4,875 research outputs found
Expression of PEG11 and PEG11AS transcripts in normal and callipyge sheep
BACKGROUND: The callipyge mutation is located within an imprinted gene cluster on ovine chromosome 18. The callipyge trait exhibits polar overdominant inheritance due to the fact that only heterozygotes inheriting a mutant paternal allele (paternal heterozygotes) have a phenotype of muscle hypertrophy, reduced fat and a more compact skeleton. The mutation is a single A to G transition in an intergenic region that results in the increased expression of several genes within the imprinted cluster without changing their parent-of-origin allele-specific expression. RESULTS: There was a significant effect of genotype (p < 0.0001) on the transcript abundance of DLK1, PEG11, and MEG8 in the muscles of lambs with the callipyge allele. DLK1 and PEG11 transcript levels were elevated in the hypertrophied muscles of paternal heterozygous animals relative to animals of the other three genotypes. The PEG11 locus produces a single 6.5 kb transcript and two smaller antisense strand transcripts, referred to as PEG11AS, in skeletal muscle. PEG11AS transcripts were detectable over a 5.5 kb region beginning 1.2 kb upstream of the PEG11 start codon and spanning the entire open reading frame. Analysis of PEG11 expression by quantitative PCR shows a 200-fold induction in the hypertrophied muscles of paternal heterozygous animals and a 13-fold induction in homozygous callipyge animals. PEG11 transcripts were 14-fold more abundant than PEG11AS transcripts in the gluteus medius of paternal heterozygous animals. PEG11AS transcripts were expressed at higher levels than PEG11 transcripts in the gluteus medius of animals of the other three genotypes. CONCLUSIONS: The effect of the callipyge mutation has been to alter the expression of DLK1, GTL2, PEG11 and MEG8 in the hypertrophied skeletal muscles. Transcript abundance of DLK1 and PEG11 was highest in paternal heterozygous animals and exhibited polar overdominant gene expression patterns; therefore, both genes are candidates for causing skeletal muscle hypertrophy. There was unique relationship of PEG11 and PEG11AS transcript abundance in the paternal heterozygous animals that suggests a RNA interference mechanism may have a role in PEG11 gene regulation and polar overdominance in callipyge sheep
The rings of n-dimensional polytopes
Points of an orbit of a finite Coxeter group G, generated by n reflections
starting from a single seed point, are considered as vertices of a polytope
(G-polytope) centered at the origin of a real n-dimensional Euclidean space. A
general efficient method is recalled for the geometric description of G-
polytopes, their faces of all dimensions and their adjacencies. Products and
symmetrized powers of G-polytopes are introduced and their decomposition into
the sums of G-polytopes is described. Several invariants of G-polytopes are
found, namely the analogs of Dynkin indices of degrees 2 and 4, anomaly numbers
and congruence classes of the polytopes. The definitions apply to
crystallographic and non-crystallographic Coxeter groups. Examples and
applications are shown.Comment: 24 page
The Geometric Phase in Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics
We explore the geometric phase in N=(2,2) supersymmetric quantum mechanics.
The Witten index ensures the existence of degenerate ground states, resulting
in a non-Abelian Berry connection. We exhibit a non-renormalization theorem
which prohibits the connection from receiving perturbative corrections.
However, we show that it does receive corrections from BPS instantons. We
compute the one-instanton contribution to the Berry connection for the massive
CP^1 sigma-model as the potential is varied. This system has two ground states
and the associated Berry connection is the smooth SU(2) 't Hooft-Polyakov
monopole.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figures, references added. v2: clarification of possible
corrections to Abelian Berry phase. v3: footnotes added to point the reader
towards later development
Perfection of materials technology for producing improved Gunn-effect devices
Chemical vapor deposition system for improved Gunn effect devices using arsenic chloride 3 metho
Identification of quantitative trait loci associated with bone traits and body weight in an F2 resource population of chickens*
Bone fractures at the end of lay are a significant problem in egg-laying strains of hens. The objective of the current study was to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with bone mineralization and strength in a chicken resource population. Layer (White Leghorn hens) and broiler (Cobb-Cobb roosters) lines were crossed to generate an F2 population of 508Â hens over seven hatches, and 26 traits related to bone integrity, including bone mineral density (BMD) and content (BMC), were measured. Genotypes of 120 microsatellite markers on 28 autosomal groups were determined, and interval mapping was conducted to identify QTL regions. Twenty-three tests representing three chromosomal regions (chromosomes 4, 10 and 27) contained significant QTL that surpassed the 5% genome-wise threshold, and 47 tests representing 15 chromosomes identified suggestive QTL that surpassed the 5% chromosome-wise threshold. Although no significant QTL influencing BMD and BMC were detected after adjusting for variation in body weight and egg production, multiple suggestive QTL were found. These results support previous experiments demonstrating an important genetic regulation of bone strength in chickens, but suggest the regulation may be due to the effects of multiple genes that each account for relatively small amounts of variation in bone strength
Possible contractions of quantum orthogonal groups
Possible contractions of quantum orthogonal groups which correspond to
different choices of primitive elements of Hopf algebra are considered and all
allowed contractions in Cayley--Klein scheme are obtained. Quantum deformations
of kinematical groups have been investigated and have shown that quantum analog
of (complex) Galilei group G(1,3) do not exist in our scheme.Comment: 10 pages, Latex. Report given at XXIII Int. Colloquium on Group
Theoretical Methods in Physics, July 31- August 5, 2000, Dubna (Russia
The crystal structure of Pneumolysin at 2.0 Å resolution reveals the molecular packing of the pre-pore complex
Pneumolysin is a cholesterol-dependent cytolysin (CDC) and virulence factor of Streptococcus pneumoniae. It kills cells by forming pores assembled from oligomeric rings in cholesterol-containing membranes. Cryo-EM has revealed the structures of the membrane-surface bound pre-pore and inserted-pore oligomers, however the molecular contacts that mediate these oligomers are unknown because high-resolution information is not available. Here we have determined the crystal structure of full-length pneumolysin at 1.98 Å resolution. In the structure, crystal contacts demonstrate the likely interactions that enable polymerisation on the cell membrane and the molecular packing of the pre-pore complex. The hemolytic activity is abrogated in mutants that disrupt these intermolecular contacts, highlighting their importance during pore formation. An additional crystal structure of the membrane-binding domain alone suggests that changes in the conformation of a tryptophan rich-loop at the base of the toxin promote monomer-monomer interactions upon membrane binding by creating new contacts. Notably, residues at the interface are conserved in other members of the CDC family, suggesting a common mechanism for pore and pre-pore assembly
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