Nuclei, basal
A region located at the base of the brain composed of 4 clusters of neurons, or nerve cells. This area of the brain is responsible for body movement and coordination.
The groups of neurons most prominently and consistently affected in Huntington disease — the pallidum and striatum — are located in the basal nuclei.
(The pallidum is composed of structures called the globus pallidus and the ventral pallidum while the striatum consists of the caudate nucleus, putamen, and ventral striatum.)
The basal nuclei are also called the basal ganglia. The term “basal” refers to the location of these collections of neurons (nuclei or ganglia) deep within the brain, seemingly at its very base.
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- Pallidum
Part of what are called the basal ganglia of the brain which consist of the globus pallidus and the ventral pallidum. The globus pallidus itself is a pale-appearing spherical area in the brain. (Globus is a Latin word meaning a globe or sphere. Pallidus refers to its pallor relative to the surrounding brain substance.) The […]
- Nucleic acid
In 1869 Friedrich Miescher developed ways of isolating intact nuclei from cells and analyzing their chemical content. From the nuclei he extracted substances rich in phosphorus and nitrogen. They came to be known as “nucleic acids.” Miescher predicted that they would someday be considered as important as proteins. The substances turned out to be deoxyribonucleic […]
- Nucleic acid hybridization
DNA-DNA (DNA can be rendered single-stranded by heat denaturation), DNA-RNA or RNA-RNA. In situ hybridization involves hybridizing a labelled nucleic acid (often labelled with a fluorescent dye) to suitably prepared cells or histological sections. This is used particularly to look for specific transcription or localization of genes to specific chromosomes via fluorescent in situ hybridization […]
- Nucleocaspid
The genome plus the protein coat of a viral. The genome is nucleic acid. The protein coat is the capsid. The term nucleocaspid was coined in 1963.
- Nucleosome
A structure that is responsible in part for the compactness of a chromosome. Each nucleosome consists of a sequence of DNA wrapped around a core of histone, which is a type of protein.