Sex differences have been observed in multiple facets of cancer epidemiology, treatment and biology, and in most cancers outside the sex organs. Efforts to link these clinical differences to specific molecular features have...
Translation start site selection in eukaryotes is influenced by context nucleotides flanking the AUG codon and by levels of the eukaryotic translation initiation factors eIF1 and eIF5. In a search of mammalian genes, we...
Multiple sclerosis is a complex neurological disease, with ∼20% of risk heritability attributable to common genetic variants, including >230 identified by genome-wide association studies. Multiple strands of evidence suggest...
It is common to find that major-effect genes are an important cause of variation in susceptibility to infection. Here we have characterized natural variation in a gene called pastrel that explains over half of the genetic...
tRNAs are synthesized as precursor RNAs that have to undergo processing steps to become functional. Yeast Trz1 is a key endoribonuclease involved in the 3΄ maturation of tRNAs in all domains of life. It is a member of the...
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified over 100 loci containing single nucleotide variants (SNVs) that influence the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). Most of these loci lie in non-coding regulatory...
BACKGROUND: Small interspersed repeats are commonly found in many bacterial chromosomes. Two families of repeats (BOX and RUP) have previously been identified in the genome of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a nasopharyngeal commensal...
Spermatogenesis is associated with major and unique changes to chromosomes and chromatin. Here, we sought to understand the impact of these changes on spermatogenic transcriptomes. We show that long terminal repeats (LTRs) of...
BACKGROUND: Plasmodium falciparum causes the deadliest form of malaria, which remains one of the most prevalent infectious diseases. Unfortunately, the only licensed vaccine showed limited protection and resistance to...
Coronaviruses (CoVs) have very large RNA viral genomes with a distinct genomic architecture of core and accessory open reading frames (ORFs). It is of utmost importance to understand their patterns and limits of homologous and...
A novel Tymoviridae-like virus, designated Ek Balam virus, was isolated from male Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes collected in Yucatan, Mexico. The genome was fully sequenced and shown to have no more than 69% nt sequence...
Phenotype driven genetic screens allow unbiased exploration of the genome to discover new biological regulators. Bloom syndrome gene (Blm) deficient embryonic stem (ES) cells provide an opportunity for recessive screening due to...
Willows (Salix spp.) are important biomass crops due to their ability to grow rapidly with low fertilizer inputs and ease of cultivation in short-rotation coppice cycles. They are relatively undomesticated and highly diverse...
Selective transcription of individual protein coding genes does not occur in trypanosomes and the cellular copy number of each mRNA must be determined post-transcriptionally. Here, we provide evidence that codon choice directs...
Background: Programmed ribosomal frameshifting (PRF) is a gene expression mechanism which enables the translation of two N-terminally coincident, C-terminally distinct protein products from a single mRNA. Many viruses utilize...
RNA viruses are a major human health threat. The life cycles of many highly pathogenic RNA viruses like influenza A virus (IAV) and Lassa virus depends on host mRNA, because viral polymerases cleave 5'-m7G-capped host...