Efficacy of oligodynamic metals in the control of bacteria growth in humidifier water tanks and mist droplets.

Antimicrobial capsules were evaluated for their effectiveness to control bacterial contamination of cool mist humidifiers. These capsules contain a mixture of silver and copper promoted alumina beads designed to release low concentrations of these oligodynamic metals into the reservoir water for bacteria control. The reservoir water and mist droplets from the humidifier units were tested for the presence of bacteria over a three-week period.

Growth regulation of human variant histone genes and acetylation of the encoded proteins.

The family of human histone genes consists of replication-dependent and independent subtypes. The replication-independent histone genes, also known as variants, give rise to distinct mRNAs, whose expression is regulated depending on the growth state of the cell, tissue type and developmental stage. In turn, the histone variants are differentially synthesized and modified by acetylation.

Calculated flexibility of histone proteins correlate with mammalian histone H1 subtype.

We have calculated the polypeptide flexibility index for mammalian histone H1 sequences obtained from the National Center for Biotechnology Information Histone Sequence Database. This database contains over 1000 histone protein entries, from various species, compiled from SWISS_PROT, PIR, the Protein Data Bank (PDB), and CDS translations from GenBank. Histone H1 proteins were analyzed because of their critical role in chromatin structure and gene expression.

A human histone H2B.1 variant gene, located on chromosome 1, utilizes alternative 3' end processing.

A variant human H2B histone gene (GL105), previously shown to encode a 2300 nt replication independent mRNA, has been cloned. We demonstrate this gene expresses alternative mRNAs regulated differentially during the HeLa S3 cell cycle. The H2B-Gl105 gene encodes both a 500 nt cell cycle dependent mRNA and a 2300 nt constitutively expressed mRNA.

Isolation and characterization of a cDNA from a human histone H2B gene which is reciprocally expressed in relation to replication-dependent H2B histone genes during HL60 cell differentiation.

A variant human histone H2B cDNA (HHC289) has been cloned and characterized and shown to have a complex pattern of regulation with respect to the HeLa S3 cell cycle and HL60 cell differentiation. The H2B protein coding region of HHC289 is flanked at the 3' end by a 1798-nt nontranslated trailer that contains a region of hyphenated dyad symmetry and a poly(A) addition sequence, followed by a poly(A) tail. Nuclear run-on transcription analysis revealed a 2-fold increase in transcription of the HHC289 gene during S phase, in comparison to replication-dependent human histone genes which exhibit a 2-3-fold increase in transcription during S phase.