Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Paediatrics, 1994. / Errata slip inserted at back. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-192).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Howard Florey Institute and Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-150).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Two plaque-pure phage lambda clones designated as λhtX-l and λhtX-2 that hybridized to unfractionated bovine liver tRNA were isolated from a human X chromosome-specific library. The λDNAs were characterized by restriction mapping and Southern blot hybridization techniques. The human DNA segment in λhtX-l contains five or more presumptive tRNA genes and at least one Alu family member. The 19-kilobase human DNA insert in λhtX-2 contains two or more presumptive tRNA genes and at least three Alu family members. Another human genomic clone designated λhVKV7 hybridized to mammalian valine tRNA IAC. The clone was characterized by physical mapping and Southern blot hybridization techniques. The 18.5-kilobase human DNA fragment in λhVKV7 contains a cluster of three tRNA genes and at least nine Alu family members.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / With easy access to technology to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs), several groups have sequenced from thousands to several thousands of ESTs. These ESTs benefit from consolidation and organization to deliver significant biological value. A number of EST projects are underway to extract maximum value from fragmented EST resources by constructing gene indices, where all transcripts are partitioned into index classes such that transcripts are put into the same index class if they represent the same gene. Therefore a gene index should ideally represent a non-redundant set of transcripts. Indeed, most gene indices aim to reconstruct the gene complement of a genome and their technological developments are directed at achieving this goal. The South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI), on the other hand, embarked on the development of the sequence alignment and consensus knowledgebase (STACK) database that focused on the detection and visualisation of transcript variation in the context of developmental and pathological states, using all publicly available ESTs. Preliminary work on the STACK project employed an approach of partitioning the EST data into arbitrarily chosen tissue categories as a means of reducing the EST sequences to manageable sizes for subsequent processing. The tissue partitioning provided the template material for developing error-checking tools to analyse the information embedded in the error-laden EST sequences. However, tissue partitioning increases redundancy in the sequence data because one gene can be expressed in multiple tissues, with the result that multiple tissue partitioned transcripts will correspond to the same gene.Therefore, the sequence data represented by each tissue category had to be merged in order to obtain a comprehensive view of expressed transcript variation across all available tissues. The need to consolidate all EST information provided the impetus for developing a STACK human gene index, also referred to as a whole-body index. In this dissertation, I report on the development of a STACK human gene index represented by consensus transcripts where all constituent ESTs sample single or multiple tissues in order to provide the correct development and pathological context for investigating sequence variation. Furthermore, the availability of a human gene index is assessed as a diseasecandidate gene discovery resource. A feasible approach to construction of a whole-body index required the ability to process error-prone EST data in excess of one million sequences (1,198,607 ESTs as of December 1998). In the absence of new clustering algorithms, at that time, we successfully ported D2_CLUSTER, an EST clustering algorithm, to the high performance shared multiprocessor machine, Origin2000. Improvements to the parallelised version of D2_CLUSTER included: (i) ability to cluster sequences on as many as 126 processors. For example, 462000 ESTs were clustered in 31 hours on 126 R10000 MHz processors, Origin2000. (ii) enhanced memory management that allowed for clustering of mRNA sequences as long as 83000 base pairs. (iii) ability to have the input sequence data accessible to all processors, allowing rapid access to the sequences. (iv) a restart module that allowed a job to be restarted if it was interrupted. The successful enhancements to the parallelised version of D2_CLUSTER, as listed above, allowed for the processing of EST datasets in excess of 1 million sequences. An hierarchical approach was adopted where 1,198,607 million ESTs from GenBank release 110 (October 1998) were partitioned into "tissue bins" and each tissue bin was processed through a pipeline that included masking for contaminants, clustering, assembly, assembly analysis and consensus generation. A total of 478,707 consensus transcripts were generated for all the tissue categories and these sequences served as the input data for the generation of the wholebody index sequences. The clustering of all tissue-derived consensus transcripts was followed by the collapse of each consensus sequence to its individual ESTs prior to assembly and whole-body index consensus sequence generation. The hierarchical approach demonstrated a consolidation of the input EST data from 1,198607 ESTs to 69,158 multi-sequence clusters and 162,439 singletons (or individual ESTs). Chromosomal locations were added to 25,793 whole-body index sequences through assignment of genetic markers such as radiation hybrid markers and généthon markers. The whole-body index sequences were made available to the research community through a sequence-based search engine (http://ziggy.sanbi.ac.za/~alan/researchINDEX.html). / South Africa

by Peter, Wei Gong Chang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-124). / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.i / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv / ABBREVIATIONS --- p.viii / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.1 --- General introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Human genome project --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Human adult heart cDNA library --- p.7 / Chapter 1.4 --- Human fetal heart cDNA library --- p.8 / Chapter 1.5 --- Sequencing of a human heart cDNA clone --- p.9 / Chapter 1.6 --- Knowledge of the role of selenium --- p.13 / Chapter 1.7 --- Mouse 56kDa selenium binding protein and acetaminophen-binding protein --- p.16 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- MATERIALS AND METHODS / Chapter 2.1 --- Plating out the cDNA library --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- "Mediums, buffers and solutions" --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Bacteriophage clones preparation --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2 --- cDNA clone amplification by PCR --- p.23 / Chapter 2.3 --- Cycle sequencing of PCR products --- p.25 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- "Media, buffers and solutions" --- p.25 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Preparation of sequencing reaction --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4 --- Gel electrophoresis using an automated A.L.F sequencer --- p.27 / Chapter 2.5 --- DNA sequence analysis --- p.29 / Chapter 2.6 --- Preparation of competent E. coli for transformation --- p.30 / Chapter 2.7 --- Transformation of plasmid into competent E. coll --- p.31 / Chapter 2.8 --- Mini-preparation of plasmid DNA --- p.32 / Chapter 2.9 --- Large scale plasmid DNA preparation by QIAGEN --- p.34 / Chapter 2.10 --- Cloning the human 56 kDa selenium binding protein (hSP56) into the pAED4 vector --- p.36 / Chapter 2.10.1 --- Bacterial strains and vector --- p.36 / Chapter 2.10.2 --- "Media, buffers and solutions" --- p.38 / Chapter 2.10.3 --- Primers design and PCR --- p.42 / Chapter 2.10.4 --- Purification of PCR products by Geneclean --- p.43 / Chapter 2.10.5 --- Restriction digestion of purified PCR product and pAED4 --- p.44 / Chapter 2.10.6 --- Ligation and transformation of hSP56 --- p.45 / Chapter 2.10.7 --- Screening and purification ofpAED4hSP56. --- p.47 / Chapter 2.11 --- Expression of hsp56 --- p.50 / Chapter 2.11.1 --- Induction of hSP56 expression --- p.50 / Chapter 2.11.2 --- SDS-PAGE and protein detection --- p.51 / Chapter 2.12 --- Northern hybriddization of hSP56 --- p.53 / Chapter 2.12.1 --- Animals & human tissue --- p.53 / Chapter 2.12.2 --- "Mediums, buffers and solutions" --- p.53 / Chapter 2.12.3 --- Preparation of total RNA --- p.56 / Chapter 2.12.4 --- Formaldehyde agarose gel electrophoresis --- p.57 / Chapter 2.12.5 --- Preparation of radioactive probe --- p.58 / Chapter 2.12.6 --- RNA transfer and Northern hybridization --- p.59 / Chapter 2.13 --- Chromosomal mapping of the hSP56 gene --- p.62 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- RESULTS / Chapter 3.1 --- The sequencing results of 553 cDNA clones --- p.63 / Chapter 3.2 --- Catalogues of genes expressed --- p.65 / Chapter 3.3 --- Sequence analysis of hSP56 --- p.71 / Chapter 3.4 --- Northern hybridization of hSP56 --- p.84 / Chapter 3.5 --- Cloning of hSP56 into pAED4 --- p.87 / Chapter 3.6 --- Expression of the hSP56 in E. coli --- p.89 / Chapter 3.7 --- Chromosomal mapping of the hSP56 gene --- p.92 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- DISCUSSION / Chapter 4.1 --- General discussion --- p.94 / Chapter 4.2 --- The possible roles of hSP56 and mSP56 --- p.101 / Chapter 4.3 --- Future prospects --- p.102 / REFERENCES --- p.103 / APPENDIX 1 --- p.125 / APPENDIX.2 --- p.127

Errata slip inserted at back / Bibliography: leaves 159-192 / vi, 142, [75] leaves : ill ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Summary: Primary object ... was to construct a pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) derived long range restriction map of this region by physically linking adjacent DNA probes to common high molecular weight genomic DNA fragments / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Paediatrics, 1994

The human genome contains ~1.5% coding sequence, with the remaining 98.5% being non-coding. The functional potential of the majority of this non-coding sequence remains unknown. Much of this non-coding sequence is derived from transposable element (TE) sequences. These TE sequences contain their own regulatory information, e.g. promoter and transcription factor binding sites. Given the large number of these sequences, over 4 million in the human genome, it would be expected that the regulatory information that they contain would affect the expression of nearby genes. This dissertation describes research that characterizes that alternation of and contribution to the human transcriptome by non-coding elements, including TE sequences.

Seven years into the postgenomic era, we sit atop a mountain of data whose generation was enabled by gene sequencing. The creation, integration, and analysis of these large scale data sets allow us to move forward toward the complementary goals of determining the individual roles of the thousands of uncharacterized mammalian genes and understanding how they work together to produce a healthy human being -- or, perhaps more importantly, how their malfunction results in disease. Collapsing the results of large-scale assays into gene networks provides a useful framework from which we can glean information that advances both of these goals. However, the utility of networks is limited by the quality of the data that goes into them. This study offers seeks to shed some light on the quality and breadth of protein interaction networks, describes a new experimental technique for functional genetic assays in mammalian cell lines, and ultimately suggests a strategy for how to improve the overall utility of the output generated by the systems biology community. / text

[Truncated abstract] Polymorphic Alu insertions (POALINs) are known to contribute to the variation and genetic diversity of the human genome. In this report specific POALINs of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) were studied. Previous population studies on the MHC POALINs have focused on individuals of African, European and Asian descent. In this study, we expand the research by studying a new and previously uncharacterised population, focusing on the Bedouin from the Middle East. Specifically we report on the individual insertion frequencies of four POALINs within the MHC class I region of this population. POALINs are members of a young Alu subfamily that have only recently been inserted into the human genome. POALINs are either present or absent at particular sites. Individuals that share the inserted (or deleted) polymorphism inherited the insertion (or deletion) from a common ancestor, making Alu alleles identical by decent. In population genetics a comparison of the resulting products from each population can then be done by comparing the lengths of the PCR products in a series of unrelated individuals and may also detect polymorphisms with regard to the presence or absence of the Alu repeats. As a direct result of their abundance and sequence identity, they promote genetic recombination events that are responsible for large-scale deletions, duplication and translocations. The deletions occur mostly in the A-T rich regions and have found to be unlikely to have been created independently of the insertions of the Alu elements (Callinan et al, 2005) The easy genotyping of the POALINs has proven to be very valuable as lineage markers for the study of human population genetics, pedigree and forensics as well as genomic diversity and evolution. POALINs have been used in a range of applications, primarily focusing on anthropological analysis of human populations. As a result of its ease of use and its utility as a marker in human evolutions studies, combining the POALINs along with other markers used in forensics could lead to improved identity testing in forensic science. More specifically, in combination with more traditional markers, race specific genotypes and haplotypes could be used for profiling crime scene samples. ... This is supported by previously reported molecular data using various types of genetic markers. In a study using six separate Alu genes, Antunez-de-Mayolo et al were able to generate a phylogenetic tree, in which the biogeographical groups followed a pattern. The biogeographical groups started with African populations that were found to relate closely to the hypothetical ancestral African population. The African populations were then followed in order by Southwest Asian populations, European populations which include Middle Eastern groups (Antunez-de-Mayolo et al, 2002). This study shows the similarities and differences between the frequencies of the Middle Eastern Bedouin and the rest of the compared populations. Though no clear results were determined, the information from the POALINs along with information provided from other genetic markers can lead to further research on the Bedouin population and the improvement of the forensic population database in order to accurately test individual ethnic background of samples to be analysed.