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Biomedical subjects

V Johns

Publications and source records attributed to V Johns.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Capturing the activity factor: impact on volume.

In addition to Patient Classification System's information, nurse managers can use activity tools to develop and justify budget needs. A basic accounting-type workflow analysis format, which goes beyond the "Midnight Census," accurately details a unit's patient volume and productive hours.

Costs and Cost Analysis

Sexual reproduction as a response to H2O2 damage in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

Although sexual reproduction is widespread, its adaptive advantage over asexual reproduction is unclear. One major advantage of sex may be its promotion of recombinational repair of DNA damage during meiosis. This idea predicts that treatment of the asexual form of a facultatively sexual-asexual eucaryote with a DNA-damaging agent may cause it to enter the sexual cycle more frequently. Endogenous hydrogen peroxide is a major natural source of DNA damage. Thus, we treated vegetative cells of Schizosaccharomyces pombe with hydrogen peroxide to test if sexual reproduction increases. Among untreated stationary-phase S. pombe populations the sexual spores produced by meiosis represented about 1% of the total cells. However, treatment of late-exponential-phase vegetative cells with hydrogen peroxide increased the percentage of meiotic spores in the stationary phase by 4- to 18-fold. Oxidative damage therefore induces sexual reproduction in a facultatively sexual organism, a result expected by the hypothesis that sex promotes DNA repair.

DNA Repair

Topoisomerase involvement in multiplicity reactivation of phage T4.

The products of phage T4 genes 39, 52 and probably 60 have been previously characterized as forming a type II DNA topoisomerase. Other evidence suggested that this topoisomerase promotes normal initiation of DNA replication, and that when it is defective its loss is partially compensated for by the host gyrase. We present evidence here that mutants defective in genes 39, 52 and 60 have reduced ability to carry out multiplicity reactivation (MR, a form of recombinational repair) of phage DNA damaged either by mitomycin C (MMC) or psoralen plus near-UV light (PUVA). We also observed that there is not extensive superhelicity in the intracellular phage DNA either in the presence or absence of the phage topoisomerase. This tends to rule out the possibility that the topoisomerase influences MR by controlling the general superhelicity of the phage DNA. The dependence of MR on topoisomerase could occur in several possible ways. However, we favor the explanation that the lesions are bypassed by a postreplication recombinational repair process that is influenced by the topoisomerase through its role in initiating replication.

DNA Repair

Recombinational repair of alkylation lesions in phage T4. II. Ethyl methanesulfonate.

Treatment of bacteriophage T4 by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) caused more than a doubling in recombination between two rII markers. The functions of genes 47, 46, 32, 30, uvsX and y are known to be required for genetic recombination, and mutants defective in these genes were found to be more sensitive to inactivation by EMS than wild-type phage. This suggests that a recombinational pathway involving the products of these genes may be employed in repairing EMS induced lethal lesions. Genes 45 and denV are apparently not involved in recombination, and mutants defective in these genes were not EMS-sensitive. Gene 47, 46 and y mutants which were defective in the repair of EMS induced lethal lesions had no detectable deficiency in their ability to undergo EMS-induced mutation. This implies that recombinational repair of EMS lesions does not contribute substantially to EMS mutagenesis. The results obtained here with EMS are general similar to the results reported in the preceding paper with MNNG, suggesting that the lesions caused by both of these monofunctional alkylating agents may be eliminated by similar recombinational repair processes.

Alkylation

Mapping of colicin E2 and colicin E3 plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid EcoR-1-sensitive sites.

Colicin plasmids E2 and E3 (Col E2 and Col E3) deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has been shown to contain, respectively, two and three EcoR1 restriction endonuclease-sensitive sites. This was determined by measuring the DNA fragments generated after EcoR1 endonuclease treatment by agarose gel electrophoresis and electron microscopy. The structure of heteroduplex Col E2-col E3 DNA molecules formed from EcoR1-generated fragments permitted a localization of the EcoR1-sensitive sites on the plasmid chromosomes.

Binding Sites