A mutation of human cytochrome c enhances the intrinsic apoptotic pathway but causes only thrombocytopenia.

We report the first identified mutation in the gene encoding human cytochrome c (CYCS). Glycine 41, invariant throughout eukaryotes, is substituted by serine in a family with autosomal dominant thrombocytopenia caused by dysregulated platelet formation. The mutation yields a cytochrome c variant with enhanced apoptotic activity in vitro.

Development of a multiplex RNA urine test for the detection and stratification of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder.

Purpose: New markers that enable the percentage of transitional cell carcinomas (TCC) of the bladder that are diagnosed before invasion of the bladder muscle layers to be increased would reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with this disease. The purpose of this study was to develop a simple, accurate urine test based on mRNA markers and simple gene signatures that (a) could detect TCC before muscle invasion while maintaining high specificity in patients with hematuria or urinary tract infections and (b) identify patients most likely to have grade 3 or stage > or =T1 disease.

Experimental Design: RNA markers with high overexpression in stage Ta tumors and/or T1 to T4 tumors but low expression in blood or inflammatory cells were characterized by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR using 2 mL of voided urine from 75 TCC patients and 77 control patients with other urological diseases.

N-terminal E-cadherin peptides act as decoy receptors for Listeria monocytogenes.

The observation that E-cadherin is the principal epithelial receptor for the bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes led us to investigate whether N-terminal fragments of E-cadherin containing the L. monocytogenes binding domain could inhibit entry of the bacteria into cultured epithelial cells. Here we demonstrate that a conditioned medium from a gastric cancer cell line (Kato III) that carries a truncating CDH-1 mutation 3' of the L.

Mosaic plasmids and mosaic replicons: evolutionary lessons from the analysis of genetic diversity in IncFII-related replicons.

The alpha replicons of the multi-replicon plasmids pGSH500 and pLV1402 have been characterized by DNA sequence analysis. Analysis of the DNA sequence of a 3672 bp HIN:dIII fragment from pFDT100, which contains the pGSH500 alpha replicon, revealed similarity to a number of replicons belonging to, or related to, those of the IncFII family. The replicon region contains copA, tapA, repA and oriR, and replication initiation and termination sites are related to those from the IncFII replicon of R1.

Identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis signal sequences that direct the export of a leaderless beta-lactamase gene product in Escherichia coli.

Proteins secreted by Mycobacterium tuberculosis may play a key role in virulence and may also constitute antigens that elicit the host immune response. However, the M. tuberculosis protein export machinery has not been characterized.