Annual Review of Genetics articles from January 1 2003

Annual Review of Genetics archives from January 1 2003

Ira Herskowitz (1946-2003).(Obituary)
January 1, 2003... On April 28, 2003, the genetics community lost one of its most creative and talented members when Ira Herskowitz succumbed to pancreatic cancer, at age 56. Ira's career intersected the activities of Annual Review of Genetics and its...

Transposon-based strategies for microbial functional genomics and proteomics.
January 1, 2003... Key Words transposon, mutagenesis, bacteria, pentapeptide scanning, signature-tagged mutagenesis Abstract Transposons are mobile genetic elements that can relocate from one genomic location to another. As well as modulating gene...

Error-prone DNA polymerases: when making a mistake is the only way to get ahead (1).
January 1, 2003... Key Words translesion polymerase, somatic hypermutation, untargeted mutagenesis, nonhomologous end joining, polymerase recruitment Abstract Cells have high-fidelity polymerases whose task is to accurately replicate the genome, and...

Genetics of hair and skin color.
January 1, 2003... Key Words melanin, melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), eumelanin, pheomelanin, red hair Abstract Differences in skin and hair color are principally genetically determined and are due to variation in the amount, type, and packaging of melanin...

Thiol-based regulatory switches.
January 1, 2003... Key Words redox reactions, cysteine, metal coordination, transcriptional regulation, disulfide bonds Abstract Thiol-based regulatory switches play central roles in cellular responses to oxidative stress, nitrosative stress, and changes...

Pseudogenes: are they "junk" or functional DNA?
January 1, 2003... Key Words neutral evolution, evolutionary rate, DNA polymorphism, Drosophila, potogene Abstract Pseudogenes have been defined as nonfunctional sequences of genomic DNA originally derived from functional genes. It is therefore assumed...

Unusual life style of giant chlorella viruses.
January 1, 2003... Key Words chlorella viruses, PBCV-1, algal viruses, protein glycosylation, ion channel proteins Abstract Paramecium bursaria chlorella virus (PBCV-1) is the prototype of a family of large, icosahedral, plaque-forming, dsDNA viruses that...

Genetics of lactase persistence and lactose intolerance.
January 1, 2003... Key Words milk, polymorphism, population distribution, developmental decline, functional DNA element Abstract The enzyme lactase that is located in the villus enterocytes of the small intestine is responsible for digestion of lactose in...

Cell polarity and the cytoskeleton in the Caenorhabditis elegans zygote.
January 1, 2003... Key Words C. elegans, cell cortex, PAR proteins, cell polarity, microfilaments, microtubules, mitotic spindle Abstract The anterior-posterior axis of the Caenorhabditis elegans zygote forms shortly after fertilization when the sperm...

The spindle assembly and spindle position checkpoints.
January 1, 2003... Key Words kinetochore, spindle pole, sister chromatid separation, mitotic exit, cell cycle Abstract The mitotic spindle segregates chromosomes to opposite ends of the cell in preparation for cell division. Chromosome attachment to the...

Lateral gene transfer and the origins of prokaryotic groups.
January 1, 2003... Key Words bacteria, archaea, lateral gene transfer (LGT), evolution, metabolism Abstract Lateral gene transfer (LGT) is now known to be a major force in the evolution of prokaryotic genomes. To date, most analyses have focused on either...

Genetics of aging in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.
January 1, 2003... Key Words life span, oxidative stress, insulin/IGF-like signaling, caloric restriction, gene expression Abstract Research into the mechanisms underlying the process of aging is emerging as an exciting area of biomedical research....

Natural selection and the evolution of genome imprinting.
January 1, 2003... Key Words natural selection, parental origin effects, meiotic pairing, recombination, imprinting, epigenetic Abstract Sexual reproduction results from the fusion of gametes in which the chromatin configuration of maternal and paternal...

The need for winter in the switch to flowering.
January 1, 2003... Key Words vernalization, floral transition, flowering-time genetics, cold response, epigenetics Abstract Vernalization is the process whereby the floral transition is promoted through exposure of plants to long periods of cold...

Transmission ratio distortion in mice.
January 1, 2003... Key Words t-complex, meiotic drive, male sterility, hybrid sterility, dynein genes Abstract The most studied example of transmission ratio distortion (TRD) in mice is that of the t-complex. This is a variant region of Chromosome 17 which...

Structure, diversity, and evolution of protein toxins from spore-forming entomopathogenic bacteria.
January 1, 2003... Key Words insects, Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus sphaericus, crystal proteins, insecticidal proteins Abstract Gram-positive spore-forming entomopathogenic bacteria can utilize a large variety of protein toxins to help them invade,...

Yeast vacuole inheritance and dynamics.
January 1, 2003... Key Words myosin V, actin-based transport, phosphatidylinositol 3,5-bisphosphate, osmotic stress, protein acylation Abstract The vacuole/lysosome of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is actively divided between mother and...

Heparan sulfate core proteins in cell-cell signaling.
January 1, 2003... Key Words Syndecan, Glypican, Betaglycan, CD44, Proteoglycan Abstract Heparan sulfate (HS) binds numerous extracellular ligands, including cell-cell signaling molecules and their signal-transducing receptors. Ligand binding sites in HS...

Retrotransposons provide an evolutionarily robust non-telomerase mechanism to maintain telomeres.
January 1, 2003... Key Words chromosomes, Drosophila telomeres, HeT-A and TART, nuclear targeting, polyglutamine repeats Abstract Telomere molecular biology is far more complex than originally thought. Understanding biological systems is aided by study of...

A cyanobacterial circadian timing mechanism.
January 1, 2003... Key Words ATPase, biological clock, receiver domain, kai, signal transduction Abstract Cyanobacteria such as Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 exhibit 24-h rhythms of gene expression that are controlled by an endogenous circadian clock...

Regulation of cell cycles in Drosophila development: intrinsic and extrinsic cues.
January 1, 2003... Key Words DNA replication, mitosis, checkpoint, differentiation, cell growth Abstract An intriguing aspect of cell cycle regulation is how cell growth and division are coordinated with developmental signals to produce properly patterned...

Recognition and response in the plant immune system.
January 1, 2003... Key Words resistance gene, disease, genetics, Arabidopsis thaliana, NBS-LRR, defense response Abstract Molecular communication between plants and potential pathogens determines the ultimate outcome of their interaction. The directed...

REcA-dependent recovery of arrested DNA replication forks.
January 1, 2003... Key Words RecA, replication, repair, DNA damage, recombination DNA damage encountered during the cellular process of chromosomal replication can disrupt the replication machinery and result in mutagenesis or lethality. The RecA protein of...