Sperm donor anonymity and compensation: an experiment with American sperm donors.

Most sperm donation that occurs in the USA proceeds through anonymous donation. While some clinics make the identity of the sperm donor available to a donor-conceived child at age 18 as part of 'open identification' or 'identity release programs,' no US law requires clinics to do so, and the majority of individuals do not use these programs. By contrast, in many parts of the world, there have been significant legislative initiatives requiring that sperm donor identities be made available to children after a certain age (typically when the child turns 18).

Roles of FHIT and WWOX fragile genes in cancer.

It was hypothesized as early as 1986, that the recently discovered common fragile sites could facilitate recombination events, such as deletions and translocations, that result in clonally expanded cancer cell populations with specific chromosome alterations in specific cancer types. A natural extension of this hypothesis is that the clonal expansion must be driven by alteration of genes at recombination breakpoints whose altered functions actually drive clonal expansion. Nevertheless, when the FHIT gene was discovered at FRA3B, the most active common chromosome fragile region, and proposed as an example of a tumor suppressor gene altered by chromosome translocations and deletions, a wave of reports suggested that the FHIT gene was altered in cancer simply because it was in a fragile region and not because it had contributed to the clonal expansion, thus turning the original hypothesis upside down.

The mitotic exit network Mob1p-Dbf2p kinase complex localizes to the nucleus and regulates passenger protein localization.

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitotic exit network (MEN) is a conserved signaling network that coordinates CDK inactivation, cytokinesis and G1 gene transcription. The MEN Cdc14p phosphatase is sequestered in the nucleolus and transiently released in early anaphase and telophase. Cdc14p mediates mitotic exit by dephosphorylating Cdk1p substrates and promoting Cdk1p inactivation.

Human LATS1 is a mitotic exit network kinase.

The kinase LATS/WARTS is a tumor suppressor protein conserved in evolution, but its function at the molecular level is not well understood. We report here that human LATS1 interacts with MOB1A, a protein whose homologue in budding yeast associates with kinases involved in mitotic exit. This suggested that LATS1 may be a component of the previously uncharacterized mitotic exit network in higher eukaryotes.

A role for the Saccharomyces cerevisiae regulation of Ace2 and polarized morphogenesis signaling network in cell integrity.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae RAM is a conserved signaling network that regulates maintenance of polarized growth and daughter-cell-specific transcription, the latter of which is critical for septum degradation. Consequently, cells defective in RAM function (designated ramDelta) are round in morphology, form feeble mating projections, and fail to separate following cytokinesis. It was recently demonstrated that RAM genes are essential in strains containing functional SSD1 (SSD1-v), which encodes a protein of unknown function that binds the RAM Cbk1p kinase.

The fragile histidine triad/common chromosome fragile site 3B locus and repair-deficient cancers.

In various studies of sporadic breast cancers, 40-70% were strongly positive for fragile histidine triad (Fhit) protein expression, whereas only 18% of BRCA2 mutant breast cancers demonstrated strong Fhit expression, suggesting that the BRCA2 repair function may be necessary to retain intact fragile common chromosome fragile site 3B(FRA3B)/FHITloci. In the current study, 22 breast tumors with deleterious BRCA1 mutations were analyzed for Fhit expression by immunohistochemistry in a case-control matched pair analysis. Loss of Fhit expression was significantly more frequent in the BRCA1 cancers compared with sporadic breast tumors (9% Fhit positive versus 68% Fhit positive), suggesting that the BRCA1 pathway is also important in protecting the FRA3B/FHIT locus from damage.