In a research report published in the November 2009 issue of the journal GENETICS (http://www.genetics.org), scientists show how a family of genes (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase, or ACS genes) are responsible for production of ethylene. This gas affects many aspects of plant development, and this information lays the foundation for future genetic manipulation that could make plants disease resistant, able to survive and thrive in difficult terrain, increase yields, and other useful agronomical outcomes. This discovery was made with the weed Arabidopsis thaliana, but it will be applicable to plants used in agriculture.
A key question in the origin of biological molecules like RNA and DNA is how they first came together billions of years ago from simple precursors. Now, in a study appearing in this week's JBC, researchers in Italy have reconstructed one of the earliest evolutionary steps yet: generating long chains of RNA from individual subunits using nothing but warm water.
Bacteria possess an ingenious mechanism for preventing oxygen from harming the building blocks of the cell. This is the new finding of a team of biologists that includes Joris Messens of VIB, a life sciences research institute in Flanders, Belgium, connected to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The scientists made this discovery by modifying the DNA of the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli. By means of this model organism, they have uncovered the existence of a mechanism that repairs proteins in the cell that have been damaged by oxygen. There are indications that a similar repair system is active in human cells. The research results are being published in the eminent scientific journal Science. At the same time, the researchers are posting an animation online that illustrates the finding.
Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have uncovered the genetic identity of a cellular receptor for the immune system's first-response antibody, a discovery that sheds new light on infection control and immune disorders. The discovery is such a crucial part of immunology that UAB researchers, in conjunction with Japanese researchers, are asking that the gene linked to this antibody receptor be renamed to better describe its role in early immune responses.
A new treatment route for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its human form Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD) could be a step closer based on new results from scientists at the University of Leeds. The team has found that a protein called Glypican-1 plays a key role in the development of BSE. Details are published November 20 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.
A mathematical model has explained some of the remarkable features of mosquito hearing. In particular, the male can hear the faintest beats of the female's wings and yet is not deafened by loud noises.
It's a naturally occurring brain chemical with an unwieldy name: 4-hydroxybutyrate (4-HB). Taken by mouth, it can be abused or used as a date-rape drug.
People preferentially marry those with similar ancestry, but their decisions are not necessarily based on hair, eye or skin colour. Research, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, shows that Mexicans mate according to proportions of Native American to European ancestry, while Puerto Ricans are more likely to settle down with someone carrying a similar mix of African and European genes.
Purdue University scientists have helped identify and group the genes thought to be responsible for cell wall development in maize, an effort that expands their ability to discover ways to produce the biomass best suited for biofuels production.
Stem cell research is making great strides. This is yet again illustrated by a study carried out by the I-STEM* Institute (I-STEM/ Inserm UEVE U861/AFM), published in the Lancet on 21 November 2009. The I-STEM team, directed by Marc Peschanski has just succeeded in recreating a whole epidermis from human embryonic stem cells.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins and their colleagues have developed sugar-coated polymer strands that selectively kill off cells involved in triggering aggressive allergy and asthma attacks. Their advance is a significant step toward crafting pharmaceuticals to fight these often life-endangering conditions in a new way.
A new study of maize has identified thousands of diverse genes in genetically inaccessible portions of the genome. New techniques may allow breeders and researchers to use this genetic variation to identify desirable traits and create new varieties that were not easily possible before.
In a massive survey of genetic diversity in maize, also known as corn, researchers across the United States, have developed a gene map that should pave the way to significant improvements in a plant that is a major source of food, fuel, animal feed and fiber around the world.
A synthetic bone matrix offers hope for babies born with craniosynostosis, a condition that causes the plates in the skull to fuse too soon. Implants replacing some of the infant's bone with the biodegradable matrix could eliminate some of the operations currently used to treat the condition.
A team led by Penn State's Ross Hardison, T. Ming Chu Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has taken a large step toward unraveling how regulatory proteins control the production of gene products during development and growth. Working with collaborators including Drs. Mitchell Weiss and Gerd Blobel at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, they focused specifically on the complex process of producing red blood cells (erythrocytes). These cells contain large amounts of hemoglobin, a molecule essential for transporting oxygen throughout the body. Abnormalities in hemoglobin figure in many serious diseases, such as sickle-cell disease, and abnormalities in producing blood cells can lead to leukemias. The work will be published in the December 2009 issue of the journal Genome Research.
This week, scientists are revealing the genetic instructions inside corn, one of the big three cereal crops. Corn, or maize, has one of the most complex sequences of DNA ever analyzed, says University of Wisconsin-Madison genomicist David Schwartz, who was one of more than 100 authors in the article in the journal Science.
Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.
The maize genome sequence is now complete thanks to a decoding effort so challenging even the epic aptitudes of secret agent 007—James Bond—would have come up short.
In recent years, scientists have decoded the DNA of humans and a menagerie of creatures but none with genes as complex as a stalk of corn, the latest genome to be unraveled.
When it comes to corn, 1 + 1 = more than 2: The offspring of two inbred strains tend to be superior to both of their parents. Characterizing the gene-level variability that leads to this phenomenon, known as heterosis or hybrid vigor, could boost our ability to custom-tailor crops for specific traits, such as high protein content for human consumption or high glucose content for biomass fuel.
Our lab is interested in computational approaches to understanding biological function and the genetic basis of diseases. Our work falls into three interrelated aims.
