Objective-The apolipoprotein(a) [apo(a)] gene locus is the major determinant of the circulating concentration of the atherothrombogenic lipoprotein Lp(a). In vitro analysis of the intergenic region between the apo(a) and plasminogen genes revealed the presence of a putative apo(a) transcription control region (ACR) approximately 20 kb upstream of the apo(a) gene that significantly increases the minimal… [Read More]

Genome-wide sequence analysis in the invertebrate chordate, Ciona intestinalis, has provided a comprehensive picture of immune-related genes in an organism that occupies a key phylogenetic position in vertebrate evolution. The pivotal genes for adaptive immunity, such as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and II genes, T-cell receptors, or dimeric immunoglobulin molecules, have not… [Read More]

Nonhuman primates represent the most relevant model organisms to understand the biology of Homo sapiens. The recent divergence and associated overall sequence conservation between individual members of this taxon have nonetheless largely precluded the use of primates in comparative sequence studies. We used sequence comparisons of an extensive set of Old World and New World… [Read More]

In this paper we describe a new global alignment method called AVID. The method is designed to be fast, memory efficient, and practical for sequence alignments of large genomic regions up to megabases long. We present numerous applications of the method, ranging front the comparison of assemblies to alignment of large syntemic genomic regions and… [Read More]

Nitrosomonas europaea (ATCC 19718) is a gram-negative obligate chemolithoautotroph that can derive all its energy and reductant for growth from the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite. Nitrosomonas europaea participates in the biogeochemical N cycle in the process of nitrification. Its genome consists of a single circular chromosome of 2,812,094 bp. The GC skew analysis indicates… [Read More]

The ability to detect putative cis-regulatory elements in cardiovascular-related genes has been accelerated by the availability of genomic sequence data from numerous vertebrate species and the recent development of comparative genomic tools. This improvement is anticipated to lead to a better understanding of the complex regulatory architecture of cardiovascular (CV) genes and how genetic variants… [Read More]

The availability of the assembled mouse genome makes possible, for tile first time, all alignment and comparison of two large vertebrate genomes. We investigated different strategies of alignment for tile subsequent analysis of conservation of genomes that are effective for assemblies of different quality. These strategies were applied to the comparison of the working draft… [Read More]

Multi-species comparisons of DNA sequences are more powerful for discovering functional sequences than pairwise DNA sequence comparisons. Most current computational tools have been designed for pairwise comparisons, and efficient extension of these tools to multiple species will require knowledge of the ideal evolutionary distance to choose and the development of new algorithms for alignment, analysis… [Read More]

Xylella fastidiosa causes Pierce’s disease. a serious disease of grape, citrus variegated chlorosis. almond and oleander leaf scorches, and many other similar diseases. Although the complete genome sequences of several strains of this organism are now available, the function of most genes in this organism, especially those conferring virulence, is lacking. attachment of X. fastidiosa… [Read More]

With the availability of whole-genome sequences for an increasing number of species, we are now faced with the challenge of decoding the information contained within these DNA sequences. Comparative analysis of DNA sequences from multiple species at varying evolutionary distances is a powerful approach for identifying coding and functional noncoding sequences, as well as sequences… [Read More]