Berkeley Researchers Uncover the Key to Self-Awareness in Genome Editor
A central question has been answered regarding a protein that plays an essential role in the bacterial immune system and is fast becoming a valuable tool for genetic engineering. A team of researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have determined how the bacterial enzyme known as Cas9, guided by RNA, is able to identify and degrade foreign DNA during viral infections, as well as induce site-specific genetic changes in animal and plant cells. Through a combination of single-molecule imaging and bulk biochemical experiments, the research team has shown that the genome-editing ability of Cas9 is made possible by the presence of short DNA sequences known as “PAM,” for protospacer adjacent motif. (more…)
In a new study, addiction researchers found that attentive parenting can overcome a genetic predisposition to alcohol use disorder among teens. Although further research is needed, says lead author Robert Miranda Jr., parents can have an impact if they “closely monitor their child’s behavior and peer group.”
In 2010 a team led by Robert Miranda Jr., associate professor (research) of psychiatry and human behavior in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, found that teens with a single difference in their genes were more predisposed to alcohol use disorder. In a new study in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research he found that the risk was largely overcome in teens whose parents are attentive to their behavior and peer group. Miranda, a researcher at Brown’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, answered questions from science writer David Orenstein about the new study.
What did we know about genetic risk associated with A118G and teenage alcohol use going into this study?
In 2010, we reported in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research the first evidence that the A118G SNP of the OPRM1 gene is associated with a greater number of alcohol-related problems as well as the development of an alcohol use disorder (AUD) among adolescents. Specifically, adolescents who met criteria for an AUD diagnosis had a higher prevalence of the G allele (51.9 percent) than non-AUD youth(16.3 percent), and the G allele accounted for 9 percent of the variance in alcohol-related problems experienced by youth in the past three months, with a moderate effect size. Although these findings are consistent with some adult studies in terms of the nature and magnitude of this association, other adult studies did not find this relationship. (more…)
Critical genetic secrets of a bacterium that holds potential for removing toxic and radioactive waste from the environment have been revealed in a study by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The researchers have provided the first ever map of the genes that determine how these bacteria interact with their surrounding environment.
“Knowing how bacteria respond to environmental changes is crucial to our understanding of how their physiology tracks with consequences that are both good, such as bioremediation, and bad, such as biofouling,” says Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division, who led this research. “We have reported the first systematic mapping of the genes in a sulfate-reducing bacterium – Desulfovibrio vulgaris – that regulate the mechanisms by which the bacteria perceive and respond to environmental signals.” (more…)
