Search results for " Recombination"
showing 10 items of 86 documents
Gene Repair of an Usher Syndrome Causing Mutation by Zinc-Finger Nuclease Mediated Homologous Recombination
2012
PURPOSE. Human Usher syndrome (USH) is the most frequent cause of inherited deaf-blindness. It is clinically and genetically heterogeneous, assigned to three clinical types of which the most severe type is USH1. No effective treatment for the ophthalmic component of USH exists. Gene augmentation is an attractive strategy for hereditary retinal diseases. However, several USH genes, like USH1C, are expressed in various isoforms, hampering gene augmentation. As an alternative treatment strategy, we applied the zinc-finger nuclease (ZFN) technology for targeted gene repair of an USH1C, causing mutation by homologous recombination. METHODS. We designed ZFNs customized for the p.R31X nonsense mut…
Liver-specific overexpression of matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) in transgenic mice accelerates development of hepatocellular carcinoma.
2010
Matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) plays a central role in tumor invasion and development of metastases. Expression of MMP-9 had been shown in human hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs). However, it remained unclear whether MMP-9 could influence development of HCC. In order to address this issue, we generated transgenic mice overexpressing MMP-9 in the liver. In order to avoid embryonic lethality a Cre-lox system was utilized for conditional overexpression of MMP-9 under control of an albumin enhancer and promoter. Induction of MMP-9 overexpression in transgenic mice was achieved by i.v. injection of an adenovirus coding for the Cre recombinase. Initiation of liver carcinogenesis was achieved b…
Surmounting limited gene delivery into primary immune cell populations: Efficient cell type-specific adenoviral transduction by CAR.
2015
Ectopic gene expression studies in primary immune cells have been notoriously difficult to perform due to the limitations in conventional transfection and viral transduction methods. Although replication-defective adenoviruses provide an attractive alternative for gene delivery, their use has been hampered by the limited susceptibility of murine leukocytes to adenoviral infection, due to insufficient expression of the human coxsackie/adenovirus receptor (CAR). In this issue of the European Journal of Immunology, Heger et al. [Eur. J. Immunol. 2015. 45: XXXX-XXXX] report the generation of transgenic mice that enable conditional Cre/loxP-mediated expression of human CAR. The authors demonstra…
In the literature: October 2016
2016
A consortium on clinical and molecular stratification on oesophageal adenocarcinoma established in Britain has recently published in Nature Genetics , a whole-genomic sequencing analysis of more than 100 samples.1 Interestingly, they describe three distinct molecular subtypes with potential treatment relevance. This observation has also been verified in an independent validation cohort. Those three types are: (1) the ones showing homologous recombination and chromosome segregation pathways defects with enrichment of a BRCA signature. These tumours would be sensitive to DNA damaging agents, including neutron and photon irradiation with the addition of PARP inhibitors, (2) a group with high m…
Horizontal gene transfer to a defensive symbiont with a reduced genome amongst a multipartite beetle microbiome
2019
ABSTRACTThe loss of functions required for independent life when living within a host gives rise to reduced genomes in obligate bacterial symbionts. Although this phenomenon can be explained by existing evolutionary models, its initiation is not well understood. Here, we describe the microbiome associated with eggs of the beetleLagria villosa, containing multiple bacterial symbionts related toBurkholderia gladioliincluding a reduced-genome symbiont thought to produce the defensive compound lagriamide. We find that the putative lagriamide producer is the only symbiont undergoing genome reduction, and that it has already lost most primary metabolism and DNA repair pathways. The horizontal acq…
Hypoxia and Human Genome Stability: Downregulation of BRCA2 Expression in Breast Cancer Cell Lines
2013
Previously, it has been reported that hypoxia causes increased mutagenesis and alteration in DNA repair mechanisms. In 2005, an interesting study showed that hypoxia-induced decreases in BRCA1 expression and the consequent suppression of homologous recombination may lead to genetic instability. However, nothing is yet known about the involvement of BRCA2 in hypoxic conditions in breast cancer. Initially, a cell proliferation assay allowed us to hypothesize that hypoxia could negatively regulate the breast cancer cell growth in short term in vitro studies. Subsequently, we analyzed gene expression in breast cancer cell lines exposed to hypoxic condition by microarray analysis. Interestingly,…
Molecular and physiological consequences of faulty eukaryotic ribonucleotide excision repair
2019
Abstract The duplication of the eukaryotic genome is an intricate process that has to be tightly safe‐guarded. One of the most frequently occurring errors during DNA synthesis is the mis‐insertion of a ribonucleotide instead of a deoxyribonucleotide. Ribonucleotide excision repair (RER) is initiated by RNase H2 and results in error‐free removal of such mis‐incorporated ribonucleotides. If left unrepaired, DNA‐embedded ribonucleotides result in a variety of alterations within chromosomal DNA, which ultimately lead to genome instability. Here, we review how genomic ribonucleotides lead to chromosomal aberrations and discuss how the tight regulation of RER timing may be important for preventin…
Checkpoint adaptation in recombination-deficient cells drives aneuploidy and resistance to genotoxic agents.
2020
Abstract Human cancers frequently harbour mutations in DNA repair genes, rendering the use of DNA damaging agents as an effective therapeutic intervention. As therapy-resistant cells often arise, it is important to better understand the molecular pathways that drive resistance in order to facilitate the eventual targeting of such processes. We employ recombination-defective diploid yeast as a model to demonstrate that, in response to genotoxic challenges, nearly all cells eventually undergo checkpoint adaptation, resulting in the generation of aneuploid cells with whole chromosome losses that have acquired resistance to the initial genotoxic challenge. We demonstrate that adaptation inhibit…
Homologous recombination as a mechanism of genetic changes in bovine parainfluenza-3 virus
2021
Bovine parainfluenza-3 virus (BPIV-3) is one of the main viruses associated with bovine respiratory disease complex (BRDC) worldwide. BPIV-3 infect the bovine respiratory tract causing from subclinical infections to severe pneumonia with significant economic losses in the cattle industry. BPIV-3 is a RNA virus with high genetic variability, nevertheless, the contribution of recombination events to its variability has not been assessed so far. In this study the 25 complete genome sequences (CGS) reported so far and 215 partial sequences of different viral genes of BPIV-3 were analyzed to determine their genotypes and subgenotypes, distribution, and the existence of potential recombination ev…
Evidence of Recombination in Intrapatient Populations of Hepatitis C Virus.
2008
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of liver disease worldwide and a potential cause of substantial morbidity and mortality in the future. HCV is characterized by a high level of genetic heterogeneity. Although homologous recombination has been demonstrated in many members of the family Flaviviridae, to which HCV belongs, there are only a few studies reporting recombination on natural populations of HCV, suggesting that these events are rare in vivo. Furthermore, these few studies have focused on recombination between different HCV genotypes/subtypes but there are no reports on the extent of intra-genotype or intra-subtype recombination between viral strains infecting the same patient.…