Anti-CANX monoclonal antibody, clone 4I5B8

The BRIght Target Explorer (BRITE)-Constellation is a group of Canadian/Austrian nanosatellites that will examine the apparently brightest stars in the sky for variability using precise differential photometry. The constellation consists of four low Earth-orbiting nanosatellites, divided into pairs, with each member of a pair having a different optical filter. Each BRITE satellite will observe a region of interest for up to 100 days or longer, allowing the measurement of stellar oscillations on the order of hours to months. Each BRITE satellite utilizes a number of new, innovative technologies including reaction wheels, star tracker and optical telescope, all sized and designed around space flight laboratory's 5-kg, 20 x 20 x 20 cm(3) CanX nanosatellite bus. The BRITE science instrument is a low power complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) detector coupled with a custom lens system designed to provide a telecentric, slightly defocused image optimized for observing stellar intensity with an accuracy of I mmag per data point per orbit down to a visual magnitude of +3.5. Photometric measurements will have an error amplitude spectrum no greater than 20 ppm over measurement periods longer than a month. The optics will have a small (30 mm) aperture and a maximum length of 100 mm in order to fit within the nanosatellite bus. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

During development, cloned embryos often undergo embryonic arrest at any stage of embryogenesis, leading to diverse morphological abnormalities. The long-term effects resulting from embryo cloning procedures would manifest after birth as early death, obesity, various functional disorders, and so forth. Despite extensive studies, the parameters affecting the developmental features of cloned embryos remain unclear. The present study carried out extensive gene expression analysis to screen a cluster of genes aberrantly expressed in embryonic stem cell-cloned blastocysts. Differential screening of cDNA subtraction libraries revealed 224 differentially expressed genes in the cloned blastocysts: eighty-five were identified by the BLAST search as known genes performing a wide range of functions. To confirm their differential expression, quantitative gene expression analyses were performed by real-time PCR using single blastocysts. The genes Skp1a, Canx, Ctsd, Timd2, and Psrnc6 were significantly up-regulated, whereas Aqp3, Ak3l1, Rhot1, Sf3b3, Nid1, mt-Rnr2, mt-Nd1, mt-Cytb, and mt-Co2 were significantly down-regulated in the majority of embryonic stem cell-cloned embryos. Our results suggest that an extraordinarily high frequency of multiple functional disorders caused by the aberrant expression of various genes in the blastocyst stage is involved in developmental arrest and various other disorders in cloned embryos.