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Ana Ching-López,1 Jorge Cervilla,1–3 Margarita Rivera,1–3 Esther Molina,4 Kathryn McKenney,2 Isabel Ruiz-Perez,3,5,6 Miguel Rodríguez-Barranco,5 Blanca Gutiérrez1,21Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of Granada, Granada, 2CIBER en Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), University of Granada, Granada, 3Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria Ibs. Granada, Granada, 4Department of Nursing, University of Seville, Seville, 5Andalusian School of Public Health, Granada, 6CIBER de Epidemiología ySalud Pública (CIBERESP), Granada,SpainBackground: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a serious, and common psychiatric disorder worldwide. By the year 2020, MDD will be the second cause of disability in the world. The Granad∑p study is the first, to the best of our knowledge, epidemiological study of mental disorders carried out in Andalusia (South Spain), being one of its main objectives to identify genetic and environmental risk factors for MDD and other major psychiatric disorders. In this study, we focused on the possible association of 91 candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with MDD.Methods: A total of 711 community-based individuals participated in the Granad∑p study. All individuals were extensively assessed for clinical, psychological, sociodemographic, life style, and other environmental variables. A biological sample was also collected for subsequent genetic analyses in 91 candidate SNPs for MDD. DSM-IV diagnosis of MDD was used as the outcome variable. Logistic regression analysis assuming an additive genetic model was performed to test the association between MDD and the genetic data. The experiment-wide significance threshold adjusted with the SNP spectral decomposition method provided a maximum P-value (8×10-3) required to identify an association. Haplotype analyses were also performed.Results: One SNP (rs623580) located in the tryptophan hydroxylase 1 gene (TPH1; chromosome 11), one intergenic variant (rs9526236) upstream of the 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor 2A gene (HTR2A; chromosome 13), and five polymorphisms (rs17689966, rs173365, rs7209436, rs110402, and rs242924) located in the corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 1 gene (CRHR1; chromosome 17), all showed suggestive trends for association with MDD (P

We present the nucleotide sequence of the galactokinase gene (galK) of Escherichia coli including its 5' and 3' flanking regions. This DNA sequence derives from the lambda gal8 transducing phage and is identical to the sequence present in the galK gene fusion vectors, pKO and pKG, commonly used to study transcriptional regulatory elements. We define the precise 3' junction between the bacterial and phage sequences in lambda gal8 and demonstrate that this junction probably results from a homologous recombination event between identical 9 bp sequences common to the gal operon and phage lambda. Moreover, we examine the 300 bp region located immediately beyond galK for transcription termination function and find no gal operon terminator. Lastly, we compare the galK genes of E. coli and the yeast S. cerevisiae and find several regions of strong homology among which is a potential ATP-binding site homology shared by a variety of ATP-binding proteins including protein kinases encoded by mammalian oncogenes.

We fused segments of the Escherichia coli his regulatory region to galK in single-copy and multicopy vectors. These fusions demonstrated that (i) derepression of his by histidine starvation is due exclusively to attenuation; (ii) the his promoter is metabolically regulated; and (iii) both regulatory systems operate when the his regulatory region is present on a multicopy plasmid. Thus, there is no evidence for titration of his regulatory elements. Deletions of the his anti-attenuator region, carried on multicopy plasmids, cause low-level galK expression. This expression is not stimulated by histidine starvation, but is growth rate dependent. We replaced the his attenuator with the efficient lambda terminator, to. In the context of the his regulatory region, however, lambda to only partially terminates transcription.