10 Result(s)
within
Brian R. Bettencourt
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Article
Open AccessSpider phylosymbiosis: divergence of widow spider species and their tissues’ microbiomes
Microbiomes can have profound impacts on host biology and evolution, but to date, remain vastly understudied in spiders despite their unique and diverse predatory adaptations. This study evaluates closely rela...
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Article
Open AccessEfficacy and safety of patisiran for familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy: a phase II multi-dose study
Transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis is an inherited, progressively debilitating disease caused by mutations in the transthyretin gene. This study evaluated the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharma...
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Article
Open AccessOrganization and evolution of hsp70clusters strikingly differ in two species of Stratiomyidae (Diptera) inhabiting thermally contrasting environments
Previously, we described the heat shock response in dipteran species belonging to the family Stratiomyidae that develop in thermally and chemically contrasting habitats including highly aggressive ones. Althou...
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Article
Open AccessIn vivo quantification of formulated and chemically modified small interfering RNA by heating-in-Triton quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (HIT qRT-PCR)
While increasing numbers of small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapeutics enter into clinical trials, the quantification of siRNA from clinical samples for pharmacokinetic studies remains a challenge. This challe...
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Article
Natural Variation in Drosophila Stressed Locomotion Meets or Exceeds Variation Caused by Hsp70 Mutation: Analysis of Behavior and Performance
Thermotolerance involves more than life or death. Investigating the complexity of this trait will aid identification of its genetic contributors. We examined variation in thermally stressed walking behavior an...
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Article
Duplicate Gene Evolution Toward Multiple Fates at the Drosophila melanogaster HIP/HIP-Replacement Locus
Hsc/Hsp70-interacting protein (HIP) is a rapidly evolving Hsp70 cofactor. Analyses of multiple Drosophila species indicate that the HIP gene is duplicated only in D. melanogaster. The HIP region, in fact, contain...
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Article
Open AccessInducible and constitutive heat shock gene expression responds to modification of Hsp70 copy number in Drosophila melanogaster but does not compensate for loss of thermotolerance in Hsp70null flies
The heat shock protein Hsp70 promotes inducible thermotolerance in nearly every organism examined to date. Hsp70 interacts with a network of other stress-response proteins, and dissecting the relative roles of...
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Article
Polyglutamine expansion in Drosophila: thermal stress and Hsp70 as selective agents
Repetitive DNA sequences that encode polyglutamine tracts are prone to expansion and cause highly deleterious phenotypes of neurodegeneration. Despite this tendency, polyglutamine tracts (“polyQs”) are conserv...
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Article
Annotation of the Drosophila melanogastereuchromatic genome: a systematic review
The recent completion of the Drosophila melanogaster genomic sequence to high quality and the availability of a greatly expanded set of Drosophila cDNA sequences, aligning to 78% of the predicted euchromatic gene...
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Article
Rapid Concerted Evolution via Gene Conversion at the Drosophila hsp70 Genes
We analyzed nucleotide variation in the hsp70 genes of Drosophila melanogaster (five genes) and D. simulans (four genes) to characterize the homogenizing and diversifying roles of gene conversion in their evolut...
