Micro DNA

OBJECTIVES: Plasmid mediated quinolone resistance (PMQR) genes are increasingly detected worldwide. However, in Morocco a few studies have been carried out. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of these determinants among Escherichia coli and Klebsiella spp isolated from North-West of Morocco. METHODS: The prevalence of PMQR genes was investigated among 398 E. coli and 118 Klebsiella spp clinical isolates collected between 2012 and 2015 from North-West of Morocco...

We use mesoscopic lattice-Boltzmann/molecular dynamics simulations to study the stretching behavior of a single tethered polymer in micro- and nanochannels. In particular, we are interested in the connection between fluid flow properties and the force on the polymer chain. An analytical expression for the stretching force is proposed, which linearly depends on the number of monomers and the boundary shear rate. In agreement with theory, the numerical findings reveal that the influence of hydrodynamic interactions can be ignored, which is also supported by results of additional Langevin dynamics simulations...

Limited bonding valence, usually accompanied by well-defined directional interactions and selective bonding mechanisms, is nowadays considered among the key ingredients to create complex structures with tailored properties: even though isotropically interacting units already guarantee access to a vast range of functional materials, anisotropic interactions can provide extra instructions to steer the assembly of specific architectures. The anisotropy of effective interactions gives rise to a wealth of self-assembled structures both in the realm of suitably synthesized nano- and micro-sized building blocks and in nature, where the isotropy of interactions is often a zero-th order description of the complicated reality...

A sub-population of the tumor micro-environment consists of cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are responsible for the initiation and recurrence of cancer. Recently, epigenetic processes such as DNA methylation, histone modification, and chromatin remodeling have been found to be involved in inducing epigenetic factors in CSCs. Most of these processes, such as DNA methylation, generally occur in the genome that is rich in Cytosine-Guanine repeat sequences, also known as CpG islands, which are distributed throughout the human genome...

BACKGROUND: Exposure to inorganic arsenic (iAs) is a major threat to the human health worldwide. The consumption of arsenic in drinking water and other food products is associated with the risk of development of type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The available experimental evidence indicates that epigenetic alterations may play an important role in the development of diseases that are linked with exposure to environmental toxicants. iAs seems to be associated with the epigenetic modifications such as alterations in DNA methylation, histone modifications, and micro RNA (miRNA) abundance...

SIGNIFICANCE: The extent and breadth of transcription has recently been uncovered and this has revealed an extensive array of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). The biological role and significance of these ncRNAs have been realised and to date it appears that ncRNA may have many important regulatory functions. ncRNAs are multifaceted and they induce a complexity of different types of transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation including gene activation. Recent Advances: Association of ncRNAs with gene activation is an important finding...

The tightly packed and dynamic structure of chromatin can undergo major reorganization in response to endogenous or exogenous stimuli, such as the regulation of transcription or the cell cycle, or following DNA damage. A fast and local chromatin decondensation is observed upon DNA damage induced by laser micro-irradiation. This decondensation is under the control of poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation (PARylation) by PARP1, one of the first proteins recruited at the DNA damage sites. This chapter provides a step-by-step guide to perform and analyze chromatin decondensation upon DNA damage induction...

A new series of thiazole nortopsentin analogues was conveniently synthesized with fair overall yields. The antiproliferative activity of the new derivatives was tested against different human tumor cell lines of the NCI full panel. Four of them showed good antitumor activity with GI50 values from micro to nanomolar level. The mechanism of the antiproliferative effect of these derivatives, was pro-apoptotic, being associated with externalization of plasma membrane phosphatidylserine and DNA fragmentation. The most active and selective of the new thiazoles confined viable cells in G2/M phase and markedly inhibited in vitro CDK1 activity...

Nanocarriers are useful tools in biological and medical research fields. In nanomanipulation, a nondestructive and successful process can be achieved by using nanocarriers. In this paper, a nonclassical multiscale approach has been presented for modeling a single strand DNA (ssDNA) manipulation based on AFM. To achieve a nondestructive nanomanipulation process, carbon nanotube (CNT) has been used as a nanocarrier. AFM setup has been separated into a Micro field (MF) and a Nano field (NF). The governing equations of the MF have been derived based on Kirchhoff plate model and a modified couple stress theory...

Mechanical loading plays a major role in bone remodeling and fracture healing. Mimicking the concept of mechanical loading of bone has been widely studied in bone tissue engineering by perfusion cultures. Nevertheless, there is still debate regarding the in-vitro mechanical stimulation regime. This study aims at investigating the effect of two different flow rates (vlow = 0.001m/s and vhigh = 0.061m/s) on the growth of mineralized tissue produced by human mesenchymal stromal cells cultured on 3-D silk fibroin scaffolds...

One of the most common plastics in the marine environment is polystyrene (PS) that can be broken down to micro sized particles. Marine organisms are vulnerable to the exposure to microplastics. This study assesses the effects of PS microplastics in tissues of the clam Scrobicularia plana. Clams were exposed to 1mgL(-1) (20μm) for 14days, followed by 7days of depuration. A qualitative analysis by infrared spectroscopy in diffuse reflectance mode period detected the presence of microplastics in clam tissues upon exposure, which were not eliminated after depuration...

SIGNIFICANCE: A fraction of tumorigenic cells, also known as tumor initiating or cancer stem cells, is thought to drive tumor growth, metastasis and chemoresistance. However, little is known regarding mechanisms that convey relevant pathways contributing to their self-renewal, proliferation and differentiation abilities. Recent Advances: Recent works on cancer stem cells provide evidence on the role of redox disruption and regulation of autophagic flux. This has been linked to increased DNA repair capacity and chemoresistance...

Microfluidic droplet-based screening of DNA-encoded one-bead-one-compound combinatorial libraries is a miniaturized, potentially widely distributable approach to small molecule discovery. In these screens, a microfluidic circuit distributes library beads into droplets of activity assay reagent, photochemically cleaves the compound from the bead, then incubates and sorts the droplets based on assay result for subsequent DNA sequencing-based hit compound structure elucidation. Pilot experimental studies revealed that Poisson statistics describe nearly all aspects of such screens, prompting the development of simulations to understand system behavior...

Glial cells protect themselves from the elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) via developing unusual mechanisms to maintain the genomic stability, and reprogramming of the cellular antioxidant system to cope with the adverse effects. In the present study non-cytotoxic dose of oxidants, H2O2 (100 μM) and GO (10 μU/ml) was used to induce moderate oxidative stress via generating ROS in human glioblastoma cell line U-87 MG cells, which showed a marked increase in the antioxidant capacity as studied by measuring the modulation in expression levels and activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD1 and SOD2) and catalase (CAT) enzymes, and the GSH content...

In this review, we have summarized evaluation methods for the analysis of external stimuli-mediated nucleic acid and gene delivery. Prior to reviewing these evaluation methods, we describe various delivery processes of nucleic acid and gene medicines (small interfering RNA (siRNA), micro RNA, mRNA, plasmid DNA, etc.), which include interaction with blood components, bio-distribution, disposition in the target tissue, cell entry, intracellular trafficking, nuclear localization, and dissociation from the carriers...

Cancer cell engraftment in the target organ is necessary to establish metastasis. Clinically, lymph node metastasis of single cells has been confirmed using cytokeratin staining. In the current study, a LacZ-labeled cancer cell line was used to visualize intrahepatic metastasis of single cells or liver micrometastasis. KM12SM-lacZ stably expressing LacZ was prepared with a highly metastatic colon cancer cell line, KM12SM. KM12SM-lacZ was injected into the spleen of nude mice and following 1 week the spleen was excised...

RNAi is applied as a new and safe method for pest control in agriculture but efficiency and specificity of delivery of dsRNA trigger remains a critical issue. Various agents have been proposed to augment dsRNA delivery, such as engineered micro-organisms and synthetic nanoparticles, but the use of viruses has received relatively little attention. Here we present a critical view of the potential of the use of recombinant viruses for efficient and specific delivery of dsRNA. First of all, it requires the availability of plasmid-based reverse genetics systems for virus production, of which an overview is presented...

Site-specific gene expression analyses are important for understanding tissue functions. Despite rapid developments in DNA-related technologies, the site-specific analysis of whole genome expression for a tissue remains challenging. Thus, a new tool is required for capturing multiple tissue micro-dissections or single cells while retaining the positional information. Here, we describe the development of such a system, which can pick up micro-dissections by punching a tissue repeatedly in a very short period, e...

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes is a major healthcare problem. Glucose-, lipid-, and blood pressure-lowering strategies decrease the risk of micro- and macrovascular complications. However, a substantial residual risk remains. To unravel the etiology of type 2 diabetes and its complications, large-scale, well-phenotyped studies with prospective follow-up are needed. This is the goal of the DiaGene study. In this manuscript, we describe the design and baseline characteristics of the study...

Current methods for identifying neoplastic cells and discerning them from their normal counterparts are often nonspecific and biologically perturbing. Here, we show that single-cell micro-Raman spectroscopy can be used to discriminate between resistant and sensitive multiple myeloma cell lines based on their highly reproducible biomolecular spectral signatures. In order to demonstrate robustness of the proposed approach, we used two different cell lines of multiple myeloma, namely MM.1S and U266B1, and their counterparts MM...