236 research outputs found
Fate of the H-NS-Repressed bgl Operon in Evolution of Escherichia coli
In the enterobacterial species Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica, expression of horizontally acquired genes with a higher than average AT content is repressed by the nucleoid-associated protein H-NS. A classical example of an H-NS-repressed locus is the bgl (aryl-beta,D-glucoside) operon of E. coli. This locus is "cryptic,'' as no laboratory growth conditions are known to relieve repression of bgl by H-NS in E. coli K12. However, repression can be relieved by spontaneous mutations. Here, we investigated the phylogeny of the bgl operon. Typing of bgl in a representative collection of E. coli demonstrated that it evolved clonally and that it is present in strains of the phylogenetic groups A, B1, and B2, while it is presumably replaced by a cluster of ORFans in the phylogenetic group D. Interestingly, the bgl operon is mutated in 20% of the strains of phylogenetic groups A and B1, suggesting erosion of bgl in these groups. However, bgl is functional in almost all B2 isolates and, in approximately 50% of them, it is weakly expressed at laboratory growth conditions. Homologs of bgl genes exist in Klebsiella, Enterobacter, and Erwinia species and also in low GC-content Gram-positive bacteria, while absent in E. albertii and Salmonella sp. This suggests horizontal transfer of bgl genes to an ancestral Enterobacterium. Conservation and weak expression of bgl in isolates of phylogenetic group B2 may indicate a functional role of bgl in extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli
Chiral Modulations in Curved Space I: Formalism
The goal of this paper is to present a formalism that allows to handle
four-fermion effective theories at finite temperature and density in curved
space. The formalism is based on the use of the effective action and zeta
function regularization, supports the inclusion of inhomogeneous and
anisotropic phases. One of the key points of the method is the use of a
non-perturbative ansatz for the heat-kernel that returns the effective action
in partially resummed form, providing a way to go beyond the approximations
based on the Ginzburg-Landau expansion for the partition function. The
effective action for the case of ultra-static Riemannian spacetimes with
compact spatial section is discussed in general and a series representation,
valid when the chemical potential satisfies a certain constraint, is derived.
To see the formalism at work, we consider the case of static Einstein spaces at
zero chemical potential. Although in this case we expect inhomogeneous phases
to occur only as meta-stable states, the problem is complex enough and allows
to illustrate how to implement numerical studies of inhomogeneous phases in
curved space. Finally, we extend the formalism to include arbitrary chemical
potentials and obtain the analytical continuation of the effective action in
curved space.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures; version to appear in JHE
A Novel Mechanism of Transposon-Mediated Gene Activation
Transposable Insertion Sequences (IS elements) have been shown to provide various benefits to their hosts via gene activation or inactivation under stress conditions by appropriately inserting into specific chromosomal sites. Activation is usually due to derepression or introduction of a complete or partial promoter located within the element. Here we define a novel mechanism of gene activation by the transposon IS5 in Escherichia coli. The glycerol utilization operon, glpFK, that is silent in the absence of the cAMP-Crp complex, is activated by IS5 when inserted upstream of its promoter. High-level expression is nearly constitutive, only mildly dependent on glycerol, glucose, GlpR, and Crp, and allows growth at a rate similar to or more rapid than that of wild-type cells. Expression is from the glpFK promoter and dependent on (1) the DNA phase, (2) integration host factor (IHF), and (3) a short region at the 3′ end of IS5 harboring a permanent bend and an IHF binding site. The lacZYA operon is also subject to such activation in the absence of Crp. Thus, we have defined a novel mechanism of gene activation involving transposon insertion that may be generally applicable to many organisms
From DNA sequence to application: possibilities and complications
The development of sophisticated genetic tools during the past 15 years have facilitated a tremendous increase of fundamental and application-oriented knowledge of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and their bacteriophages. This knowledge relates both to the assignments of open reading frames (ORF’s) and the function of non-coding DNA sequences. Comparison of the complete nucleotide sequences of several LAB bacteriophages has revealed that their chromosomes have a fixed, modular structure, each module having a set of genes involved in a specific phase of the bacteriophage life cycle. LAB bacteriophage genes and DNA sequences have been used for the construction of temperature-inducible gene expression systems, gene-integration systems, and bacteriophage defence systems.
The function of several LAB open reading frames and transcriptional units have been identified and characterized in detail. Many of these could find practical applications, such as induced lysis of LAB to enhance cheese ripening and re-routing of carbon fluxes for the production of a specific amino acid enantiomer. More knowledge has also become available concerning the function and structure of non-coding DNA positioned at or in the vicinity of promoters. In several cases the mRNA produced from this DNA contains a transcriptional terminator-antiterminator pair, in which the antiterminator can be stabilized either by uncharged tRNA or by interaction with a regulatory protein, thus preventing formation of the terminator so that mRNA elongation can proceed. Evidence has accumulated showing that also in LAB carbon catabolite repression in LAB is mediated by specific DNA elements in the vicinity of promoters governing the transcription of catabolic operons.
Although some biological barriers have yet to be solved, the vast body of scientific information presently available allows the construction of tailor-made genetically modified LAB. Today, it appears that societal constraints rather than biological hurdles impede the use of genetically modified LAB.
Fate of the H-NS–Repressed bgl Operon in Evolution of Escherichia coli
In the enterobacterial species Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica, expression of horizontally acquired genes with a higher than average AT content is repressed by the nucleoid-associated protein H-NS. A classical example of an H-NS–repressed locus is the bgl (aryl-β,D-glucoside) operon of E. coli. This locus is “cryptic,” as no laboratory growth conditions are known to relieve repression of bgl by H-NS in E. coli K12. However, repression can be relieved by spontaneous mutations. Here, we investigated the phylogeny of the bgl operon. Typing of bgl in a representative collection of E. coli demonstrated that it evolved clonally and that it is present in strains of the phylogenetic groups A, B1, and B2, while it is presumably replaced by a cluster of ORFans in the phylogenetic group D. Interestingly, the bgl operon is mutated in 20% of the strains of phylogenetic groups A and B1, suggesting erosion of bgl in these groups. However, bgl is functional in almost all B2 isolates and, in approximately 50% of them, it is weakly expressed at laboratory growth conditions. Homologs of bgl genes exist in Klebsiella, Enterobacter, and Erwinia species and also in low GC-content Gram-positive bacteria, while absent in E. albertii and Salmonella sp. This suggests horizontal transfer of bgl genes to an ancestral Enterobacterium. Conservation and weak expression of bgl in isolates of phylogenetic group B2 may indicate a functional role of bgl in extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli
Multi-Regge kinematics and the moduli space of Riemann spheres with marked points
We show that scattering amplitudes in planar N = 4 Super Yang-Mills in
multi-Regge kinematics can naturally be expressed in terms of single-valued
iterated integrals on the moduli space of Riemann spheres with marked points.
As a consequence, scattering amplitudes in this limit can be expressed as
convolutions that can easily be computed using Stokes' theorem. We apply this
framework to MHV amplitudes to leading-logarithmic accuracy (LLA), and we prove
that at L loops all MHV amplitudes are determined by amplitudes with up to L +
4 external legs. We also investigate non-MHV amplitudes, and we show that they
can be obtained by convoluting the MHV results with a certain helicity flip
kernel. We classify all leading singularities that appear at LLA in the Regge
limit for arbitrary helicity configurations and any number of external legs.
Finally, we use our new framework to obtain explicit analytic results at LLA
for all MHV amplitudes up to five loops and all non-MHV amplitudes with up to
eight external legs and four loops.Comment: 104 pages, six awesome figures and ancillary files containing the
results in Mathematica forma
Chiral Modulations in Curved Space II: Conifold Geometries
In this paper, we extend our previous analysis concerning the formation of
inhomogeneous condensates in strongly-coupled fermion effective field theories
on curved spaces and include the case of conifold geometries that represent the
simplest tractable case of manifolds with curvature singularities. In the
set-up considered here, by keeping the genuine thermodynamical temperature
constant, we may single out the role that curvature effects play on the
breaking/restoration of chiral symmetry and on the appearance of inhomogeneous
phases. The first goal of this paper is to construct a general expression of
the finite temperature effective action for inhomogeneous condensates in the
case of four-fermion effective field theories on conifold geometries with
generic Riemannian smooth base (generalised cones). The other goal is to
implement numerically the above formal results and construct self-consistent
solutions for the condensate. We explicitly show that the condensate assumes a
kink-like profile, vanishing at the singularity that is surrounded by a bubble
of restored chiral symmetry phase.Comment: 14 pages; 4 figure
FDA Critical Path Initiatives: Opportunities for Generic Drug Development
FDA’s critical path initiative documents have focused on the challenges involved in the development of new drugs. Some of the focus areas identified apply equally to the production of generic drugs. However, there are scientific challenges unique to the development of generic drugs as well. In May 2007, FDA released a document “Critical Path Opportunities for Generic Drugs” that identified some of the specific challenges in the development of generic drugs. The key steps in generic product development are usually characterization of the reference product, design of a pharmaceutically equivalent and bioequivalent product, design of a consistent manufacturing process and conduct of the pivotal bioequivalence study. There are several areas of opportunity where scientific progress could accelerate the development and approval of generic products and expand the range of products for which generic versions are available, while maintaining high standards for quality, safety, and efficacy. These areas include the use of quality by design to develop bioequivalent products, more efficient bioequivalence methods for systemically acting drugs (expansion of BCS waivers, highly variable drugs), and development of new bioequivalence methods for locally acting drugs
Otitis Media in a New Mouse Model for CHARGE Syndrome with a Deletion in the Chd7 Gene
Otitis media is a middle ear disease common in children under three years old. Otitis media can occur in normal individuals with no other symptoms or syndromes, but it is often seen in individuals clinically diagnosed with genetic diseases such as CHARGE syndrome, a complex genetic disease caused by mutation in the Chd7 gene and characterized by multiple birth defects. Although otitis media is common in human CHARGE syndrome patients, it has not been reported in mouse models of CHARGE syndrome. In this study, we report a mouse model with a spontaneous deletion mutation in the Chd7 gene and with chronic otitis media of early onset age accompanied by hearing loss. These mice also exhibit morphological alteration in the Eustachian tubes, dysregulation of epithelial proliferation, and decreased density of middle ear cilia. Gene expression profiling revealed up-regulation of Muc5ac, Muc5b and Tgf-β1 transcripts, the products of which are involved in mucin production and TGF pathway regulation. This is the first mouse model of CHARGE syndrome reported to show otitis media with effusion and it will be valuable for studying the etiology of otitis media and other symptoms in CHARGE syndrome
Third-generation cephalosporin resistance conferred by a chromosomally encoded blaCMY-23 gene in the Escherichia coli ST131 reference strain EC958
Objectives: Escherichia coli ST131 is a globally disseminated MDR clone originally identified due to its association with the bla(CTX-M-15) gene encoding an ESBL. It is thus assumed that bla(CTX-M-15) is the major determinant for resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics in this clone. The complete sequence of EC958, a reference strain for E. coli ST131, revealed that it contains a chromosomally located bla(CMY-23) gene with an upstream ISEcp1 element as well as several additional plasmid-encoded beta-lactamase genes. Here, we examined the genetic context of the bla(CMY-23) element in EC958 and other E. coli ST131 strains and investigated the contribution of bla(CMY-23) to EC958 resistance to a range of beta-lactam antibiotics
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