Aberrant , and DNA Methylation: Candidate Biomarkers in the Oral Rinse of Heavy Smokers.

Objective: To identify DNA methylation patterns of heavy smokers in oral rinse samples.

Methods: Genome-wide DNA methylation data was imported from Gene Expression Omnibus using the GEOquery package. Two independent sets were analyzed: (a) 71 epigenomes of cancer-free subjects (heavy smokers = 37 vs.

Toxic Determination of Cry11 Mutated Proteins Obtained Using Rational Design and Its Computational Analysis.

Cry11 proteins are toxic to , the vector of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. Cry11Aa and Cry11Bb are protoxins, which when activated present their active-toxin form in two fragments between 30 and 35 kDa respectively. Previous studies conducted with Cry11Aa and Cry11Bb genes using DNA shuffling generated variant 8, which presented a deletion in the first 73 amino acids and one at position 572 and 9 substitutions including L553F and L556W.

Generation of Cry11 Variants of by Heuristic Computational Modeling.

Directed evolution methods mimic in vitro Darwinian evolution, inducing random mutations and selective pressure in genes to obtain proteins with enhanced characteristics. These techniques are developed using trial-and-error testing at an experimental level with a high degree of uncertainty. Therefore, in silico modeling of directed evolution is required to support experimental assays.