Asthma is the most common childhood disease (1). It is characterized by inflammation of the small airways of the lung that produces intermittent narrowing of the respiratory bronchioles, airflow limitation, and the symptoms of wheezing, chest tightness, and breathless ness. The most com ...
Essential hypertension is among the best examples of inherited complex quantitative phenotypes. Although this syndrome is well characterized for multiple pathophysiological circuits that have led to the development of potent pharmacological agents influencing blood pr ...
For a simple genetic trait, determined by a single gene, the Mendelian segregation of two or three phenotypes may be observed for the three possible genotypes at a specific locus.
Quantitative traits are defined as traits that have a continuous phenotypic distribution (1,2). Variances of these traits are often controlled by the segregation of many loci, called quantitative trait loci (QTL). Therefore, quantitative traits are often synonymously called poly ...
In a recent issue ofScience, Lander and Weinberg (1) stated that “without doubt, the greatest achievement in biology over the past millennium has been the elucidation of the mechanism of heredity” .The genetic dissection of quantitative phenotypes into Mendelian-like components, or qu ...
A major limitation of current lentiviral vectors (LVs) is their inability to govern efficient gene transfer into quiescent cells, such as human CD34+ cells that reside in the G0 phase of the cell cycle and that are highly enriched in hematopoietic stem cells. This hampers their application for gene ...
Human adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) has been widely explored as a gene delivery vector. To achieve highly efficient and specific gene delivery, it is often necessary to re-direct Ad5 tropism. Because the capsid protein fiber plays an essential role in directing Ad5 infection, our laboratory att ...
Bifunctional polyethylene glycol (PEG) molecules provide a novel approach to retargeting viral vectors without the need to genetically modify the vector. Modification of the surface of adenovirus with heterofunctional PEG allows further modification of the capsid with ligand ...
PCR-based sex determination was first accomplished by amplifying multiple-copy sequences in the Y-chromosomal DYZ1 locus (1,2). These methods are quite sensitive (amplifiable from trace samples) due to the multiplicity, but it is impossible to tell whether the template DNA is from a fema ...
Direct analysis of the composition of DNA has been used for forensic and paternity analysis since 1985 (1). Since each person, except for identical twins, has a unique DNA composition, methods that allow the detection of differences in the DNA are useful to resolve identification issues involv ...
Samples likely to be used in forensic analysis are often available in minute quantities; for example, one strand of hair. In order to be able to assign a species of origin to this material using molecular-biology techniques, it is necessary to extract the DNA. When the material is limiting, the number of c ...
Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is an emerging technology that has the potential to increase the speed and automation of DNA-typing procedures (1,2). Although slab-gel electrophoresis is widely used, there are several advantages to analyzing DNA in a capillary format. First and foremo ...
Single-base substitutions, which give rise to biallelic sequence polymorphism, have been estimated to occur on the average at one out of a thousand nucleotides in the human genome (1). Analysis of this allelic variation can be utilized in population genetic studies, in genetic-linkage ana ...
A wide range of biological samples are encountered in the field of forensic science, including blood, soft tissue, semen, urine, saliva, teeth, and bone. Forensic samples are routinely found as stains on various substrates, including cotton, denim, carpet, wallboard, wood, envelopes, and ci ...
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has offered the forensic scientist a new range of sensitivity in the examination of forensic samples. PCR has been successfully used to amplify specific DNA fragments from extremely small amounts of DNA present on cigaret butts (1,2), postage stamps (3), en ...
One of the greatest values of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the death investigator lies in the fact that even minute amounts of DNA or extensively damaged (degraded) DNA can be successfully amplified and thus become amenable for typing procedures.
Quantification of template DNA is an essential step in the analysis of samples using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Once aPCR reaction has been optimized, the amplification of too little genomic DNA may yield only partial results, and the addition of too much template may increase the tenden ...
With the growing applications for the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in human identity testing, a need exists for more rapid and automated forms of assessing amplification success. Methods that allow the characterization of a sample without consuming much material are helpful, espec ...
The investigation of DNA polymorphisms has revolutionized forensic-identity analysis over the past decade. Since the first papers by Jeffreys on “DNA fingerprinting” appeared in 1985, DNA-based profiling techniques have been adopted by the worldwide forensic community. Until v ...
Nucleic acids labeled with the radioisotope phosphorus-32 are used as probes for various purposes; coupled with autoradiographic detection, they provide a high degree of sensitivity.