacco chloroplasts. We found...
GAs are plant hormones that play fundamental roles in plant growth and development. GA2ox, GA3ox, and GA20ox are three key enzymes in GA biosynthesis. These enzymes belong to the 2OG-Fe (II) oxygenase superfamily and are independently encoded by different gene families. To date, genome-wide comparative analyses of GA oxidases in plant species have not been thoroughly carried out. In the present work,...
The goal of this study was to identify the genes coding for β-N-acetylhexosaminidases in the Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) Ceratitis capitata, one of the most destructive agricultural pests, belonging to the Tephritidae family, order Diptera. Two dimeric β-N-acetylhexosaminidases, HEXA and HEXB, have been recently identified on Drosophila sperm. These enzymes are involved in egg binding through...
The mitochondrial (mt) genome of the human body louse, Pediculus humanus, consists of 18 minichromosomes. Each minichromosome is 3 to 4kb long and has 1 to 3 genes. There is unequivocal evidence for recombination between different mt minichromosomes in P. humanus. It is not known, however, how these minichromosomes recombine. Here, we report the discovery of eight chimeric mt minichromosomes in P...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are recognized as a class of important post-transcriptional expression regulators that act on their target genes by degradation of target mRNAs or by inhibition of target protein translation. Compared with the current numbers of identified miRNAs for other species in the plant kingdom, a large number of potential miRNAs remains to be identified in potato. In this study, using a...
The p53 protein is important in multicellular organisms, where it regulates the cell cycle and thus functions as a tumor suppressor that contributes to preventing cancer. However, molecular regulation of p53 gene expression is not fully understood. NF-YA is a subunit of the NF-Y trimeric complex, a transcription factor that binds to CCAAT motifs in the promoter regions of a variety of genes playing...
A very simple new program is presented (G-SQUARES). It is useful in order to visualize the composition and basic structural features of whole genomes and selected chromosome regions. The frequency of all dimer and tetramer sequences is reported. Overall structural features are calculated, such as the tendency for alternation. A direct visual comparison among different sequences is easily available...
Betaine homocysteine methyltransferase (BHMT) and BHMT-2 enzymes methylate homocysteine to form methionine using betaine and S-methylmethionine, respectively. These activities are observed only in the liver of adult rodents, but in adult humans and pigs these activities are detected in both the liver and kidney, indicating the pig is a more appropriate model for studying the biochemical and physiological...
The maintenance and differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ES cells) depends on the regulation of gene expression through the coordinated binding of transcription factors to regulatory promoter elements. One of the genes involved in embryonic development is the chromatin factor CP27. Previously, we have shown that NF-Y interacted with the CP27 proximal promoter CCAAT-box. Here we report that CP27...
Transposable elements are widely distributed in archaea, bacteria and eukarya domains. Considerable discrepancies of transposable elements in eukaryotes have been reported, however, the studies focusing on the diversity of transposable element systems in prokaryotes were scarce. Understanding the transposable element system in cyanobacteria by the genome-wide analysis will greatly improve the knowledge...
Adaptor/scaffold proteins serve as platforms for the assembly of multiprotein complexes and regulate the efficiency and specificity of signalling cascades. Intersectins (ITSNs) are an evolutionarily conserved adaptor protein family engaged in endo- and exocytosis, actin cytoskeleton rearrangement and signal transduction. This review summarizes recent advances in the function of ITSNs in neuronal and...
Rhamnose-binding lectins (RBLs) in vertebrates function in immunity as pattern recognition receptors, opsonization agents, and activators of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Although they have been identified in some invertebrate taxa, their distribution, function, and evolutionary patterns in basal metazoans, remain largely unknown. A unique RBL-containing protein composed of 8 thrombospondin type 1 repeats...
The molecular mechanisms of the immune system against pathogens in large yellow croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea) are not well known, despite its economic importance as an aquaculture species. In this investigation, a Rab gene (named as LycRab gene) was obtained from this fish, which exhibited high homology with Rab8 of other species. It was expressed in Escherichia coli, and the specific antibody was...
Motile cilia and flagella are organelles that, historically, have been poorly understood and inadequately investigated. However, cilia play critical roles in fluid clearance in the respiratory system and the brain, and flagella are required for sperm motility. Genetic studies involving human patients and mouse models of primary ciliary dyskinesia over the last decade have uncovered a number of important...
Flower development has been extensively characterized in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana and Antirrhinum majus. However, there have been few studies in woody species. Here, we report the isolation and characterization of five PISTILLATA (PI) homoeologous genes (PaPI1-to-5) from the London Plane tree (Platanus acerifolia Willd). PaPI1 and PaPI2 show a similar genomic structure to other known...
Forkhead/winged helix transcription factors (Foxs) regulate differentiation, metabolism, and development. Although Foxa1 is expressed in adipocytes, the roles and regulation of Foxa1 in them remain unclear. Here, we found that under the control of C/EBPβ, Foxa1 suppressed lipid accumulation and concomitantly caused a decrease in adipogenic gene expression in adipocytes. Foxa1 was expressed in undifferentiated...
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