Correction: A metabolomic and pharmacokinetic study on the mechanism underlying the lipid-lowering effect of orally administered berberine.

Correction for 'A metabolomic and pharmacokinetic study on the mechanism underlying the lipid-lowering effect of orally administered berberine' by Shenghua Gu et al., Mol. BioSyst.

A metabolomic and pharmacokinetic study on the mechanism underlying the lipid-lowering effect of orally administered berberine.

Clinical and animal studies demonstrated that orally administered berberine had a distinct lipid-lowering effect. However, pharmacokinetic studies showed that berberine was poorly absorbed into the body so the levels of berberine in the blood and target tissues were far below the effective concentrations revealed. To probe the underlying mechanism, the effect of berberine on the biological system was studied on a high-fat-diet-induced hamster hyperlipidemia model.

Evidence for two promoters internal to the alginate biosynthesis operon in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

While much is known about the transcriptional regulation of the 12 gene alginate biosynthesis operon from the algD promoter in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, there has been little investigation into the possibility of other transcription starts within this operon, especially those genes dealing with the epimerization and acetylation of the alginate polymer. In this study, we utilized quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, a β-galactosidase reporter assay and sequence scanning to identify two putative promoters within the alginate biosynthesis operon upstream of the alginate epimerase gene algG and the alginate acetylation gene algI. These data support the possibility of differential regulation within the operon to alter polymer structure under varying environmental conditions.