TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hickey, Scott F.
A1  - Sridhar, Malathy
A1  - Westermann, Alexander J.
A1  - Qin, Qian
A1  - Vijayendra, Pooja
A1  - Liou, Geoffrey
A1  - Hammond, Ming C.
T1  - Transgene regulation in plants by alternative splicing of a suicide exon
JF  - Nucleic Acids Research
N2  - Compared to transcriptional activation, other mechanisms of gene regulation have not been widely exploited for the control of transgenes. One barrier to the general use and application of alternative splicing is that splicing-regulated transgenes have not been shown to be reliably and simply designed. Here, we demonstrate that a cassette bearing a suicide exon can be inserted into a variety of open reading frames (ORFs), generating transgenes whose expression is activated by exon skipping in response to a specific protein inducer. The surprisingly minimal sequence requirements for the maintenance of splicing fidelity and regulation indicate that this splicing cassette can be used to regulate any ORF containing one of the amino acids Glu, Gln or Lys. Furthermore, a single copy of the splicing cassette was optimized by rational design to confer robust gene activation with no background expression in plants. Thus, conditional splicing has the potential to be generally useful for transgene regulation.
KW  - kingdom
KW  - pre-messenger RNA
KW  - gene expression
KW  - elements
KW  - decay
KW  - arabidopsis
KW  - eukaryotes
KW  - mechanisms
Y1  - 2012
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-134724
VL  - 40
IS  - 10
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Haeusler, Karl Georg
A1  - Herm, Juliane
A1  - Kunze, Claudia
A1  - Krüll, Matthias
A1  - Brechtel, Lars
A1  - Lock, Jürgen
A1  - Hohenhaus, Marc
A1  - Heuschmann, Peter U.
A1  - Fiebach, Jochen B.
A1  - Haverkamp, Wilhelm
A1  - Endres, Matthias
A1  - Jungehulsing, Gerhard Jan
T1  - Rate of cardiac arrhythmias and silent brain lesions in experienced marathon runners: rationale, design and baseline data of the Berlin Beat of Running study
JF  - BMC Cardiovascular Disorders
N2  - Background: Regular exercise is beneficial for cardiovascular health but a recent meta-analysis indicated a relationship between extensive endurance sport and a higher risk of atrial fibrillation, an independent risk factor for stroke. However, data on the frequency of cardiac arrhythmias or (clinically silent) brain lesions during and after marathon running are missing. 
Methods/Design: In the prospective observational "Berlin Beat of Running" study experienced endurance athletes underwent clinical examination (CE), 3 Tesla brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), carotid ultrasound imaging (CUI) and serial blood sampling (BS) within 2-3 days prior (CE, MRI, CUI, BS), directly after (CE, BS) and within 2 days after (CE, MRI, BS) the 38\(^{th}\) BMW BERLIN-MARATHON 2011. All participants wore a portable electrocardiogram (ECG)-recorder throughout the 4 to 5 days baseline study period. Participants with pathological MRI findings after the marathon, troponin elevations or detected cardiac arrhythmias will be asked to undergo cardiac MRI to rule out structural abnormalities. A follow-up is scheduled after one year. 
Results: Here we report the baseline data of the enrolled 110 athletes aged 36-61 years. Their mean age was 48.8 \(\pm\) 6.0 years, 24.5% were female, 8.2% had hypertension and 2.7% had hyperlipidaemia. Participants have attended a mean of 7.5 \(\pm\) 6.6 marathon races within the last 5 years and a mean of 16 \(\pm\) 36 marathon races in total. Their weekly running distance prior to the 38\(^{th}\) BMW BERLIN-MARATHON was 65 \(\pm\) 17 km. Finally, 108 (98.2%) Berlin Beat-Study participants successfully completed the 38\(^{th}\) BMW BERLIN-MARATHON 2011. 
Discussion: Findings from the "Berlin Beats of Running" study will help to balance the benefits and risks of extensive endurance sport. ECG-recording during the marathon might contribute to identify athletes at risk for cardiovascular events. MRI results will give new insights into the link between physical stress and brain damage.
KW  - marathon running
KW  - cardiac arrhythmia
KW  - atrial fibrillation
KW  - physical activity
KW  - cardiovascular events
KW  - carotid artery
KW  - risk factor
KW  - stroke
KW  - exercise
KW  - death
KW  - metaanalysis
KW  - mechanisms
KW  - ECG-recording
KW  - magnetic resonance imaging
KW  - blood sampling
Y1  - 2012
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-133677
VL  - 12
IS  - 69
ER  -