is a mosquito-borne subcutaneous parasite of raccoons, regarded as the causative agent of most human dirofilarial infections in North America. Despite the wide geographic range of raccoons in the Americas, the presence of this parasite has not been confirmed outside its known endemic areas in the Southern United States. Based on morphological and molecular data, we present the first record of in wild raccoons from the Yucatan Peninsula.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGermline mutations leading to aneuploidy are rare, and their tumor-promoting properties are mostly unknown at the molecular level. We report here novel germline biallelic mutations in , encoding the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) protein MAD1, in a 36-year-old female with a dozen of neoplasias. Functional studies demonstrated lack of full-length protein and deficient SAC response, resulting in ~30 to 40% of aneuploid blood cells.
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