Endometrial Cancer: A Pilot Study of the Tissue Microbiota.

Background: The endometrium remains a difficult tissue for the analysis of microbiota, mainly due to the low bacterial presence and the sampling procedures. Among its pathologies, endometrial cancer has not yet been completely investigated for its relationship with microbiota composition. In this work, we report on possible correlations between endometrial microbiota dysbiosis and endometrial cancer.

"Good Wine Makes Good Blood": An Integrated Approach to Characterize Autochthonous Apulian Grapevines as Promising Candidates for Healthy Wines.

Wine production represents an ancient human activity and one of the most economically important markets in Europe. Moreover, the health effects of grapes and related products have been largely demonstrated, and mostly depend on their richness in bioactive molecules such as flavonoid and non-flavonoid phenolic compounds. Italy has the highest global wine production and provides one of the richest grapevine germplasm in the Mediterranean area.

Human Endometrial Microbiota at Term of Normal Pregnancies.

The endometrium is a challenging site for metagenomic analysis due to difficulties in obtaining uncontaminated samples and the limited abundance of the bacterial population. Indeed, solid correlations between endometrial physio-pathologic conditions and bacteria compositions have not yet been firmly established. Nevertheless, the study of the endometrial microbiota is of great interest due to the close correlations between microbiota profiles, women's health, and successful pregnancies.

A-GAME: improving the assembly of pooled functional metagenomics sequence data.

Background: Expression screening of environmental DNA (eDNA) libraries is a popular approach for the identification and characterization of novel microbial enzymes with promising biotechnological properties. In such "functional metagenomics" experiments, inserts, selected on the basis of activity assays, are sequenced with high throughput sequencing technologies. Assembly is followed by gene prediction, annotation and identification of candidate genes that are subsequently evaluated for biotechnological applications.

Assessment of an internal reference gene in Rhodobacter sphaeroides grown under cobalt exposure.

Aim of this study is the identification of an appropriate internal reference gene to quantify gene transcripts isolated from Rhodobacter (R.) sphaeroides cells grown in presence of high concentrations of cobalt ions. RNA was isolated using a commercial kit protocol ad-hoc modified.

Mapping of 5' and 3'-ends of sunflower mitochondrial nad6 mRNAs reveals a very complex transcription pattern which includes primary transcripts lacking 5'-UTR.

Nad6 orf, encoded in the sunflower mitochondrial genome in single copy contains a non-conserved 3'-extension. The transcription of the nad6 locus generates a highly complex pattern. Three main transcripts of 1240, 960 and 870 nt have been characterized by different approaches.

Transcription of two sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) mitochondrial tRNA genes having different genetic origins.

The divergent transcription of two tRNA genes encoded in sunflower mitochondrial DNA, proposed as genes of different genetic origin, has been studied in detail. The transcription initiation site (TIS) for both transcript precursors has been identified by hybridization with in vitro (32)P-capped total RNAs and primer extension. The location of two TISs and the analysis of distribution of sequence elements (motifs) usually present in higher plant mitochondrial promoters led to the identification of two short regions (about 30-40 bp) which can be proposed as the promoters for the transcription of two genes.