Kegiatan Pembelajaran Dalam Pendekatan Pengajaran Bahasa Komunikatif Di Lpia (Lembaga Pendidikan Indonesia Amerika) Di Ternate

This research entitled ”Learning Activities in Communicative Language Teaching in LPIA (Lembaga Pendidikan Indonesia Amerika) Ternate” is an attempt to identify and analyze the activities used in communicative language teaching especially in LPIA Ternate. The concept of Moss (2005) on CLT activities is used to identify the learning activities used in LPIA. These activities are conversation grids, questionnaires, games, information gap, problem solving activities, discussion, and role-play. The data of this research were taken by interviewing the teachers in LPIA and by observing five classes with 25 students' in each class, about one hour. The data show that the activities of communicative language teaching that were used in LPIA Ternate, are games, pair work or group work and discussion. There are two other additional activities used in class. They are debate class and e-trip. The results of this research show that the learning activities used in LPIA Ternate support Moss' concept. These CLT activities are games, pair work or group work and discussion. Additionally, there are two other CLT activities that were found or used in LPIA. They are debate class and e-trip

Divergent Evolution of CHD3 Proteins Resulted in MOM1 Refining Epigenetic Control in Vascular Plants

Arabidopsis MOM1 is required for the heritable maintenance of transcriptional gene silencing (TGS). Unlike many other silencing factors, depletion of MOM1 evokes transcription at selected loci without major changes in DNA methylation or histone modification. These loci retain unusual, bivalent chromatin properties, intermediate to both euchromatin and heterochromatin. The structure of MOM1 previously suggested an integral nuclear membrane protein with chromatin-remodeling and actin-binding activities. Unexpected results presented here challenge these presumed MOM1 activities and demonstrate that less than 13% of MOM1 sequence is necessary and sufficient for TGS maintenance. This active sequence encompasses a novel Conserved MOM1 Motif 2 (CMM2). The high conservation suggests that CMM2 has been the subject of strong evolutionary pressure. The replacement of Arabidopsis CMM2 by a poplar motif reveals its functional conservation. Interspecies comparison suggests that MOM1 proteins emerged at the origin of vascular plants through neo-functionalization of the ubiquitous eukaryotic CHD3 chromatin remodeling factors. Interestingly, despite the divergent evolution of CHD3 and MOM1, we observed functional cooperation in epigenetic control involving unrelated protein motifs and thus probably diverse mechanisms

HIV-1 RT-dependent DNAzyme expression inhibits HIV-1 replication without the emergence of escape viruses

DNAzymes are easier to prepare and less sensitive to chemical and enzymatic degradation than ribozymes; however, a DNA enzyme expression system has not yet been developed. In this study, we exploited the mechanism of HIV-1 reverse transcription (RT) in a DNA enzyme expression system. We constructed HIV-1 RT-dependent lentiviral DNAzyme expression vectors including the HIV-1 primer binding site, the DNA enzyme, and either a native tRNA (Lys-3), tRMDtRL, or one of two truncated tRNAs (Lys-3), tRMDΔARMtRL or tRMD3′-endtRL. Lentiviral vector-mediated DNAzyme expression showed high levels of inhibition of HIV-1 replication in SupT1 cells. We also demonstrated the usefulness of this approach in a long-term assay, in which we found that the DNAzymes prevented escape from inhibition of HIV. These results suggest that HIV-1 RT-dependent lentiviral vector-derived DNAzymes prevent the emergence of escape mutations

Changes in Global Gene Expression in Response to Chemical and Genetic Perturbation of Chromatin Structure

DNA methylation is important for controlling gene expression in all eukaryotes. Microarray analysis of mutant and chemically-treated Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings with reduced DNA methylation revealed an altered gene expression profile after treatment with the DNA methylation inhibitor 5-aza-2′ deoxycytidine (5-AC), which included the upregulation of expression of many transposable elements. DNA damage-response genes were also coordinately upregulated by 5-AC treatment. In the ddm1 mutant, more specific changes in gene expression were observed, in particular for genes predicted to encode transposable elements in centromeric and pericentromeric locations. These results confirm that DDM1 has a very specific role in maintaining transcriptional silence of transposable elements, while chemical inhibitors of DNA methylation can affect gene expression at a global level

Structural and functional analyses of the DMC1-M200V polymorphism found in the human population

The M200V polymorphism of the human DMC1 protein, which is an essential, meiosis-specific DNA recombinase, was found in an infertile patient, raising the question of whether this homozygous human DMC1-M200V polymorphism may cause infertility by affecting the function of the human DMC1 protein. In the present study, we determined the crystal structure of the human DMC1-M200V variant in the octameric-ring form. Biochemical analyses revealed that the human DMC1-M200V variant had reduced stability, and was moderately defective in catalyzing in vitro recombination reactions. The corresponding M194V mutation introduced in the Schizosaccharomyces pombe dmc1 gene caused a significant decrease in the meiotic homologous recombination frequency. Together, these structural, biochemical and genetic results provide extensive evidence that the human DMC1-M200V mutation impairs its function, supporting the previous interpretation that this single-nucleotide polymorphism is a source of human infertility

Low CD4/CD8 T-Cell Ratio Associated with Inflammatory Arthropathy in Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus Type I Tax Transgenic Mice

Human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-1) can cause an aggressive malignancy known as adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) as well as inflammatory diseases such as HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). A transgenic mouse that expresses HTLV-1 Tax also develops T-cell leukemia/lymphoma and an inflammatory arthropathy that resembles rheumatoid arthritis. The aim of this study was to identify the primary T-cell subsets involved in the development of arthropathy in Tax transgenic mice. mRNA was strong in the spleen and joints of arthropathic mice, with a 40-fold increase compared with healthy transgenic mice.Our findings reveal that Tax transgenic mice develop rheumatoid-like arthritis with proliferating synovial cells in the joints; however, the proportion of different splenic T-cell subsets in these mice was completely different from other commonly used animal models of rheumatoid arthritis. The crucial T-cell subsets in arthropathic Tax transgenic mice appear to resemble those in HAM/TSP patients rather than those in rheumatoid arthritis patients