Inducible vancomycin resistance in enterococci is due to a sophisticated mechanism that combines synthesis of cell wall peptidoglycan precursors with low affinity for glycopeptides and elimination of the normal target precursors. Although this dual mechanism, which involves seven genes organized in two operons, is predicted to have a high fitness c...
High mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) is a major endogenous danger signal that triggers inflammation and immunity during septic and aseptic stresses. HMGB1 recently emerged as a key soluble factor in the pathogenesis of various infectious diseases, but nothing is known of its behaviour during herpesvirus infection. We therefore investigated the...
Mammals possess five nucleosome assembly protein 1-like (NAP1L) proteins, with three of them being expressed exclusively in the nervous system. The biological importance of the neuron-specific NAP1L2 protein is demonstrated by the neural tube defects occurring during the embryonic development of Nap1l2 mutant mice, which are associated with an over...
Deinococcus radiodurans is a robust bacterium best known for its capacity to repair massive DNA damage efficiently and accurately. It is extremely resistant to many DNA-damaging agents, including ionizing radiation and UV radiation (100 to 295 nm), desiccation, and mitomycin C, which induce oxidative damage not only to DNA but also to all cellular ...
Histone H2B ubiquitylation is a transcription-dependent modification that not only regulates nucleosome dynamics but also controls the trimethylation of histone H3 on lysine 4 by promoting ubiquitylation of Swd2, a component of both the histone methyltransferase COMPASS complex and the cleavage and polyadenylation factor(CPF). We show that preventi...
Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterial pathogen that induces its own entry into a broad range of mammalian cells through interaction of the bacterial surface protein InlB with the cellular receptor Met, promoting an actin polymerization/depolymerization process that leads to pathogen engulfment. Phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate (PI[4,5]P(2)) and tr...
In the course of screening for virus-host systems in extreme thermal environments, we have isolated a strain of the hyperthermophilic archaeaon Acidianus hospitalis producing unusual filamentous particles with a zipper-like appearance. The particles were shown to represent a secreted form of a genuine cellular enzyme, tetrathionate hydrolase, invol...
Netrin-1 is a bifunctional axonal guidance cue, capable of attracting or repelling developing axons via activation of receptors of the deleted in colorectal cancer (DCC) and uncoordinated 5 (UNC5) families, respectively. In addition to its role in axon guidance, Netrin-1 has been implicated in angiogenesis, where it may also act as a bifunctional c...
In humans, a mutation in the tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase (Tdp1) is responsible for the recessively inherited syndrome spinocerebellar ataxia with axonal neuropathy (SCAN1). Tdp1 is a well-conserved DNA repair enzyme, which processes modified 3' phospho-DNA adducts in vitro. Here, we report that in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, tdp1 mutant ...
We have quantified the biological cost of VanA-type glycopeptide resistance due to the acquisition of the resistance operon by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from Enterococcus sp. Exponential growths of recipient strain HIP11713, its transconjugant VRSA-1, VRSA-5, and VRSA-6 were compared in the absence or, except for HIP11713, ...
