Tag Archives: gene

A Better Route to Xylan

By Guest PostNovember 13, 2012Sciencealex schultink, aromatic compound, atmosphere, biofuel, biofuel generation, biomass, carbon, cell wall, cellulose, cellulosic biofuel, component, coumaric acid, dawn chiniquy, dwarf phenotype, earth, extraction, ferulic, gene, glycosyltransferases, gt61 enzymes, henrik scheller, jbei, lignin, material, metric tons, pamela ronald, plant, rice, saccharification, solar energy, store, sugar, vaishali sharma, xax1, xax1 mutant, xylan, xylan chain

Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Find New Access to Abundant Biomass for Advanced Biofuels

After cellulose, xylan is the most abundant biomass material on Earth, and therefore represents an enormous potential source of stored solar energy for the production of advance biofuels. A major roadblock, however, has been extracting xylan from plant cell walls. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have taken a significant step towards removing this roadblock by identifying a gene in rice plants whose suppression improves both the extraction of xylan and the overall release of the sugars needed to make biofuels.

The newly identified gene – dubbed XAX1 – acts to make xylan less extractable from plant cell walls. JBEI researchers, working with a mutant variety of rice plant – dubbed xax1 – in which the XAX1 gene has been “knocked-out” found that not only was xylan more extractable, but saccharification – the breakdown of carbohydrates into releasable sugars – also improved by better than 60-percent. Increased saccharification is key to more efficient production of advanced biofuels. (more…)

PTSD Consortium

By Guest PostNovember 1, 2012Healthadult, afghanistan, americans, bad experience, behavior, behavioral epigenetic, brain, brain imaging, cambridge, car accident, cardiovascular disease, chemical change, combat troops, david diamond, delaware, diagnose, disorder, DNA, dna methylation, draper laboratory, gene, hormone level, Iraq, military, molecular change, molecular modification, objective biomarker, panic attack, posttraumatic, ptsd, rate, rodent model, south florida, stress, stress disorder, tania roth, trauma, university, victim, violent crime, war

Researchers seek better ways to diagnose, treat disorder

Tania Roth studies what happens to the brain when stress occurs early in life, seeking to pinpoint how those kinds of bad experiences can cause molecular changes to DNA.

Now, by participating in a national consortium of researchers, the assistant professor of psychology at the University of Delaware is hoping to use her expertise to contribute to a better understanding of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (more…)

University of Toronto Study Demonstrates Impact of Adversity on Early Life Development

By Guest PostOctober 28, 2012Sciencebehavioural geneticist, biology, british columbia, childhood adversity, chris reaume, cifar, dna sequence, drosophila melanogaster, ebbd, Environment, enzyme, evidence, evolutionary biology, food, for, foraging gene, fruit fly, gene, gene robinson, human development, illinois, interaction, james burns, kindergartener, larvae, marla sokolowski, molecular genetics, Nature, neuroscience, pkg, pnas, pre programmed, protein, reproductive fitness, rna, rovers, sitters, tom boyce, toronto, transgenic manipulation, university

Study part of growing body of knowledge surrounding gene-environment interplay

TORONTO, ON – It is time to put the nature versus nurture debate to rest and embrace growing evidence that it is the interaction between biology and environment in early life that influences human development, according to a series of studies recently published in a special edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“Biologists used to think that our differences are pre-programmed in our genes, while psychologists argued that babies are born with a blank slate and their experience writes on it to shape them into the adults they become. Instead, the important question to be asking is, ‘How is our experience in early life getting embedded in our biology?’” says University of Toronto behavioural geneticist Marla Sokolowski. She is co-editor of the PNAS special edition titled “Biological Embedding of Early Social Adversity: From Fruit Flies to Kindergarteners” along with professors Tom Boyce (University of British Columbia) and Gene Robinson (University of Illinois). (more…)

New Insights into How Genetic Differences among Individuals Influence Breast Cancer Risk from Low-Dose Radiation

By Guest PostOctober 17, 2012Health, Scienceandy wyrobek, antoine snijders, berkeley lab, breast cancer, cancer risk, cellular, cellular proliferation, chemical therapy, ct scan, department, dna repair, energy, gene, genetic makeup, gland cancer, immune response, ionizing radiation, joe gray, low dose, mammary tissue, mechanism, mice, non radiation, radiotherapy, resistance, risk, scientist, strain, survival outcome, therapy, tissue mechanism, tissue stress, woman

Berkeley Lab research could lead to new ways to ID women who have higher risk of breast cancer from low-dose radiation

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have identified tissue mechanisms that may influence a woman’s susceptibility or resistance to breast cancer after exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation, such as the levels used in full-body CT scans and radiotherapy.

The research could lead to new ways to identify women who have higher or lower risks of breast cancer from low-dose radiation. Such a predictive tool could help guide the treatment of cancer patients who may be better served by non-radiation therapies. (more…)

A Welcome Predictability

By Guest PostOctober 9, 2012Scienceadam arkin, adaptor, advanced phase, bacteria, bacterial, berkeley lab, carbon, cell, chang liu, code, composability, computer hardware, criteria, denise wang, dna nucleotides, element, energy fuel, Environment, escherichia coli, fluorescence microscopy, function, gene, genetic engineering, global cycle, higher order, image, julius lucks, lei qi, medical drug, microbial component, molecules, non coding, plasmid pair, radioactive waste, rna, sustainable production, synthesize protein, synthetic biology, synthetic circuit, thomas segall shapiro, toxic, transcriptional elongation, translational regulator, utrs, vivek mutalik

Berkeley Lab Researchers Develop New Tool for Making Genetic Engineering of Microbial Circuits Reliably Predictable

Synthetic biology is the latest and most advanced phase of genetic engineering, holding great promise for helping to solve some of the world’s most intractable problems, including the sustainable production of energy fuels and critical medical drugs, and the safe removal of toxic and radioactive waste from the environment. However, for synthetic biology to reach its promise, the design and construction of biological systems must be as predictable as the assembly of computer hardware.

An important step towards attaining a higher degree of predictability in synthetic biology has been taken by a group of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) under the leadership of computational biologist Adam Arkin. Arkin and his team have developed an “adaptor” that makes the genetic engineering of microbial components substantially easier and more predictable by converting regulators of translation into regulators of transcription in Escherichia coli. Transcription and translation make up the two-step process by which the coded instructions of genes are used to synthesize proteins. (more…)

Analysis of Bacterial Genes May Help ID Cause of Dog Brain Disease, Say UF Researchers

By Guest PostOctober 2, 2012Health, Nature, Scienceanalysis, autoimmune, bacteria, balance, brain damage, brain disorder, brain inflammation, brain syndrome, brain tissue, cell, central, chihuahuas, christopher mariani, daniel brown, decreased alertness, dina michaels, disease, dog, florida, gene, genetic makeup, genital tract, gme, granulomatous meningoencephalomyelitis, immune system, karen vernau, macrophages, malteses, mycoplasma canis, necrotizing meningoencephalitis, nervous system, nme, pomeranians, pugs, renee barber, response, scott schatzberg, seizures, small breed, symptom, throat, university, viral agent, virus, yorkshire terriers

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — By analyzing the genes of bacteria, University of Florida researchers have moved a step closer to pinpointing how two brain disorders common in small-breed dogs occur.

The researchers found that the bacteria, known as Mycoplasma canis, invade dog’s cells and suppress their immune system responses. (more…)

What’s that Noise?

By Guest PostSeptember 26, 2012Scienceabhyudai singh, brandon razooky, cell, delaware, expression, gene, hiv, hiv virus, human, immunodeficiency virus, leor weinberger, mrnas, new method, noise, protein level, roy dar, san francisco, source, university, variability

Paper describes new method to understand sources of noise in gene-expression

Abhyudai Singh, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Delaware, describes a new method to understand sources of “noise” in gene-expression that create variability in protein levels in a paper published in Molecular Systems Biology, a publication of Nature, on Aug. 28.

This noise is expressed as variability in the levels of proteins/mRNAs in a cell. (more…)

Beacons Light up Stem Cell Transformation

By Guest PostSeptember 12, 2012Sciencealpl, bglap, biotechnology, bone cell, bone specific, brown university, chathuraka jayasuriya, differentiation, DNA, eric darling, fluorescence, gene, gene col1a1, gene expression, glowing, green spot, hetal desai, indu voruganti, medicine treatment, messenger rna, mg 63, milestone, molecular beacon, mrna, qian chen, regenerative, stem cell, tissue

In a new study, Brown University researchers demonstrate a new tool for visually tracking in real-time the transformation of a living population of stem cells into cells of a specific tissue. The “molecular beacons,” which could advance tissue engineering research, light up when certain genes are expressed and don’t interfere with the development or operation of the stem cells.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A novel set of custom-designed “molecular beacons” allows scientists to monitor gene expression in living populations of stem cells as they turn into a specific tissue in real-time. The technology, which Brown University researchers describe in a new study, provides tissue engineers with a potentially powerful tool to discover what it may take to make stem cells transform into desired tissue cells more often and more quickly. That’s a key goal in improving regenerative medicine treatments. (more…)