Archives of Molecular Biology and Genetics

Review Article Open Access

SARS-CoV-2 Mutations, Diagnosis and Their Concern

Yakup Artik, Nevra Pelin Cesur, Nelisa Türkoğlu Laçin

The first case is described in Wuhan city of China in December 2019 and the disease (COVID-19) continues to pose threat to global health all over the world affecting more than approximately 476 million confirmed cases and 6 million deaths. Reliable and effective methods are taken a critical role such as real-time reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR test as a gold standard method, serological tests, and reverse transcriptase loopmediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) method is chosen firstly. 

Review Article Open Access

Impact of Sleep on Autophagy and Neurodegenerative Disease: Sleeping Your Mind Clear

Samuel Deutsch, Bilal R. Malik

Sleep is an evolutionarily conserved phenomenon which has survived tremendous evolutionary pressures. Its disruption has deleterious implications for human health. The importance of sleep is illustrated by the fact that sleep deprivation in many animals leads to death. While sleep is tightly regulated by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors it becomes progressively disrupted in old age and in neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD). 

Short Communication Open Access

Actors of ROS Homeostasis in Stigmatic Cells Essential for Plant Reproduction

Chie Kodera, Isabelle Fobis-Loisy

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play important roles during development and responses to external stimuli. In Brassicaceae, the stigma epidermis accumulates a large amount of ROS. Moreover, regulating the stigmatic ROS status is crucial for Self-incompatibility (SI) mechanisms, to ensure self-pollen rejection while promoting compatible pollen. Here, scanning our transcriptomic data in light of recent advances in the Brassicaceae SI system, we identified Class III peroxidases that are highly expressed in mature stigma and might regulate stigma ROS homeostasis.

Commentary Open Access

Commentary on NOBOX Mutations in Premature Ovarian Insufficiency

Asma Sassi, Julie Désir, Alexander Gheldof, Sonia Van Dooren, Xavier Peyrassol, Marc Abramowicz, Anne Delbaere

NOBOX is an ovarian specific transcription factor that plays an important role in follicular growth and survival. Nineteen NOBOX variants have been previously associated with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI). Disease severity in patients with heterozygous and homozygous mutations largely overlap however, hampering genotype-phenotype correlations. We recently reported the first case of biallelic truncating mutations (NM_001080413.3 (NOBOX):c.826C>T, p.(Arg276*) and NM_001080413.3(NOBOX):c.1421del, p.(Gly474Alafs*76)) of NOBOX in two Belgian sisters with POI.

Review Article Open Access

The Nature of Radiation-induced Inherited Recessive Gene Mutations in Drosophila Melanogaster

ID Alexandrov, MV Alexandrova, KP Afanasyeva

The nature of gene mutations induced by ionizing radiation in germ cells and transmitted to offspring remains one of the most important problems in radiation genetics of higher eukaryotes. The data accumulated in this field were obtained by different authors under different experimental conditions which does not give a complete insight about the nature of radiation-induced inherited mutations at different genome levels (chromosome, gene, DNA). 

Commentary Open Access

Escherichia coli Stress, Multi-cellularity, and the Generation of the Quorum Sensing Peptide EDF

Isabella Moll, Hanna Engelberg-Kulka

Bacterial communication via quorum sensing (QS) molecules, as well as toxin-antitoxin (TA) gene modules located on bacterial chromosomes are well-studied mechanisms. Escherichia coli mazEF is a stress-induced TA system mediating cell death requiring a QS extracellular death factor (EDF), the pentapeptide NNWNN. MazF is an endoribonuclease specific for ACA sites. During adverse conditions, the activated MazF generates a stress induced translation machinery, composed of MazF-processed mRNAs and selective ribosomes that specifically translate these processed mRNAs.