In May 2016, the Division of Cancer Prevention and the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, convened a workshop to discuss a conceptual framework for identifying and genetically testing previously diagnosed but unreferred patients with ovarian cancer and other unrecognized BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers to improve the detection of families at risk for breast or ovarian cancer. The concept, designated Traceback, was prompted by the recognition that although BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are frequent in women with ovarian cancer, many such women have not been tested, especially if their diagnosis predated changes in testing guidelines. The failure to identify mutation carriers among probands represents a lost opportunity to prevent cancer in unsuspecting relatives through risk-reduction intervention in mutation carriers and to provide appropriate reassurances to noncarriers. The Traceback program could provide an important opportunity to reach families from racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups who historically have not sought or been offered genetic counseling and testing and thereby contribute to a reduction in health disparities in women with germline BRCA mutations. To achieve an interdisciplinary perspective, the workshop assembled international experts in genetics, medical and gynecologic oncology, clinical psychology, epidemiology, genomics, cost-effectiveness modeling, pathology, bioethics, and patient advocacy to identify factors to consider when undertaking a Traceback program. This report highlights the workshop deliberations with the goal of stimulating research and providing a framework for pilot studies to assess the feasibility and ethical and logistical considerations related to the development of best practices for implementation of Traceback studies.

Gene 2.5 of bacteriophage T7 is an essential gene that encodes a single-stranded DNA-binding protein (gp2.5). Previous studies have demonstrated that the acidic carboxyl terminus of the protein is essential and that it mediates multiple protein-protein interactions. A screen for lethal mutations in gene 2.5 uncovered a variety of essential amino acids, among which was a single amino acid substitution, F232L, at the carboxyl-terminal residue. gp2.5-F232L exhibits a 3-fold increase in binding affinity for single-stranded DNA and a slightly lower affinity for T7 DNA polymerase when compared with wild type gp2.5. gp2.5-F232L stimulates the activity of T7 DNA polymerase and, in contrast to wild-type gp2.5, promotes strand displacement DNA synthesis by T7 DNA polymerase. A carboxyl-terminal truncation of gene 2.5 protein, gp2.5-⌬26C, binds single-stranded DNA 40-fold more tightly than the wild-type protein and cannot physically interact with T7 DNA polymerase. gp2.5-⌬26C is inhibitory for DNA synthesis catalyzed by T7 DNA polymerase on single-stranded DNA, and it does not stimulate strand displacement DNA synthesis at high concentration. The biochemical and genetic data support a model in which the carboxyl-terminal tail modulates DNA binding and mediates essential interactions with T7 DNA polymerase.Gene 2.5 of bacteriophage T7 encodes a single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) 1 -binding protein (gp2.5) that is essential for viral survival (1). gp2.5 modulates several important reactions in DNA replication, recombination, and repair (1-12). The fundamental reactions at the T7 phage replication fork can be reconstituted with only four proteins (13, 14): T7 gene 5 DNA polymerase, its processivity factor Escherichia coli thioredoxin (15, 16), T7 gene 4 helicase/primase (17-19), and T7 gp2.5. gp2.5 physically interacts with T7 DNA polymerase and T7 helicase/primase to stimulate their activities (6,8). The binding of gp2.5 to ssDNA is critical because it affects both specific DNA-protein and protein-protein interactions in the replisome (14,20). In this regard it is essential for coupling leading and lagging strand DNA synthesis in vitro (14). gp2.5 is also essential for recombination in T7 phage-infected cells, and in addition to the interactions described above, it also mediates homologous base pairing (11).Despite a lack of sequence homology, T7 gp2.5 is functionally similar to the extensively studied SSB protein of E. coli and the gene 32 protein of bacteriophage T4. Like gp2.5, they are both ssDNA-binding proteins, a class of ubiquitous proteins that are not only essential in DNA replication but also play key roles in DNA recombination and repair (7, 21). Biochemical studies have shown that these proteins, like T7 gp2.5, interact with other proteins at the replication fork. E. coli SSB protein interacts with E. coli DNA polymerase II, exonuclease I, and other proteins involved in replication (22-24). T4 gene 32 protein physically interacts with at least 10 T4-encoded proteins, including T4 DNA polymerase, that are involved in T4...

A common target for therapies against human immuno-deficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is the viral reverse transcriptase (RT). Treatment with the widely used nucleoside analog (-)-2', 3'-deoxy-3'-thiacytidine (3TC) leads to the development of resistance-conferring mutations at residue M184 within the YMDD motif of RT. First, variants of HIV with the M184I substitution appear transiently, followed by viruses containing the M184V substitution, which persist and become the dominant variant for the duration of therapy. In the three-dimensional crystal structure of HIV-1 RT complexed with double-stranded DNA, the M184 residue lies in the vicinity of the primer terminus, near the incoming dNTP substrate. Recent studies have shown that 3TC resistance mutations, including M184I, increase the nucleotide insertion and mispair extension fidelity. Therefore, we have examined the effects of the M184I mutation on the overall polymerase fidelity of HIV-1 RT via an M13-based forward mutation assay. We found the overall error rate of the M184I variant of HIV-1 RT to be 1.7 x 10(-5) per nucleotide. This represents a 4-fold increase in fidelity over wild-type HIV-1Hxb2RT (7.0 x 10(-5) per nucleotide) and a 2.5-fold increase in fidelity over the M184V variant (4.3 x 10(-5) per nucleotide). Of the nucleoside analog resistance mutations studied using the forward assay, the M184I variant has shown the greatest increase in fidelity observed to date. Interestingly, the M184I variant RT displays significantly altered error specificity, both in terms of error rate at specific sites and in the overall ratio of substitution to frameshift mutations in the entire target.

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Providing opportunities for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics undergraduates to engage in authentic scientific practices is likely to influence their view of science and may impact their decision to persist through graduation. Laboratory courses provide a natural place to introduce students to scientific practices, but existing curricula often miss this opportunity by focusing on confirming science content rather than exploring authentic questions. Integrating authentic science within laboratory courses is particularly challenging at high-enrollment institutions and community colleges, where access to research-active faculty may be limiting. The Authentic Inquiry through Modeling in Biology (AIM-Bio) curriculum presented here engages students in authentic scientific practices through iterative cycles of model generation, testing, and revision. AIM-Bio university and community college students demonstrated their ability to propose diverse models for biological phenomena, formulate and address hypotheses by designing and conducting experiments, and collaborate with classmates to revise models based on experimental data. Assessments demonstrated that AIM-Bio students had an enhanced sense of project ownership and greater identification as scientists compared with students in existing laboratory courses. AIM-Bio students also experienced measurable gains in their nature of science understanding and skills for doing science. Our results suggest AIM-Bio as a potential alternative to more resource-intensive curricula with similar outcomes.