Eric B. O'Neill

• BS Biology/Chemistry
• Technician at Georgia Institute of Technology

Mg(2+) is essential for RNA folding and catalysis. However, for the first 1.5 billion years of life on Earth RNA inhabited an anoxic Earth with abundant and benign Fe(2+). We hypothesize that Fe(2+) was an RNA cofactor when iron was abundant, and was substantially replaced by Mg(2+) during a period known as the 'great oxidation', brought on by phot...

Ancient components of the ribosome, inferred from a consensus of previous work, were constructed in silico, in vitro and in vivo. The resulting model of the ancestral ribosome presented here incorporates ∼20% of the extant 23S rRNA and fragments of five ribosomal proteins. We test hypotheses that ancestral rRNA can: (i) assume canonical 23S rRNA-li...

Mg²⁺ shares a distinctive relationship with RNA, playing important and specific roles in the folding and function of essentially all large RNAs. Here we use theory and experiment to evaluate Fe²⁺ in the absence of free oxygen as a replacement for Mg²⁺ in RNA folding and catalysis. We describe both quantum mechanical calculations and experiments tha...

8% polyacryalamide – 8 M urea denaturing gels showing L1 Ribozyme Ligase reaction progress. Only species tagged with 5′-Cy3 dye (substrate and product) are visible. The L1 Ribozyme Ligase is visible when the gel is stained with cyber gold or ethidium. The reaction rate increases when [Fe2+] is increased from 100 µM (LH panel, reaction product obser...

Electronic energies, interaction energies and the corresponding counterpoise-corrected interaction energies calculated at the (U)B3LYP/6–311++G(d,p) level of theory within the framework of IEFPCM in water. (DOCX)

RNA Synthesis and Purification. (DOCX)

Electronic configurations of Mg2+ and Fe2+ in the RNA2− -Mg2+(H2O)4 and RNA2− -Fe2+(H2O)4 complexes as revealed by the NBO at the (U)B3LYP/6–31G(d,p) level of theory. (DOCX)

The three-dimensional structure of the ribosomal large subunit (LSU) reveals a single morphological element, although the 23S rRNA is contained in six secondary structure domains. Based upon maps of inter- and intra-domain interactions and proposed evolutionary pathways of development, we hypothesize that Domain III is a truly independent structura...

Pichia caribbica sp. nov. (type strain DBVPG 4519, NRRL Y-27274, CBS 9966) is described as the ascosporic state of Candida fermentati, and Candida guilliermondii var. carpophila (type strain DBVPG 7739, NRRL Y-17905, CBS 5256) is elevated to species status as Candida carpophila comb. nov. These new taxa, which are indistinguishable on the basis of...

Pituitary adenomas cause significant morbidity caused by compression of regional structures or the inappropriate expression of pituitary hormones. However, little is known about the molecular changes that contribute to the development of these tumors. To investigate these changes, we recently used cDNA microarray analysis to identify several genes...

Cryptococcus neoformans NIH 409 was cultured in a defined medium containing D-[1-13C]xylose (Xyl), D-[1-13C]mannose (Man), or D-[1-13C]mannitol as the sole carbon source. The distribution of 13C in the Man, Xyl, glucuronic acid (GlcA), and O-acetyl constituents of native and de-O-acetylated glucuronoxylomannan (GXM) was determined by one-dimensiona...

A method is described for the serotyping of Cryptococcus neoformans based on direct analysis of culture supernatants for the major type-specific capsular antigen, glucuronoxylomannan. Factor sera prepared by absorption of polyclonal rabbit antisera (Iatron Laboratories, Inc., Tokyo, Japan) or selected anti-C. neoformans monoclonal antibodies were u...