Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Life Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Plant Polyadenylation Factors: Conservation And Variety In The Polyadenylation Complex In Plants, Arthur G. Hunt, Denghui Xing, Qingshun Q. Li Nov 2012

Plant Polyadenylation Factors: Conservation And Variety In The Polyadenylation Complex In Plants, Arthur G. Hunt, Denghui Xing, Qingshun Q. Li

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Polyadenylation, an essential step in eukaryotic gene expression, requires both cis-elements and a plethora of trans-acting polyadenylation factors. The polyadenylation factors are largely conserved across mammals and fungi. The conservation seems also extended to plants based on the analyses of Arabidopsis polyadenylation factors. To extend this observation, we systemically identified the orthologs of yeast and human polyadenylation factors from 10 plant species chosen based on both the availability of their genome sequences and their positions in the evolutionary tree, which render them representatives of different plant lineages.

RESULTS: The evolutionary trajectories revealed several interesting features of plant polyadenylation factors. …


Cloning, Ligand-Binding, And Temporal Expression Of Ecdysteroid Receptors In The Diamondback Moth, Plutella Xylostella, Baozhen Tang, Wei Dong, Pei Liang, Xuguo Zhou, Xiwu Gao Oct 2012

Cloning, Ligand-Binding, And Temporal Expression Of Ecdysteroid Receptors In The Diamondback Moth, Plutella Xylostella, Baozhen Tang, Wei Dong, Pei Liang, Xuguo Zhou, Xiwu Gao

Entomology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), is a devastating pest of cruciferous crops worldwide, and has developed resistance to a wide range of insecticides, including diacylhydrazine-based ecdysone agonists, a highly selective group of molt-accelerating biopesticides targeting the ecdysone receptors.

RESULT: In this study, we cloned and characterized the ecdysone receptors from P. xylostella, including the two isoforms of EcR and a USP. Sequence comparison and phylogenetic analysis showed striking conservations among insect ecdysone receptors, especially between P. xylostella and other lepidopterans. The binding affinity of ecdysteroids to in vitro-translated receptor proteins indicated that PxEcRB isoform bound specifically …


Comparative Mitogenomic Analysis Of Damsel Bugs Representing Three Tribes In The Family Nabidae (Insecta: Hemiptera), Hu Li, Haiyu Liu, Fan Song, Aimin Shi, Xuguo Zhou, Wanzhi Cai Sep 2012

Comparative Mitogenomic Analysis Of Damsel Bugs Representing Three Tribes In The Family Nabidae (Insecta: Hemiptera), Hu Li, Haiyu Liu, Fan Song, Aimin Shi, Xuguo Zhou, Wanzhi Cai

Entomology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Nabidae, a family of predatory heteropterans, includes two subfamilies and five tribes. We previously reported the complete mitogenome of Alloeorhynchus bakeri, a representative of the tribe Prostemmatini in the subfamily Prostemmatinae. To gain a better understanding of architecture and evolution of mitogenome in Nabidae, mitogenomes of five species representing two tribes (Gorpini and Nabini) in the subfamily Nabinae were sequenced, and a comparative mitogenomic analysis of three nabid tribes in two subfamilies was carried out.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Nabid mitogenomes share a similar nucleotide composition and base bias, except for the control region, where differences are observed at the …


Borrelia Burgdorferi Cp32 Bpab Modulates Expression Of The Prophage Nucp Nuclease And Ssbp Single-Stranded Dna-Binding Protein, Alicia M. Chenail, Brandon L. Jutras, Claire A. Adams, Logan H. Burns, Amy Bowman, Ashutosh Verma, Brian Stevenson Sep 2012

Borrelia Burgdorferi Cp32 Bpab Modulates Expression Of The Prophage Nucp Nuclease And Ssbp Single-Stranded Dna-Binding Protein, Alicia M. Chenail, Brandon L. Jutras, Claire A. Adams, Logan H. Burns, Amy Bowman, Ashutosh Verma, Brian Stevenson

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

The Borrelia burgdorferi BpaB proteins of the spirochete's ubiquitous cp32 prophages are DNA-binding proteins, required both for maintenance of the bacteriophage episomes and for transcriptional regulation of the cp32 erp operons. Through use of DNase I footprinting, we demonstrate that BpaB binds the erp operator initially at the sequence 5′-TTATA-3′. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays indicated that BpaB also binds with high affinity to sites located in the 5′ noncoding regions of two additional cp32 genes. Characterization of the proteins encoded by those genes indicated that they are a single-stranded DNA-binding protein and a nuclease, which we named SsbP and NucP, …


Shoc2 Is Targeted To Late Endosomes And Required For Erk1/2 Activation In Egf-Stimulated Cells, Emilia Galperin, Lina Abdelmoti, Alexander Sorkin May 2012

Shoc2 Is Targeted To Late Endosomes And Required For Erk1/2 Activation In Egf-Stimulated Cells, Emilia Galperin, Lina Abdelmoti, Alexander Sorkin

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Shoc2 is the putative scaffold protein that interacts with RAS and RAF, and positively regulates signaling to extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2). To elucidate the mechanism by which Shoc2 regulates ERK1/2 activation by the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor (EGFR), we studied subcellular localization of Shoc2. Upon EGFR activation, endogenous Shoc2 and red fluorescent protein tagged Shoc2 were translocated from the cytosol to a subset of late endosomes containing Rab7. The endosomal recruitment of Shoc2 was blocked by overexpression of a GDP-bound H-RAS (N17S) mutant and RNAi knockdown of clathrin, suggesting the requirement of RAS activity and …


Pyrosequencing The Bemisia Tabaci Transcriptome Reveals A Highly Diverse Bacterial Community And A Robust System For Insecticide Resistance, Wen Xie, Qing-Shu Meng, Qing-Jun Wu, Shao-Li Wang, Xin Yang, Ni-Na Yang, Ru-Mei Li, Xiao-Guo Jiao, Hui-Peng Pan, Bai-Ming Liu, Qi Su, Bao-Yun Xu, Song-Nian Hu, Xuguo Zhou, You-Jun Zhang Apr 2012

Pyrosequencing The Bemisia Tabaci Transcriptome Reveals A Highly Diverse Bacterial Community And A Robust System For Insecticide Resistance, Wen Xie, Qing-Shu Meng, Qing-Jun Wu, Shao-Li Wang, Xin Yang, Ni-Na Yang, Ru-Mei Li, Xiao-Guo Jiao, Hui-Peng Pan, Bai-Ming Liu, Qi Su, Bao-Yun Xu, Song-Nian Hu, Xuguo Zhou, You-Jun Zhang

Entomology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) is a phloem-feeding insect poised to become one of the major insect pests in open field and greenhouse production systems throughout the world. The high level of resistance to insecticides is a main factor that hinders continued use of insecticides for suppression of B. tabaci. Despite its prevalence, little is known about B. tabaci at the genome level. To fill this gap, an invasive B. tabaci B biotype was subjected to pyrosequencing-based transcriptome analysis to identify genes and gene networks putatively involved in various physiological and toxicological processes.

METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using Roche 454 pyrosequencing, …


Development And Functional Analysis Of Novel Genetic Promoters Using Dna Shuffling, Hybridization And A Combination Thereof, Rajiv Ranjan, Sunita Patro, Bhubaneswar Pradhan, Alok Kumar, Indu B. Maiti, Nrisingha Dey Mar 2012

Development And Functional Analysis Of Novel Genetic Promoters Using Dna Shuffling, Hybridization And A Combination Thereof, Rajiv Ranjan, Sunita Patro, Bhubaneswar Pradhan, Alok Kumar, Indu B. Maiti, Nrisingha Dey

Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Development of novel synthetic promoters with enhanced regulatory activity is of great value for a diverse range of plant biotechnology applications.

METHODOLOGY: Using the Figwort mosaic virus full-length transcript promoter (F) and the sub-genomic transcript promoter (FS) sequences, we generated two single shuffled promoter libraries (LssF and LssFS), two multiple shuffled promoter libraries (LmsFS-F and LmsF-FS), two hybrid promoters (FuasFScp and FSuasFcp) and two hybrid-shuffled promoter libraries (LhsFuasFScp and LhsFSuasFcp). Transient expression activities of approximately 50 shuffled promoter clones from each of these libraries were assayed in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cv. Xanthi) protoplasts. It was observed that most …


The Complete Mitochondrial Genome And Novel Gene Arrangement Of The Unique-Headed Bug Stenopirates Sp. (Hemiptera: Enicocephalidae), Hu Li, Hui Liu, Aimin Shi, Pavel Stys, Xuguo Zhou, Wanzhi Cai Jan 2012

The Complete Mitochondrial Genome And Novel Gene Arrangement Of The Unique-Headed Bug Stenopirates Sp. (Hemiptera: Enicocephalidae), Hu Li, Hui Liu, Aimin Shi, Pavel Stys, Xuguo Zhou, Wanzhi Cai

Entomology Faculty Publications

Many of true bugs are important insect pests to cultivated crops and some are important vectors of human diseases, but few cladistic analyses have addressed relationships among the seven infraorders of Heteroptera. The Enicocephalomorpha and Nepomorpha are consider the basal groups of Heteroptera, but the basal-most lineage remains unresolved. Here we report the mitochondrial genome of the unique-headed bug Stenopirates sp., the first mitochondrial genome sequenced from Enicocephalomorpha. The Stenopirates sp. mitochondrial genome is a typical circular DNA molecule of 15, 384 bp in length, and contains 37 genes and a large non-coding fragment. The gene order differs substantially from …