Genomic Diversity among Drug Sensitive and Multidrug Resistant Isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with Identical DNA Fingerprints

complex (MTBC), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), is characterized by low sequence diversity making this bacterium one of the classical examples of a genetically monomorphic pathogen. Because of this limited DNA sequence variation, routine genotyping of clinical MTBC isolates for epidemiological purposes relies on highly discriminatory DNA fingerprinting methods based on mobile and repetitive genetic elements. According to the standard view, isolates exhibiting the same fingerprinting pattern are considered direct progeny of the same bacterial clone, and most likely reflect ongoing transmission or disease relapse within individual patients.We generated 23.9 million (K-1) and 33.0 million (K-2) paired 50 bp purity filtered reads corresponding to a mean coverage of 483.5 fold and 656.1 fold respectively. Compared with the laboratory strain H37Rv both Beijing isolates shared 1,209 SNPs. The two Beijing isolates differed by 130 SNPs and one large deletion. The susceptible isolate had 55 specific SNPs, while the MDR variant had 75 specific SNPs, including the five known resistance-conferring mutations. isolates exhibiting identical DNA fingerprinting patterns can harbour substantial genomic diversity. Because this heterogeneity is not captured by traditional genotyping of MTBC, some aspects of the transmission dynamics of tuberculosis could be missed or misinterpreted. Furthermore, a valid differentiation between disease relapse and exogenous reinfection might be impossible using standard genotyping tools if the overall diversity of circulating clones is limited. These findings have important implications for clinical trials of new anti-tuberculosis drugs

Evidence That Ca2+ within the Microdomain of the L-Type Voltage Gated Ca2+ Channel Activates ERK in MIN6 Cells in Response to Glucagon-Like Peptide-1

Glucagon like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is released from intestinal L-cells in response to nutrient ingestion and acts upon pancreatic β-cells potentiating glucose-stimulated insulin secretion and stimulating β-cell proliferation, differentiation, survival and gene transcription. These effects are mediated through the activation of multiple signal transduction pathways including the extracellular regulated kinase (ERK) pathway. We have previously reported that GLP-1 activates ERK through a mechanism dependent upon the influx of extracellular Ca2+ through L-type voltage gated Ca2+ channels (VGCC). However, the mechanism by which L-type VGCCs couple to the ERK signalling pathway in pancreatic β-cells is poorly understood. In this report, we characterise the relationship between L-type VGCC mediated changes in intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) and the activation of ERK, and demonstrate that the sustained activation of ERK (up to 30 min) in response to GLP-1 requires the continual activation of the L-type VGCC yet does not require a sustained increase in global [Ca2+]i or Ca2+ efflux from the endoplasmic reticulum. Moreover, sustained elevation of [Ca2+]i induced by ionomycin is insufficient to stimulate the prolonged activation of ERK. Using the cell permeant Ca2+ chelators, EGTA-AM and BAPTA-AM, to determine the spatial dynamics of L-type VGCC-dependent Ca2+ signalling to ERK, we provide evidence that a sustained increase in Ca2+ within the microdomain of the L-type VGCC is sufficient for signalling to ERK and that this plays an important role in GLP-1- stimulated ERK activation

An investigation of exon repetition

Exon repetition consists in the presence of tandemly repeated exons in mRNA. In all the cases reported so far, the trivial explanation that the phenomenon arises from a duplication of specific exons in the gene was ruled out by southern blot analysis. It is therefore assumed that exon repetition is the result of a post-transcriptional process involving two pre-mRNA molecules transcribed from the same gene. Exon repetition of SA is of particular interest, since it is both tissue and strain-specific. This at first suggested that repetition in SA might be caused by a tissue and strain-specific trans-acting factor. This work has shown that the property of exon repetition is allele-specific in the two best characterised examples, represented by the SA and COT (carnitine octanoyltransferase) genes in rat. Allele-specificity of exon repetition is therefore the underlying cause of strain-specificity of exon repetition in SA and also in COT.;The biological significance of exon repetition remains unknown. One possible function is the generation of new proteins. Quite often though, repetition of the exon that contains the AUG translational start codon creates a short upstream open reading frame (uORF) that precedes the ORF encoding the full length protein. The effect of this has been investigated and the results show that translation of the downstream open reading frame is significantly reduced by the presence of uORFs.;The mechanism that generates exon repetition is not well understood. It was initially proposed for the COT gene that the presence of a putative exonic splicing enhancer (ESE) in exon 2 conferred exon repetition. This work demonstrates that the presence of the ESE is not sufficient to cause exon repetition in-vivo.

Exon repetition: a major pathway for processing mRNA of some genes is allele-specific

Exon repetition describes the presence of tandemly repeated exons in mRNA in the absence of duplications in the genome. Its existence challenges our understanding of gene expression, because the linear organization of sequences in apparently normal genes must be subverted during RNA synthesis or processing. It is restricted to a small number of genes in some of which over half of the mRNA contains specific patterns of repetition. Although it is sometimes assumed to arise by trans-splicing, there is no evidence of this and the efficiency is very much higher than for examples of bona fide trans-splicing in mammals. Furthermore, a potentially ubiquitous reaction such as trans-splicing is not consistent with a phenomenon that involves such a high proportion of the products of so few genes. Instead, it seems more probable that exon repetition is caused by a specific trans-acting factor. We have tested this and demonstrate for the two best characterized examples that the property is restricted to specific alleles of the affected genes and is determined in cis. It is not determined by exonic splicing signals, as had been suggested previously. In heterozygotes, RNA transcribed from the two alleles of an affected gene can have fundamentally different fates