Genetic Archaeology News - December 2007 Archives

Study Maps Life in Extreme Environments, Creating Potential for Molecular Bioengineering and Dynamical Models of Cells (12/31/2007)

A team of biologists have developed a model mapping the control circuit governing a whole free living organism. This is an important milestone for the new field of systems biology and will allow the researchers to model how the organism adapts over time in response to its environment. This study marks the first time researchers have accurately predicted a cell's dynamics at the genome scale (for most of the thousands of components in the cell). The findings, which are based on a study of Halobacterium salinarum, a free-living microbe that lives in hyper-extreme environments, appear in the latest issue of the journal Cell. ...> Full Article

Scientists Reveal Role of Gene in Sensitivity to Thermal Pain (12/30/2007)

The skin is the largest human sensory organ. What is not fully understood is how the skin responds to stimuli, especially to pain. Research by Nevena Milenkovic, Christina Frahm, Professor Gary Lewin and Dr. Alistair Garratt of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch, Germany, has now demonstrated that Stem Cell Factor (SCF) and its receptor, c-Kit, play a central role in tuning the responsiveness of sensory neurons to heat stimuli. "As yet, c-Kit is the first example of a single gene being required for normal noxious heat sensitivity of C-fibers," according to the neurobiologists. Their paper has just been published online in Neuron *. ...> Full Article

Similarities between genetic diseases create hope for treatment (12/29/2007)

Two rare neurodegenerative diseases -- Huntington's disease and spinocerebellar ataxia 1 - share genetic modifiers in the cellular pathways that cause nerve cell damage, a fact that may make studying them and developing treatments more attractive to biotech companies, said a Baylor College of Medicine researcher. ...> Full Article

New plant study reveals a 'deeply hidden' layer of the transcriptome (12/29/2007)

Cells keep a close watch over the transcriptome - the totality of all parts of the genome that are expressed in any given cell at any given time. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of Missouri-Kansas City teamed up to peel back another layer of transcriptional regulation and gain new insight into how genomes work. ...> Full Article

Youngsters Prefer a Home Like Mom's (12/28/2007)

When young mice leave their mothers' homes, they choose to live in places much like the ones where they were raised, according to research done at UC Davis. ...> Full Article

Copy number variation may stem from replication misstep (12/28/2007)

Genome rearrangements, resulting in variations in the numbers of copies of genes, occur when the cellular process that copies DNA during cell division stalls and then switches to a different genetic "template," said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in a report that appears today in the journal Cell. ...> Full Article

Pinot Noir Grape Sequenced (12/27/2007)

Viticulture, the growing of grapes (Vitis vinifera) chiefly to make wine, is an ancient form of agriculture, evidence of which has been found from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages. We have a detailed understanding of how nurture affects the qualities of a grape harvest leading to the concept of terroir (the range of local influences that carry over into a wine). The nature of the grapes themselves has been less well understood but our knowledge of this is substantially increased by the publication of a high quality draft genome sequence of a Pinot Noir grape by an Italian-based multinational consortium. ...> Full Article

Life's six-legged survivors - evolutionary study shows beetles are in it for the long run (12/26/2007)

Most modern-day groups of beetles have been around since the time of the dinosaurs and have been diversifying ever since. ...> Full Article

NIH Launches Human Microbiome Project, (12/25/2007)

Roadmap Effort to Use Genomic Technologies To Explore Role of Microbes in Human Health and Disease ...> Full Article

Predator Pressures Maintain Bees' Social Life (12/25/2007)

The complex organisation of some insect societies is thought to have developed to such a level that these animals can no longer survive on their own. New research suggests that rather than organisational, genetic, or biological complexity defining a 'point of no return' for social living, pressures of predation create advantages to not living alone. ...> Full Article

How One Pest Adapted To Life In The Dark (12/24/2007)

A type of beetle that lives its entire life burrowing through stored grain has been found to lack full colour vision, and what's more the vision it does have breaks the rules. Most other insects have trichromatic vision -- they are sensitive to ultraviolet, blue and long wavelength light. Scientists now reveal that this beetle has lost photoreceptors that are sensitive to blue wavelengths. ...> Full Article

Researchers study viruses at deep-sea vents (12/24/2007)

A University of Delaware research team has received a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant to study one of the least appreciated of all life forms--viruses. ...> Full Article

Researchers Solve First Structure of a Key to Intact DNA Inheritance (12/23/2007)

Researchers have solved the structure of a DNA-protein complex that is crucial in the spread of antibiotic resistance among bacteria. Knowing this structure also provides fundamental insight into how cells successfully divide into two new cells with intact DNA. ...> Full Article

Gene neighbors may have taken turns battling retroviruses (12/22/2007)

A cluster of antiviral genes in humans has likely battled retroviral invasions for millions of years. New research by Sara Sawyer, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow in the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, now finds that in addition to the previously identified TRIM5 gene that can defend against retroviruses like HIV, a related gene right next door, called TRIM22, may have participated in antiviral defense. ...> Full Article

International Research Collaboration Narrows Focus on Genetic Cause of Kawasaki Disease (12/21/2007)

Investigators Say Findings May Impact Treatment of Additional Diseases ...> Full Article

Losses Of Long-established Genes Contribute To Human Evolution (12/21/2007)

While it is well understood that the evolution of new genes leads to adaptations that help species survive, gene loss may also afford a selective advantage. A group of scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz led by biomolecular engineering professor David Haussler has investigated this less-studied idea, carrying out the first systematic computational analysis to identify long-established genes that have been lost across millions of years of evolution leading to the human species. ...> Full Article

Evolution With A Restricted Number Of Genes (12/20/2007)

The development of higher forms of life would appear to have been influenced by RNA polymerase II. This enzyme transcribes the information coded by genes from DNA into messenger-RNA (mRNA), which in turn is the basis for the production of proteins. RNA polymerase II is highly conserved through evolution, with many of its structural characteristics being conserved between bacteria and humans. ...> Full Article

Discovery Points to Treatment Approach for Fragile X Syndrome (12/20/2007)

New research has found that many of the symptoms of fragile X syndrome, the most common cause of inherited mental retardation, can be eliminated in mice by reducing the expression of a single gene in the brain. The study suggests that the gene is a prime target for drugs to alleviate symptoms of the disorder, for which there is currently no specific treatment. ...> Full Article

Frozen hair holds secrets of Yellowstone grizzlies (12/19/2007)

Locks of hair from more than 400 grizzly bears are stored at Montana State University, waiting to tell the tale of genetic diversity in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. ...> Full Article

Researchers discover second light-sensing system in human eye (12/18/2007)

Finding enhances understanding of circadian rhythms ...> Full Article

ArrayExpress database doubles in size to 100,000 hybridisations (12/17/2007)

ArrayExpress, the publicly available database of transcriptomics data at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute [EMBL-EBI], has doubled in size in 2007, reaching the 100,000-hybridisation milestone. The database now holds snapshots of gene expression [identifying which genes are specifically expressed in a particular tissue or in response to a drug, for example] for more than 180 species under thousands of experimental conditions. ...> Full Article

Losses of long-established genes contributed to human evolution, scientists find (12/17/2007)

The evolution of new genes is not the only way for a species to change. The loss of genes may also lead to adaptations that help species survive, but this idea has not been well studied. Now, scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have carried out the first systematic computational analysis to identify long-established genes that were lost during the millions of years of evolution leading to the human species. Their findings appear in the December 14 issue of PLoS Computational Biology. ...> Full Article

Researchers spearhead key genome initiative (12/16/2007)

The complete collection of genes - the genome - of a moss has been sequenced, providing scientists an important evolutionary link between single-celled algae and flowering plants. ...> Full Article

Genetic switch for circadian rhythms discovered (12/16/2007)

University of California, Irvine researchers have identified the chemical switch that triggers the genetic mechanism regulating our internal body clock. ...> Full Article

Ice Ages And Rivers May Have Affected Gorilla Diversification (12/15/2007)

Geography and historical climate change may have both played a major role in gorilla evolutionary diversification, according to a new genetic study by Cardiff University and the University of New Orleans. ...> Full Article

In Fruit Flies, Homosexuality Is Biological But Not Hard-Wired (12/15/2007)

While the biological basis for homosexuality remains a mystery, a team of neurobiologists reports they may have closed in on an answer -- by a nose. ...> Full Article

Same Genetic Machinery Generates Skin Color Evolution in Fish and Humans (12/14/2007)

When humans began to migrate out of Africa about 100,000 years ago, their skin color gradually changed to adapt to their new environments. And when the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, marine ancestors of ocean-dwelling stickleback fish experienced dramatic changes in skin coloring as they colonized newly formed lakes and streams. New research shows that despite the vast evolutionary gulf between humans and the three-spined stickleback fish, the two species have adopted a common genetic strategy to acquire the skin pigmentation that would help each species thrive in their new environments. ...> Full Article

Genome study places modern humans in the evolutionary fast lane (12/14/2007)

Countering a common theory that human evolution has slowed to a crawl or even stopped in modern humans, a new study examining data from an international genomics project describes the past 40,000 years as a time of supercharged evolutionary change, driven by exponential population growth and cultural shifts. ...> Full Article

More 'functional' dna in genome than previously thought (12/13/2007)

Surrounding the small islands of genes within the human genome is a vast sea of mysterious DNA. While most of this non-coding DNA is junk, some of it is used to help genes turn on and off. As reported online this week in Genome Research, Hopkins researchers have now found that this latter portion, which is known as regulatory DNA and contributes to inherited diseases like Parkinson's or mental disorders, may be more abundant than we realize. ...> Full Article

New Lab Method Detects DNA Damage in the Genome (12/13/2007)

In laboratory experiments using budding yeast, the same type used in baking and brewing, scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, developed a new approach to determine the location of unrepaired breaks in DNA. This new approach should better inform research as unrepaired DNA damage often underlies the development of cancer. The research findings appear in the December, 2007, issue of PloS Biology. ...> Full Article

Present-day Species Of Piranha Resulted From Marine Incursion Into Amazon Basin (12/12/2007)

Piranhas inhabit exclusively the fresh waters of South America. Their geographical distribution extends from the Orinoco River basin (Venezuela) to the North, down to that of the Paraná (Argentina) to the South. Over this whole area, which also embraces the entire Amazon Basin, biologists have recorded 28 carnivorous species of these fish (2). In spite of the evolutionary success of this subfamily of fish, the mechanisms that generated the species richness of this group are still insufficiently known. ...> Full Article

Are Humans Evolving Faster? (12/12/2007)

Researchers discovered genetic evidence that human evolution is speeding up - and has not halted or proceeded at a constant rate, as had been thought - indicating that humans on different continents are becoming increasingly different. ...> Full Article

Epigenetic marks a clue to multiple functions of the brain (12/9/2007)

A team of scientists has catalogued chemical tags attached to more than 800 genes from 76 human brain samples and collected the first evidence of how these special, inherited epigenetic "marks" might account for different brain functions. The results appear in the December issue of The American Journal of Human Genetics. ...> Full Article

Plants see the light to help beat the big freeze (12/8/2007)

Light quality signals enhance plant freezing tolerance ...> Full Article

Team discovers bacterial surprise (12/7/2007)

A DNA shift never before seen in nature ...> Full Article

Keeping an eye on evolution (12/6/2007)

University of Queensland research has found the 'missing link' in the evolution of the eye. ...> Full Article

New Hypothesis For Origin of Life Proposed (12/5/2007)

Life may have begun in the protected spaces inside of layers of the mineral mica, in ancient oceans, according to a new hypothesis. ...> Full Article

Scientists Map Imprinted Genes in Human Genome (12/4/2007)

Scientists at Duke University have created the first map of imprinted genes throughout the human genome, and they say a modern-day Rosetta stone – a form of artificial intelligence called machine learning – was the key to their success. ...> Full Article

Human gene count tumbles again (12/4/2007)

New analysis reveals several thousand genes to be spurious, leads to gene count revision ...> Full Article

Mutant sperm guide clinicians to new diseases (12/3/2007)

Research published today in Nature Genetics shows that some rearrangements of the human genome occur more frequently than previously thought. The work is likely to lead to new identification of genes involved in disease and to improve diagnosis of genomic disease. ...> Full Article

Genetic Underpinnings of Wood Digestion by Termite Gut Microbes Revealed (12/3/2007)

When termites are chewing on your home, your immediate thought probably isn't "I wonder how they digest that stuff?" But biologists have been gnawing on the question for more than a century. The key is not just the termite, but what lives in its gut. A multitude of genes from the microbes populating the hindgut of a termite have been sequenced and analyzed, and the findings reported today in the journal Nature. ...> Full Article

The unusual biology of lichens (12/3/2007)

Lichens are extraordinary organisms, at once commonplace and exotic. They grow all around us on ordinary trees and rocks and stone walls. But as symbionts that can survive the Earth's most desolate frontiers, they also seem the stuff of science fiction. In reality, lichens are complex organisms comprising a fungus and an alga living in symbiosis. ...> Full Article

The Viking Roots of Northwest England (12/2/2007)

Collaborative study from universities of Leicester and Nottingham exploits connection between surnames and DNA ...> Full Article

Microbes in Ancient Ice Could Explain How Life Adapts to Harsh Environments (12/2/2007)

Study will analyze the microbes' DNA for clues to life's origin ...> Full Article

Bees Are The New Silkworms (12/1/2007)

Moths and butterflies, particularly silkworms, are well known producers of silk. And we all know spiders use it for their webs. But they are not the only invertebrates who make use of the strength and versatility of silk. ...> Full Article

New research to decode the genetic secrets of prolific potato pest (12/1/2007)

The full weight of a consortium of world-leading scientists - including those who helped decode the entire human genome - is being thrown at a parasitic worm less than 1mm long. ...> Full Article