Oxidative stress alters base excision repair pathway and increases apoptotic response in apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1/redox factor-1 haploinsufficient mice.

Apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1/redox factor-1 (APE1/Ref-1) is the redox regulator of multiple stress-inducible transcription factors, such as NF-kappaB, and the major 5'-endonuclease in base excision repair (BER). We utilized mice containing a heterozygous gene-targeted deletion of APE1/Ref-1 (Apex(+/-)) to determine the impact of APE1/Ref-1 haploinsufficiency on the processing of oxidative DNA damage induced by 2-nitropropane (2-NP) in the liver tissue of mice. APE1/Ref-1 haploinsufficiency results in a significant decline in NF-kappaB DNA-binding activity in response to oxidative stress in liver.

Alignment and phylogenetic analysis of beta-fibrinogen intron 7 sequences among avian orders reveal conserved regions within the intron.

We sequenced beta-fibrinogen intron 7 (beta-fibint 7) from 28 species of birds, representing 18 families in nine orders. Although the antiquity of the avian orders is estimated to be 55 to 90 Myr, and numerous indels have accrued among diverging lineages, the intron sequences were not difficult to align. However, alignment of avian sequences with mammal or snake sequences was difficult, and the residual phylogenetic signal was weak.