Publications by authors named "Gildas Mouta-Cardoso"

Article Synopsis
  • Pericentromeric heterochromatin is crucial for regulating gene expression and cellular differentiation.
  • Fluorescent polyamides were developed to visualize pericentromeric DNA in both mouse and human cells, specifically targeting murine major satellites and human α-satellites.
  • While some success was seen in staining pericentromeric heterochromatin in mice, similar results were not achieved in human cells due to issues like non-selective staining and probe aggregation.
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DNA ends get exposed in cells upon either normal or dysfunctional cellular processes or molecular events. Telomeres need to be protected by the shelterin complex to avoid junctions occurring between chromosomes while failing topoisomerases or clustered DNA damage processing may produce double-strand breaks, thus requiring swift repair to avoid cell death. The rigorous study of the great many proteins involved in the maintenance of DNA integrity is a challenging task because of the innumerous unspecific electrostatic and/or hydrophobic DNA-protein interactions that arise due to the chemical nature of DNA.

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Purification of specific DNA-protein complexes is a challenging task, as the involved interactions can be both electrostatic/H-bond and hydrophobic. The chromatographic stringency needed to obtain reasonable purifications uses salts and detergents. However, these components elicit the removal of proteins unspecifically bound to the chromatographic support itself, thus contaminating the purification products.

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