Classification of Histoplasma capsulatum isolates by restriction fragment polymorphisms

Twenty isolates of the dimorphic, pathogenic fungus Histoplasma capsulatum were divided into three classes based on comparisons of restriction enzyme digests of their mitochondrial DNA and rDNA. The majority of isolates, including most North American strains and the African H. capsulatum var. duboisii variants, belong to class 2. Isolates from Central America and South America make up class 3. The attenuated Downs strain is the only member of class 1.     

Aspartic acid administered neonatally affects ventilation of male and female rats differently

In this study ventilation was evaluated in 12-mo-old male and female rats who had received large doses of aspartic acid neonatally. Rats of both sexes treated with aspartic acid were obese, stunted, and exhibited hypogonadism. Although metabolic rates of the aspartic acid-treated rats were not different compared with sex-matched controls, ventilatory patterns were different. Aspartic acid-treated females breathed with a smaller tidal volume (VT), higher frequency (f), and similar minute ventilation (VE) compared with control females. This pattern is commonly observed in many patients who are obese. The aspartic acid-treated females responded to hypercapnic and hypoxic challenges by increasing f more than VT. Tissue pocket gases (PCO2 and PO2) of aspartic acid-treated females were normal. In contrast, aspartic acid-treated males hypoventilated compared with control males. Tissue pocket gas values suggested that aspartic acid-treated males were hypoxemic and hypercapnic. Moreover, the response of aspartic acid-treated males to hypercapnia was parallel to but was less than that of control male rats. The ventilatory response of aspartic acid-treated male rats to hypoxia was blunted. This study has shown that neonatal administration of aspartic acid causes a decreased ventilation and blunted response to hypoxia in adult male but not female rats.     

Genomic DNA sequence for human C-reactive protein

The gene for the prototype acute phase reactant, C-reactive protein, has been isolated from two lambda phage libraries containing inserted human DNA fragments using synthetic oligonucleotide probes. Nucleotide sequence analysis indicates that after coding for a signal peptide of 18 amino acids and the first two amino acids of the mature protein, there is an intron of 278 base pairs followed by the nucleotide sequence for the remaining 204 amino acids. The intron is unusual in that it contains on the positive strand a poly(A) stretch 16 nucleotides long and a poly(GT) region 30 nucleotides long which could adopt the Z-form of DNA. The nucleotide sequence reported here confirms the amino acid sequence of mature C-reactive protein as originally reported except that it codes for an additional 19 amino acids beginning at position 62. Thus DNA sequence analysis predicts that the mature protein consists of 206 amino acids rather than 187 as originally reported. The mRNA cap site is located 104 nucleotides from the start of the signal peptide and there is a 3' noncoding region 1.2 kilobase pairs in length. The gene has a typical promoter containing the sequences TATAAAT and CAAT 29 and 81 base pairs upstream, respectively, of the cap site.     

Twenty-seven protein polymorphisms by two-dimensional electrophoresis of serum, erythrocytes, and fibroblasts in two pedigrees

Twenty-seven independent polymorphic loci were detected by two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE) of serum, erythrocytes, and fibroblasts in two large families and analyzed for linkage to classical genetic markers. We detected seven serum, four erythrocyte, and 17 fibroblast protein loci that exhibited charge variation in these two families and in a sample of unrelated individuals. The genetic basis of protein variants was confirmed by quantitative gene-dosage dependence and by conformance to Mendelian transmission in the two families, except for four rare variants for which transmission analysis was not possible. Linkage analysis demonstrated that each of the variants represent products of independent loci, with the exception of erythrocyte locus (RBC4), which we also detected in fibroblasts (NC27). Two allozyme polymorphisms, glyoxalase-1 (GLO1) and phosphoglucomutase-3 (PGM3) were specifically identified here based on genotypic concordance and molecular mass. Unknown fibroblast protein (NC22) may be linked to apolipoprotein E (lod score = 2.8 at theta m = theta f = 0), while a serum protein locus (SER1) may be linked to alpha-haptoglobin (lod score = 2.54 at theta m = .20, theta f = .01). Six of seven polymorphic serum loci were previously located on two-dimensional gels: alpha-1 antitrypsin (PI), Gc-globulin (GC), alpha-2 HS glycoprotein (HSGA), alpha-haptoglobin (HP), and two apolipoproteins (APOE and APOA4). Six of 17 polymorphisms detected in fibroblasts were positionally identical to polymorphic loci seen in lymphocytes. These studies indicate a minimum level of average protein charge heterozygosity of approximately 2.2% for the most predominant human cellular proteins and of 5.6% for the most predominant proteins of serum.     

Dexamethasone-induced phospholipase A2-inhibitory proteins (PLIP) influenced by the H-2 histocompatibility region

Recent work has indicated that the H-2 histocompatibility complex on chromosome 17 influences the degree of glucocorticoid-induced teratogenicity and anti-inflammatory response. Since both of these hormonal actions appear to be mediated by the induction of phospholipase A2-inhibitory proteins (PLIP), the influence of the H-2 complex on the induction of PLIP by glucocorticoids in thymocytes and embryonic palates has been investigated. Analysis of dexamethasone-induced PLIP by Sephadex G-100 revealed four peaks of mol wt 55,000, 40,000, 28,000 and 15,000 in mouse thymocytes and from one to three of these PLIPs in mouse embryonic palates. The 55,000 mol wt PLIP comprised 50-60% of the total activity. The total amount of dexamethasone-induced PLIP is significantly higher in B10.A (H-2a) thymocytes than that in thymocytes of their congenic resistant partners, B10 (H-2b). The induced level of PLIP in the embryonic palates treated with dexamethasone is also significantly higher in the H-2a congenic strains with either the A or B background (AWy or B10.A) than that in their resistant partners (A.BY or B10). Thus, both susceptibility to glucocorticoid-induced cleft palate and the production of PLIP by this hormone are influenced by the H-2 complex.     

A comparative description of mitochondrial DNA differentiation in selected avian and other vertebrate genera

Levels of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence divergence between species within each of several avian (Anas, Aythya, Dendroica, Melospiza, and Zonotrichia) and nonavian (Lepomis and Hyla) vertebrate genera were compared. An analysis of digestion profiles generated by 13-18 restriction endonucleases indicates little overlap in magnitude of mtDNA divergence for the avian versus nonavian taxa examined. In 55 interspecific comparisons among the avian congeners, the fraction of identical fragment lengths (F) ranged from 0.26 to 0.96 (F = 0.46), and, given certain assumptions, these translate into estimates of nucleotide sequence divergence (p) ranging from 0.007 to 0.088; in 46 comparisons among the fish and amphibian congeners, F values ranged from 0.00 to 0.36 (F = 0.09), yielding estimates of P greater than 0.070. The small mtDNA distances among avian congeners are associated with protein-electrophoretic distances (D values) less than approximately 0.2, while the mtDNA distances among assayed fish and amphibian congeners are associated with D values usually greater than 0.4. Since the conservative pattern of protein differentiation previously reported for many avian versus nonavian taxa now appears to be paralleled by a conservative pattern of mtDNA divergence, it seems increasingly likely that many avian species have shared more recent common ancestors than have their nonavian taxonomic counterparts. However, estimates of avian divergence times derived from mtDNA- and protein-calibrated clocks cannot readily be reconciled with some published dates based on limited fossil remains. If the earlier paleontological interpretations are valid, then protein and mtDNA evolution must be somewhat decelerated in birds. The empirical and conceptual issues raised by these findings are highly analogous to those in the long-standing debate about rates of molecular evolution and times of separation of ancestral hominids from African apes.      

Methods for computing the standard errors of branching points in an evolutionary tree and their application to molecular data from humans and apes

Statistical methods for computing the standard errors of the branching points of an evolutionary tree are developed. These methods are for the unweighted pair-group method-determined (UPGMA) trees reconstructed from molecular data such as amino acid sequences, nucleotide sequences, restriction-sites data, and electrophoretic distances. They were applied to data for the human, chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, and gibbon species. Among the four different sets of data used, DNA sequences for an 895-nucleotide segment of mitochondrial DNA (Brown et al. 1982) gave the most reliable tree, whereas electrophoretic data (Bruce and Ayala 1979) gave the least reliable one. The DNA sequence data suggested that the chimpanzee is the closest and that the gorilla is the next closest to the human species. The orangutan and gibbon are more distantly related to man than is the gorilla. This topology of the tree is in agreement with that for the tree obtained from chromosomal studies and DNA-hybridization experiments. However, the difference between the branching point for the human and the chimpanzee species and that for the gorilla species and the human-chimpanzee group is not statistically significant. In addition to this analysis, various factors that affect the accuracy of an estimated tree are discussed.