In work that may lead to better understanding of genetic diseases, researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard show that baker’s yeast was created hundreds of millions of years ago when its ancestor temporarily became a kind of super-organism with twice the usual number of chromosomes and an increased potential to evolve.
The study is by postdoctoral fellow and lead author Manolis Kellis of the Broad (rhymes with “code”) Institute; Eric S. Lander, Broad director; and Bruce W.
Cutting corn down to size
A team of scientists that includes a Washington University in St. Louis biologist, has evaluated and validated a gene-enrichment strategy for genome sequencing and has reported a major advance in sequencing large genomes. The team showed a six-fold reduction of the effective size of the Zea mays (maize or corn) genome while creating a four-fold increase in the gene identification rate when compared to standard whole-genome sequencing methods.
A team
An environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis with his doctoral student has patented a device for trapping and deactivating microbial particles. The work is promising in the war on terrorism for deactivating airborne bioagents and bioweapons such as the smallpox virus, anthrax and ricin, and also in routine indoor air ventilation applications such as in buildings and aircraft cabins.
Pratim Biswas, Ph.D.,Stifel & Quinette Jens Professor of Environmental Engineering Scienc
Scientists zero in on five chromosome regions
Scientists at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center, working with colleagues in the U-M School of Public Health, have significantly narrowed the range of chromosomal locations where they expect to find genes associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
In a paper published in the March issue of American Journal of Human Genetics, Kellogg scientist Anand Swaroop, Ph.D., and his team of researchers have confirmed
The catastrophe that extinguished the dinosaurs and other animal species, 65 million years ago also brought dramatic changes to the vegetation. In a study presented in latest issue of the journal Science, the paleontologists Vivi Vajda from the University of Lund, Sweden and Stephen McLoughlin from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia have described what happened to the vegetation month by month. They depict a world in darkness where the fungi had taken over.
It´s known that an
One hallmark of most cancer cells is that they have the incorrect number of chromosomes, a state called aneuploidy. Now, researchers at the University of Virginia Health System, writing in a recent issue of the journal Current Biology, think they know how cells protect themselves from aneuploidy when they divide in a process known as mitosis. “During mitosis, the cell divides replicated chromosomes to two daughter cells. We are studying a mitotic system that ensures that each cell receives the right
Lengthy sequences of DNA — with their component triplet of nucleotides repeated hundreds, even thousands of times — are known to be abnormal, causing rare but devastating neurological diseases. But how does the DNA get this way? How does it go haywire, multiplying out of control?
In the current issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Sergei Mirkin, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, explains the mechanism, providi
Two new studies, one to be published on 5 March 2004 in the journal Cell and the other published on 27 February 2004 in Molecular Cell, reveal a surprising relationship among the hordes of gene regulatory molecules that are the ultimate controllers of life processes. The surprise is that only a small portion of all genes–those needed to respond to emergencies–within a simple organism such as baker’s yeast are heavily regulated. Most other genes, in contrast, typically control more routine hous
Department of Energy-funded researchers at the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA) have sequenced microbes in the Sargasso Sea and have discovered at least 1,800 new species and more than 1.2 million new genes. The results will be published in the journal Science. IBEA researchers’ discoveries include 782 new rhodopsin-like photoreceptor genes (only a few dozen have been characterized in microorganisms to date).
“What excites the Department and our Office of Science abo
Geneticists at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP) and the University of Basel have unveiled the complete genome sequence of the pathogenic plant fungus Ashbya gossypii, which infects agricultural crops including cotton and citrus fruits in the tropics. The fungus has the smallest genome yet characterized among free-living eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are the single-celled and multicellular organisms that include fungi, plants and animals.
The team — led by Fred Dietrich, Ph
Every cell in the body has what James Spudich, PhD, calls “a dynamic city plan” comprised of molecular highways, construction crews, street signs, cars, fuel and exhaust. Maintenance of this highly organized structure is fundamental to the development and function of all cells, Spudich says, and much of it can be understood by figuring out how the molecular motors do the work to keep cells orderly.
Spudich, biochemistry professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Stanford ph
Researchers create first movie starring DNA, RNA, and protein
In 1958, five years after he helped discover the double helix structure of DNA, Francis Crick coined the term “Central Dogma” to characterize the all-important cellular processes whereby DNA is “transcribed” into RNA and RNA is “translated” into protein. Since then, researchers have typically examined individual aspects of the Central Dogma in isolation, by developing separate systems for studying transcription or translati
Scientists have believed for decades that the sequencing of the human genome would automatically yield the sequences of proteins, the functional products of genes, and thus lead to the unraveling of the mechanisms behind human cell biology and disease. However, a paper published in Science today by the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) describes a novel cellular process that casts some doubt on the accepted paradigm of deducing a protein’s sequence from the DNA sequence of its gene.
A team of reproductive biologists from the United States and Japan has succeeded in fertilizing rabbit oocytes with “dead” freeze-dried rabbit sperm. The fertilized eggs continued to develop into embryos, some of which were transplanted into female rabbits.
The researchers—from the University of Connecticut, the University of Hawaii, and Hirosaki University—note that rabbit sperm share many similarities with human sperm, so their results suggest that the freeze-drying technique could be
In a study of changes in gene expression covering taxa from bacteria to human published in the PNAS Online Early Edition issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hiroki R. Ueda of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (Kobe, Japan) and colleagues report their discovery of a fundamental governing principle to the dynamics capable of producing the heterogeneous distribution of gene expression.
Ueda, who heads the CDB Laboratory for Systems Biology, found that changes
Certain ions bouncing around on the ocean’s surface and in droplets formed by waves may play a role in increasing ozone levels in the air we breathe, new research suggests.
These ions cover the surface of the sea in an ultra-thin blanket – about one-millionth the thickness of a sheet of paper. Researchers call this region the “interface.”
Using a technique that employs highly accurate laser beams, chemists for the first time saw the actual structures formed by these halo
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