Recently added articles from Genetics:

Distinct Functions of MLH3 at Recombination Hot Spots in the Mouse

Apr 01, 2008; Svetlanov, Anton; Baudat, Frederic; Cohen, Paula E; de Massy, Bernard ... ABSTRACT The four mammalian MutL homologs (MLH1, MLH3, PMS1, and PMS2) participate in a variety of events, including postreplicative DNA repair, prevention of homeologous recombination, and crossover formation during meiosis. In this latter role, MLH1-MLH3 heterodimers predominate and ...

Basolateral Junctions Utilize Warts Signaling to Control Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and Proliferation Crucial For Migration and Invasion of Drosophila Ovarian Epithelial Cells

Apr 01, 2008; Zhao, Min; Szafranski, Przemyslaw; Hall, Chad Albert; Goode, Scott ... ABSTRACT Fasciclin2 (Fas2) and Discslarge (Dlg) localize to the basolateral junction (BLJ) of Drosophila follicle epithelial cells and inhibit their proliferation and invasion. To identify a BLJ signaling pathway we completed a genomewide screen for mutants that enhance dlg ...

Raw Mediates Antagonism of AP-1 Activity in Drosophila

Apr 01, 2008; Bates, Katherine L; Higley, Matthew; Letsou, Anthea ... ABSTRACT High baselines of transcription factor activities represent fundamental obstacles to regulated signaling. Here we show that in Drosophila, quenching of basal activator protein 1 (AP-1) transcription factor activity serves as a prerequisite to its tight spatial and temporal ...

Genetic Analysis of the Caenorhabditis elegans GLH Family of P-Granule Proteins

Apr 01, 2008; Spike, Caroline; Meyer, Nicole; Racen, Erica; Orsborn, April; Kirchner, Jay; Kuznicki, Kathleen; Yee, Christopher; Bennett, Karen; Strome, Susan ... ABSTRACT The Vasa DEAD-box helicases are widespread markers of germ cells across species, and in some organisms have been shown to be essential for germ-cell formation and development. In contrast to the single Vasa gene in most systems analyzed, Caenorhabditis elegans has four Vasa ...

Regulation of Glia Number in Drosophila by Rap/Fzr, an Activator of the Anaphase-Promoting Complex, and Loco, an RGS Protein

Apr 01, 2008; Kaplow, Margarita E; Korayem, Adam H; Venkatesh, Tadmiri R ... ABSTRACT Glia mediate a vast array of cellular processes and are critical for nervous system development and function. Despite their immense importance in neurobiology, glia remain understudied and the molecular mechanisms that direct their differentiation are poorly understood. Rap/Fzr ...

Wispy, the Drosophila Homolog of GLD-2, Is Required During Oogenesis and Egg Activation

Apr 01, 2008; Cui, Jun; Sackton, Katharine L; Horner, Vanessa L; Kumar, Kritika E; Wolfner, Mariana F ... ABSTRACT Egg activation is the process that modifies mature, arrested oocytes so that embryo development can proceed. One key aspect of egg activation is the cytoplasmic polyadenylation of certain maternal mRNAs to permit or enhance their translation. wispy (wisp) maternal-effect ...

Low Levels of Polymorphism in Genes That Control the Activation of Defense Response in Arabidopsis thaliana

Apr 01, 2008; Bakker, Erica G; Traw, M Brian; Toomajian, Christopher; Kreitman, Martin; Bergelson, Joy ... ABSTRACT Plants use signaling pathways involving salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, and ethylene to defend against pathogen and herbivore attack. Many defense response genes involved in these signaling pathways have been characterized, but little is known about the selective pressures they ...

Defining Regions and Rearrangements of the Silene latifolia Y Chromosome

Apr 01, 2008; Bergero, R; Charlesworth, D; Filatov, D A; Moore, R C ... ABSTRACT We combine data from published marker genotyping of three sets of S. latifolia Y chromosome deletion mutants with changed sex phenotypes and add genotypes for several new genic markers to refine the deletion map of the Y chromosome and compare it with the X chromosome genetic ...

Molecular Characterization of Lal2, an SRK-Like Gene Linked to the S-Locus in the Wild Mustard Leavenworthia alabamica

Apr 01, 2008; Busch, Jeremiah W; Sharma, Julia; Schoen, Daniel J ... ABSTRACT Single-locus sporophytic self-incompatibility inhibits inbreeding in many members of the mustard family (Brassicaceae). To investigate the genetics of self-incompatibility in the wild mustard Leavenworthia alabamica, diallel crosses were conducted between full siblings. Patterns ...

Fraction of Informative Recombinations: A Heuristic Approach to Analyze Recombination Rates

Apr 01, 2008; Lefebvre, J-F; Labuda, D ... ABSTRACT In this article we present a new heuristic approach (informative recombinations, InfRec) to analyze recombination density at the sequence level. InfRec is intuitive and easy and combines previously developed methods that (i) resolve genotypes into haplotypes, (ii) estimate the ...

Paramutation: Epigenetic Instructions Passed Across Generations

Apr 01, 2008; Chandler, Vicki; Alleman, Mary ... PARAMUTATION is the fascinating ability of specific DNA sequences to communicate in trans to establish meiotically heritable expression states. Intriguingly, newly silenced sequences continue to issue instructions to naïve alleles in subsequent generations. The term "paramutation" was first ...

Genomic Organization, Rapid Evolution and Meiotic Instability of Nucleotide-Binding-Site-Encoding Genes in a New Fruit Crop, "Chestnut Rose"

Apr 01, 2008; Xu, Qiang; Wen, Xiaopeng; Deng, Xiuxin ... ABSTRACT From chestnut rose, a promising fruit crop of the Rosa genus, powdery mildew disease-resistant and susceptible genotypes and their F1 progeny were used to isolate nucleotide-binding-site (NBS)-encoding genes using 19 degenerate primer pairs and an additional cloning method ...

Patterns of Molecular Evolution in Caenorhabditis Preclude Ancient Origins of Selfing

Apr 01, 2008; Cutter, Asher D; Wasmuth, James D; Washington, Nicole L ... ABSTRACT The evolution of self-fertilization can mediate pronounced changes in genomes as a by-product of a drastic reduction in effective population size and the concomitant accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations by genetic drift. In the nematode genus Caenorhabditis, a highly ...

Interactions Between Stressful Environment and Gene Deletions Alleviate the Expected Average Loss of Fitness in Yeast

Apr 01, 2008; Jasnos, Lukasz; Tomala, Katarzyna; Paczesniak, Dorota; Korona, Ryszard ... ABSTRACT The conjecture that the deleterious effects of mutations are amplified by stress or interaction with one another remains unsatisfactorily tested. It is now possible to reapproach this problem systematically by using genomic collections of mutants and applying stress-inducing ...

The Rate and Spectrum of Microsatellite Mutation in Caenorhabditis elegans and Daphnia pulex

Apr 01, 2008; Seyfert, Amanda L; Cristescu, Melania E A; Frisse, Linda; Schaack, Sarah; Thomas, W Kelley; Lynch, Michael ... ABSTRACT The effective use of microsatellite loci as tools for microevolutionary analysis requires knowledge of the factors influencing the rate and pattern of mutation, much of which is derived from indirect inference from population samples. Interspecific variation in microsatellite ...

The Role of Regulatory Genes During Maize Domestication: Evidence From Nucleotide Polymorphism and Gene Expression

Apr 01, 2008; Zhao, Qiong; Thuillet, Anne-Céline; Uhlmann, Nathan K; Weber, Allison; Rafalski, J Antoni; Allen, Stephen M; Tingey, Scott; Doebley, John ... ABSTRACT We investigated DNA sequence variation in 72 candidate genes in maize landraces and the wild ancestor of maize, teosinte. The candidate genes were chosen because they exhibit very low sequence diversity among maize inbreds and have sequence homology to known regulatory genes. We ...

Estimation of Pairwise Identity by Descent From Dense Genetic Marker Data in a Population Sample of Haplotypes

Apr 01, 2008; Browning, Sharon R ... ABSTRACT I present a new approach for calculating probabilities of identity by descent for pairs of haplotypes. The approach is based on a joint hidden Markov model for haplotype frequencies and identity by descent (IBD). This model allows for linkage disequilibrium, and the method can ...

Multiple Rescue Factors Within a Wolbachia Strain

Apr 01, 2008; Zabalou, Sofia; Apostolaki, Angeliki; Pattas, Savvas; Veneti, Zoe; Paraskevopoulos, Charalampos; Livadaras, Ioannis; Markakis, George; Brissac, Terry; Merçot, Hervé; Bourtzis, Kostas ... ABSTRACT Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) is expressed when infected males are crossed with either uninfected females or females infected with Wolbachia of different CI specificity. In diploid insects, CI results in embryonic mortality, apparently due to the the loss of ...

Rapid Evolution of Yeast Centromeres in the Absence of Drive

Apr 01, 2008; Bensasson, Douda; Zarowiecki, Magdalena; Burt, Austin; Koufopanou, Vassiliki ... ABSTRACT To find the most rapidly evolving regions in the yeast genome we compared most of chromosome III from three closely related lineages of the wild yeast Saccharomyces paradoxus. Unexpectedly, the centromere appears to be the fastest-evolving part of the chromosome, evolving even ...

The Effects of Recombination Rate on the Distribution and Abundance of Transposable Elements

Apr 01, 2008; Dolgin, Elie S; Charlesworth, Brian ... ABSTRACT Transposable elements (TEs) often accumulate in regions of the genome with suppressed recombination. But it is unclear whether this pattern reflects a reduction in the efficacy of selection against deleterious insertions or a relaxation of ectopic recombination. Discriminating ...