Using a functional gene marker, Watanabe et al. (2013) pointed out the importance of sulfur cycling and microbial interactions in freshwater environments, including in the modern sediments of L. Maruwan.
This study attempted to infer the genetic variation and evolutionary relationship within the genus Glycine using a functional miRNA marker.
The laccase gene was used as a functional marker due to its involvement in lignocellulose degradation.
Because of these facts, the c-Fos expression in spinal cord neurons has been used as a functional marker of nociception in many studies [ 11, 15- 19].
ALDHI is often expressed in cancer stem cells and has been used as a functional marker for isolating cancer stem cells [66].
For both the AOA and AOB, the amoA gene encoding the a-subunit of ammonia monooxygenase has been widely used as a functional marker for investigating their distribution and abundance in natural environments [ 6, 7].
ALDH1 protein expression was also found correlated with ALDH enzymatic activity (Jiang et al, 2009), a crucial point as ALDH enzyme activity can be used as a functional marker for isolating CSCs (Carpentino et al, 2009; Huang et al, 2009).
Ammonia detoxication and pH regulation need urea synthesis, that is performed by hepatocytes, so ammonia metabolism is often used as a functional marker of hepatic phenotype (Lippincott 1993; Saunders 1996; Michalopoulos 2007; Tanaka et al. 2011).
The gene amoA, encoding the alpha subunit of Amo, is widely used as a functional marker to analyze the phylogeny and abundance of AOB and AOA in the environments (Francis et al. 2005; Rotthauwe et al. 1997).
Thus, when possible we used fluorescently tagged Bem1 as a functional marker for polarity clusters.
