International Journal of Biological Sciences Volume 2
Homeostatic restitution of cell membranes. Nuclear membrane lipid biogenesis and transport of protein from cytosol to intranuclear spaces.
Amalia Slomiany, Maria Grabska, Bronislaw L. Slomiany
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Biolsci.orgOur studies on homeostatic restitution of cellular and subcellular membranes showed that vesicular intracellular transport is engaged in systematic and coordinated replacement of lipids and proteins in the membranes of the secretory, non-dividing epithelial cells (Slomiany et al., J. Physiol. Pharmacol. 2004; 55: 837-860). In this report, we
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Chimeric Antibody-Binding Vitreoscilla Hemoglobin (VHb) Mediates Redox-Catalysis Reaction: New Insight into the Functional Role of VHb
Yaneenart Suwanwong, Malin Kvist, Chartchalerm Isarankura-Na-Ayudhya, Natta Tansila, Leif Bulow, Virapong Prachayasittikul
Experimentation was initiated to explore insight into the redox-catalysis reaction derived from the heme prosthetic group of chimeric Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb). Two chimeric genes encoding chimeric VHbs harboring one and two consecutive sequences of Fc-binding motif (Z-domain) were successfully constructed and expressed in E. coli strain TG1.
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Carotenoid Biosynthesis in Cyanobacteria: Structural and Evolutionary Scenarios Based on Comparative Genomics
Chengwei Liang , Fangqing Zhao , Wei Wei , Zhangxiao Wen , Song Qin
Carotenoids are widely distributed pigments in nature and their biosynthetic pathway has been extensively studied in various organisms. The recent access to the overwhelming amount genomic data of cyanobacteria has given birth to a novel approach called comparative genomics. The putative enzymes involved in the carotenoid biosynthesis among the
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Does WAVE1 contain a GoLoco/GPR motif?
Francis S. Willard
P53 codon 11, 72, and 248 gene polymorphisms in endometriosis
Yao-Yuan Hsieh , Chich-Sheng Lin
Objective: Mutated p53 gene is related to the instability of cell growth and cell cycle progression. We aimed to evaluate the association between endometriosis and p53 codon 11, 72 and 248 gene polymorphisms. Patients and methods: Women were divided into two groups: (1) moderate/severe endometriosis (n=148), and (2) non-endometriosis groups
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The new portrait of mammary gland stem cells
Rui-Hong Wang
The Inhibition and Treatment of Breast Cancer with Poly (ADP-ribose) Polymerase (PARP-1) Inhibitors
Joseph A. De Soto, Xianyan Wang, Yohei Tominaga, Rui-Hong Wang, Liu Cao, Wenhui Qiao, Cuiling Li, Xiaoling Xu, Amanda P. Skoumbourdis, Sheila A. Prindiville, Craig J. Thomas, Chu-Xia Deng
BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are responsible for most familial breast carcinomas. Recent reports carried out in non-cancerous mouse BRCA1- or BRCA2-deficient embryonic stem (ES) cells, and hamster BRCA2-deficient cells have demonstrated that the targeted inhibition of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP-1) kills BRCA mutant cells with high specificity.
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A novel nuclear-encoded mitochondrial poly(A) polymerase PAPD1 is a potential candidate gene for the extreme obesity related phenotypes in mammals
Qianjun Xiao, Xiao-Lin Wu, Jennifer J. Michal, Jerry J. Reeves, Jan R. Busboom, Gary H. Thorgaard, Zhihua Jiang
People with obesity, especially extreme obesity, are at risk for many health problems. However, the responsible genes remain unknown in >95% of severe obesity cases. Our previous genome-wide scan of Wagyu x Limousin F2 cattle crosses with extreme phenotypes revealed a molecular marker significantly associated with intramuscular fat deposition.
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Murine Wee1 Plays a Critical Role in Cell Cycle Regulation and Pre-Implantation Stages of Embryonic Development
Yohei Tominaga, Cuiling Li, Rui-Hong Wang, Chu-Xia Deng
Wee1 kinase regulates the G2/M cell cycle checkpoint by phosphorylating and inactivating the mitotic cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (Cdk1). Loss of Wee1 in many systems, including yeast and drosophila, leads to premature mitotic entry. However, the developmental role of Wee1 in mammals remains unclear. In this study, we established Wee1 knockout mice
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A gene catalogue of the amphioxus nervous system
Èlia Benito-Gutiérrez
The elaboration of extremely complex nervous systems is a major success of evolution. However, at the dawn of the post-genomic era, few data have helped yet to unravel how a nervous system develops and evolves to complexity. On the evolutionary road to vertebrates, amphioxus occupies a key position to tackle this exciting issue. Its
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Exploring developmental, functional, and evolutionary aspects of amphioxus sensory cells
Gouki Satoh
Amphioxus has neither elaborated brains nor definitive sensory organs, so that the two may have evolved in a mutually affecting manner and given rise to the forms seen in extant vertebrates. Clarifying the developmental and functional aspects of the amphioxus sensory system is thus pivotal for inferring the early evolution of vertebrates.
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Genome duplications of early vertebrates as a possible chronicle of the evolutionary history of the neural crest
Hiroshi Wada, Kaz Makabe
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sites, high exposure. Abstract indexed in Medline and PubMed, and full text in
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Biolsci.orgIt is now accepted that ancestral vertebrates underwent two rounds of genome duplication. Here we test the possible utility of these genome duplication events as a reference time for the evolutionary history of vertebrates, by tracing the molecular evolutionary history of the genes involved in vertebrate neural crest development. For most
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Phylogenetic analysis of Amphioxus genes of the proprotein convertase family, including aPC6C, a marker of epithelial fusions during embryology
Stéphanie Bertrand, Alain Camasses, Mathilde Paris, Nicholas D. Holland, Hector Escriva
The proprotein convertases (PCs) comprise a family of subtilisin-like endoproteases that activate precursor proteins (including, prohormones, growth factors, and adhesion molecules) during their transit through secretory pathways or at the cell surface. To explore the evolution of the PC gene family in chordates, we made a phylogenetic analysis of
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S-nitrosogluthathione reductase activity of amphioxus ADH3: insights into the nitric oxide metabolism
Laura Godoy, Roser Gonzàlez-Duarte, Ricard Albalat
Nitric oxide (NO) is a signalling molecule involved in many physiological functions. An important via of NO action is through the S-nitrosylation of proteins, a post-translational modification that regulates the activity of enzymes, protein-protein interactions and signal transduction pathways. Alcohol dehydrogenase class III (ADH3) recognises
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An amphioxus LIM-homeobox gene, AmphiLim1/5, expressed early in the invaginating organizer region and later in differentiating cells of the kidney and central nervous system
James A. Langeland, Linda Z. Holland, Roger A. Chastain, Nicholas D. Holland
A LIM-homeobox gene, AmphiLim1/5, from the Florida amphioxus (Branchiostoma floridae) encodes a protein that phylogenetic analysis positions at the base of a clade comprising vertebrate Lim1 and Lim5. Amphioxus AmphiLim1/5 is expressed in domains that are a composite of those of vertebrate Lim1 and Lim5, which evidently underwent
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Prospective protochordate homologs of vertebrate midbrain and MHB, with some thoughts on MHB origins
Thurston C. Lacalli
The MHB (midbrain-hindbrain boundary) is a key organizing center in the vertebrate brain characterized by highly conserved patterns of gene expression. The evidence for an MHB homolog in protochordates is equivocal, the "neck" region immediately caudal to the sensory vesicle in ascidian larvae being the best accepted candidate. It is
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Hox genes are not always Colinear
Ana Sara Monteiro, David E.K. Ferrier
The deuterostomes are the clade of animals for which we have the most detailed understanding of Hox cluster organisation. With the Hox cluster of amphioxus (Branchiostoma floridae) we have the best prototypical, least derived Hox cluster for the group, whilst the urochordates present us with some of the most highly derived and disintegrated
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Amphioxus: a peaceful anchovy fillet to illuminate Chordate Evolution (II)
Jordi Garcia-Fernàndez
The genome of the amphioxus is on the horizon. With Linda Holland and Jeremy Gibson-Brown at the forefront, with all the amphioxus community behind, and with the Joint Genome Institute, the amphioxus genome will see the light this year, 2006. Hope that it will reflect the “prototypical” preduplicative genome of vertebrates. It may
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Free amino acids in the nervous system of the amphioxus Branchiostoma lanceolatum. A comparative study
Juan Pascual-Anaya, Salvatore D'Aniello
The cephalochordate amphioxus is the closest invertebrate relative to vertebrates. In this study, using HPLC technique, free L-amino acids (L-AAs) and D-aspartic acid (D-Asp) have been detected in the nervous system of the amphioxus Branchiostoma lanceolatum. Among other amino acids glutamate, aspartate, glycine, alanine and serine are the amino
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Expression of AmphiNaC, a new member of the amiloride-sensitive sodium channel related to degenerins and epithelial sodium channels in amphioxus
Simona Candiani, Diana Oliveri, Manuela Parodi, Mario Pestarino
Degenerins and amiloride-sensitive Na+ channels form a new family of cationic ion channels (DEG/NaC). DEG/NaC family emerged as common denominator within a metazoan mechanosensory apparatus. In this study, we characterized a new member of such family in amphioxus, Branchiostoma floridae. The AmphiNaC cDNA sequence encodes a protein showing amino
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Immunohistochemical study of cytoskeletal and extracellular matrix components in the notochord and notochordal sheath of amphioxus
Ivana Bočina, Mirna Saraga-Babić
A major cytoskeletal and extracellular matrix proteins of the amphioxus notochordal cells and sheath were detected by immunohistochemical techniques. The three-layered amphioxus notochordal sheath strongly expressed fish collagen type I in its outer and middle layers, while in the innermost layer expression did not occur. The amphioxus notochordal
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Evolutionary genomics of the recently duplicated amphioxus Hairy genes
Senda Jiménez-Delgado, Miguel Crespo, Jon Permanyer, Jordi Garcia-Fernàndez , Miguel Manzanares
Amphioxus Hairy genes have gone through a number of lineage-specific duplications, resulting in eight members, some of which are differentially expressed in the embryo. In order to gain insights into the evolution and function of this gene family we have compared their genomic structure and searched for conserved non-coding sequence elements. We
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A SINE in the genome of the cephalochordate amphioxus is an Alu element
Linda Z. Holland
Leading positions on the Internet, cited by many prestigious
sites, high exposure. Abstract indexed in Medline and PubMed, and full text in
PubMed Central.
Biolsci.orgTransposable elements of about 300 bp, termed “short interspersed nucleotide elements or SINEs are common in eukaryotes. However, Alu elements, SINEs containing restriction sites for the AluI enzyme, have been known only from primates. Here I report the first SINE found in the genome of the cephalochordate, amphioxus. It is an Alu element of
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Identification and Characterisation of five novel Miniature Inverted-repeat Transposable Elements (MITEs) in amphioxus (Branchiostoma floridae)
PW. Osborne , GN. Luke , PWH. Holland, DEK. Ferrier
As the sister group to vertebrates, amphioxus is consistently used as a model of genome evolution for understanding the invertebrate/vertebrate transition. The amphioxus genome has not undergone massive duplications like those in the vertebrates or disruptive rearrangements like in the genome of Ciona, a urochordate, making it an ideal
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Getting closer to a pre-vertebrate genome: the non-LTR retrotransposons of Branchiostoma floridae
Jon Permanyer, Ricard Albalat, Roser Gonzàlez-Duarte
Non-LTR retrotransposons are common in vertebrate genomes and although present in invertebrates they appear at a much lower frequency. The cephalochordate amphioxus is the closest living relative to vertebrates and has been considered a good model for comparative analyses of genome expansions during vertebrate evolution. With the aim to assess the
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Retinoic acid signaling and the evolution of chordates
Ferdinand Marlétaz, Linda Z. Holland, Vincent Laudet, Michael Schubert
In chordates, which comprise urochordates, cephalochordates and vertebrates, the vitamin A-derived morphogen retinoic acid (RA) has a pivotal role during development. Altering levels of endogenous RA signaling during early embryology leads to severe malformations, mainly due to incorrect positional codes specifying the embryonic anteroposterior
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Metaphylogeny of 82 gene families sheds a new light on chordate evolution
Alexandre Vienne, Pierre Pontarotti
Achieving a better comprehension of the evolution of species has always been an important matter for evolutionary biologists. The deuterostome phylogeny has been described for many years, and three phyla are distinguishable: Echinodermata (including sea stars, sea urchins, etc…), Hemichordata (including acorn worms and pterobranchs), and
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Amphioxus: a peaceful anchovy fillet to illuminate Chordate Evolution (I)
Jordi Garcia-Fernàndez
The cephalochordate amphioxus occupies a central place in evolutionary thoughts to the origin of Vertebrates. With a prototypical vertebrate-like body plan and a preduplicative genome, the friendly lancelet seems to be in morphological and genetic motionless since its separation from the major branch of evolution that eventually ended up in our
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Seminal malondialdehyde concentration but not glutathione peroxidase activity is negatively correlated with seminal concentration and motility
Yao-Yuan Hsieh , Chi-Chen Chang, Chich-Sheng Lin
Objectives: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced lipid peroxidation is associated with sperm function. Malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity represent the lipid peroxidation and spermicidal antioxidant, respectively. We aimed to evaluate the relationship of MDA and GPx levels with sperm parameters. Patients
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The effects of sympathectomy and dexamethasone in rats ingesting sucrose
Margarita Franco-Colín, Iván Villanueva, Manuel Piñón, Radu Racotta
Both high-sucrose diet and dexamethasone (D) treatment increase plasma insulin and glucose levels and induce insulin resistance. We showed in a previous work (Franco-Colin, et al. Metabolism 2000; 49:1289-1294) that combining both protocols for 7 weeks induced less body weight gain in treated rats without affecting mean daily food intake. Since
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NAD(H) recycling activity of an engineered bifunctional enzyme galactose dehydrogenase/lactate dehydrogenase
Virapong Prachayasittikul, Sarah Ljung, Chartchalerm Isarankura-Na-Ayudhya, Leif Bülow
A chimeric bifunctional enzyme composing of galactose dehydrogenase (galDH; from Pseudomonas fluorescens) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH; from Bacillus stearothermophilus) was successfully constructed. The chimeric galDH/LDH possessed dual characteristics of both galactose dehydrogenase and lactate dehydrogenase activities while exhibiting
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Dephosphorylation specificities of protein phosphatase for cardiac troponin I, troponin T, and sites within troponin T
Nathan M. Jideama, Brian H. Crawford, AKM A. Hussain, Robert L. Raynor
Protein dephosphorylation by protein phosphatase 1 (PP1), acting in concert with protein kinase C (PKC) and protein kinase A (PKA), is a pivotal regulatory mechanism of protein phosphorylation. Isolated rat cardiac myofibrils phosphorylated by PKC/PKA and dephosphorylated by PP1 were used in determining dephosphorylation specificities,
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