Search results for "VARIATION"
showing 10 items of 2124 documents
Population structure and recombination in environmental isolates of Legionella pneumophila
2007
Legionella pneumophila is a water-borne bacteria responsible for most cases of legionellosis, an emerging disease with an increasing incidence in industrialized countries. Although early analysis based on multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) described the population structure of this species as clonal, more recent reports have suggested that recombination also contributes to shaping variation across its genome. We report here the results of analysing the nucleotide sequences of 19 loci in 31 environmental samples of L. pneumophila from a small Spanish region (near Alcoi, province of Alicante) where legionellosis has become almost endemic. We analysed the six loci currently incorporated …
rRNA probing of chromosomal DNA of epidemic and sporadic isolates of Salmonella enterica subsp. Enterica serovar kottbus from Northern and Southern I…
1990
Fifty-two strains of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Kottbus, identified at the Centres of Enterobacteriaceae of Northern and Southern Italy, were investigated by molecular genetic methods. Thirteen isolates were recovered during two food-poisoning outbreaks that occurred in May 1987 in Lombardy. The rDNA gene restriction patterns, obtained by probing endonuclease cleaved chromosomal DNA with photobiotin labeled Escherichia coli rRNA, revealed some heterogeneity among strains isolated from Southern Italy, whereas Northern Italy isolates exhibited virtually identical banding patterns.
Real-time quantitative PCR of Staphylococcus aureus and application in restaurant meals.
2006
Staphylococcus aureus is considered the second most common pathogen to cause outbreaks of food poisoning, exceeded only by Campylobacter. Consumption of foods containing this microorganism is often identified as the cause of illness. In this study, a rapid, reliable, and sensitive real-time quantitative PCR was developed and compared with conventional culture methods. Real-time quantitative PCR was carried out by purifying DNA extracts of S. aureus with a Staphylococcus sample preparation kit and quantifying it in the LightCycler system with hybridization probes. The assay was linear from a range of 10 to 10(6) S. aureus cells (r2 > 0.997). The PCR reaction presented an efficiency of >85%. …
Expression profiling of uniparental mouse embryos is inefficient in identifying novel imprinted genes
2006
AbstractImprinted genes are expressed from only one allele in a parent-of-origin-specific manner. We here describe a systematic approach to identify novel imprinted genes using quantification of allele-specific expression by Pyrosequencing, a highly accurate method to detect allele-specific expression differences. Sixty-eight candidate imprinted transcripts mapping to known imprinted chromosomal regions were selected from a recent expression profiling study of uniparental mouse embryos and analyzed. Three novel imprinted transcripts encoding putative non-protein-coding RNAs were identified on the basis of parent-of-origin-specific monoallelic expression in E11.5 (C57BL/6 × Cast/Ei)F1 and in…
Differential cycles of range contraction and expansion in European high mountain plants during the Late Quaternary: insights from Pritzelago alpina (…
2003
Nuclear DNA sequence variation of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) were used to illuminate the evolutionary history of Pritzelago alpina, a herbaceous perennial of (sub)alpine to nival habitats of the European high mountains. Maximum likelihood analysis of ITS sequences of P. alpina, Hornungia petraea and Hymenolobus procumbens (the 'Pritzelago alliance') resolved P. alpina and H. petraea as sister taxa. ITS divergence estimates support an origin for P. alpina in the Late Tertiary, while intraspecific diversification started in the Late Quaternary (0.4-0.9 million years ago). AFLP analysis of 76 individuals of P. alpina, representing …
Nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) concerted evolution in natural and artificial hybrids of Armeria (Plumbaginaceae)
1999
Nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences from artificial hybrids and backcrosses between Armeria villosa ssp. longiaristata and A. colorata were studied to assess the possible effects of concerted evolution in natural hybrids. F1 artificial hybrids show the expected pattern of additive polymorphisms for five of the six variable sites as estimated from direct sequences. However, homogenization of polymorphism is already observed in the F2, and is biased towards A. colorata except for one site. In backcrosses, an expected tendency towards homogenization of polymorphic sites in the direction of the recurrent parent is observed for five sites, although this does…
MDA: a MATLAB-based program for morphospace-disparity analysis
2003
A MATLAB® program that examines patterns of state-space occupation is described. Four subroutines are available with which to visualize morphospace patterns: (i) in terms of their features such as dispersion, aggregation and location, thereby allowing users to extract complementary quantitative information about how the state-space is structured, and (ii) in terms of changes in those patterns that can be compared with other biotic (e.g., extinction, origination rates) or abiotic (e.g., environmental proxy) information. The program incorporates many of the latest and most widely used statistical parameters for describing multivariate spaces. The parameters are estimated on the basis of boots…
MRI resolution enhancement using total variation regularization
2009
We propose a novel method for resolution enhancement for volumetric images based on a variational-based reconstruction approach. The reconstruction problem is posed using a deconvolution model that seeks to minimize the total variation norm of the image. Additionally, we propose a new edge-preserving operator that emphasizes and even enhances edges during the up-sampling and decimation of the image. The edge enhanced reconstruction is shown to yield significant improvement in resolution, especially preserving important edges containing anatomical information. This method is demonstrated as an enhancement tool for low-resolution, anisotropic, 3D brain MRI images, as well as a pre-processing …
Multi-integrals of finite variation
2020
The aim of this paper is to investigate different types of multi-integrals of finite variation and to obtain decomposition results.
Nitrous oxide emission in a University of Cape Town membrane bioreactor: The effect of carbon to nitrogen ratio
2017
Abstract The effect of the carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio in the influent on the nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emission from a University of Cape Town Membrane BioReactor pilot plant was investigated. The membrane was located in a separate tank to single out the production of N 2 O due to the biological processes from N 2 O stripping as a result of the extra aeration needed for the mitigation of membrane fouling. The experimental campaign was divided into two phases, each characterized by a different C/N ratio (namely, 10 and 5 mgCOD/mgTN, Phase I and Phase II, respectively). The decrease of the C/N ratio promoted the increase of N 2 O emissions in both gaseous and dissolved phases, mainly due to a…