Missense glucokinase mutation in maturity-onset diabetes of the young and mutation screening in late-onset diabetes.

We describe a codon 299 mutation in the glucokinase gene in a British pedigree with maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) resulting in a substitution of glycine to arginine. One out of fifty patients diagnosed with classical late-onset type 2 diabetes mellitus was also found to have this mutation. All nine relatives of this patient who have inherited the mutation have type 2 diabetes, although six others without the mutation are also present with diabetes. The discovery that glucokinase mutations can cause MODY and was also found in ten affected members of a pedigree with type 2 diabetes in which MODY had not previously been considered indicates that diagnosis based on molecular pathology will be helpful in understanding the aetiology of type 2 diabetes.     

Chromosomes and giemsa-bands of the Idaho spotted ground squirrel,Spermophilus brunneus (Howell)

-Spermophilus brunneus . , 13 18 ,S. brunneus S. townsendii mollis (2n=38) , , ; ;S. brunneus . S. brunneus , Spermophilus.

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Supported by National Science Foundation Grants No. GB32114X and No. GB 29131X, and the Sprague Foundation. We thankD. Pozin for technical assistance.     

A common progenitor for neurons and glia persists in rat retina late in development

Retrovirus-mediated gene transfer was used to mark cell lineages in vivo in the postnatal rat retina. Labelled clones contained up to three different cell types: three types of neurons or two types of neurons and a Müller glial cell. This indicates that a single retinal progenitor can generate remarkably diverse cell types near the end of development.     

The genome of the simian and human malaria parasite Plasmodium knowlesi

Plasmodium knowlesi is an intracellular malaria parasite whose natural vertebrate host is Macaca fascicularis (the 'kra' monkey); however, it is now increasingly recognized as a significant cause of human malaria, particularly in southeast Asia. Plasmodium knowlesi was the first malaria parasite species in which antigenic variation was demonstrated, and it has a close phylogenetic relationship to Plasmodium vivax, the second most important species of human malaria parasite (reviewed in ref. 4). Despite their relatedness, there are important phenotypic differences between them, such as host blood cell preference, absence of a dormant liver stage or 'hypnozoite' in P. knowlesi, and length of the asexual cycle (reviewed in ref. 4). Here we present an analysis of the P. knowlesi (H strain, Pk1(A+) clone) nuclear genome sequence. This is the first monkey malaria parasite genome to be described, and it provides an opportunity for comparison with the recently completed P. vivax genome and other sequenced Plasmodium genomes. In contrast to other Plasmodium genomes, putative variant antigen families are dispersed throughout the genome and are associated with intrachromosomal telomere repeats. One of these families, the KIRs, contains sequences that collectively match over one-half of the host CD99 extracellular domain, which may represent an unusual form of molecular mimicry.