Feature Channels: Genetics

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A new study sheds light on cholesterol and bile metabolism in the liver.

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Research teams from UTHealth and Paris, France have discovered a gene defect linked to a cluster of systemic complications, including life-threatening thoracic aortic disease and intracranial aneurysms.

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Genetics Society of America’s Model Organisms to Human Biology: Cancer Genetics meeting highlighted the role of pathways, gene regulatory networks, in the spread of cancer.

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Scientists at Arizona State University have discovered that honey bees may teach us about basic connections between taste perception and metabolic disorders in humans.

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego – led by Gary S. Firestein, professor in the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology at UC San Diego School of Medicine – investigated a mechanism usually implicated in cancer and in fetal development, called DNA methylation, in the progression of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). They found that epigenetic changes due to methylation play a key role in altering genes that could potentially contribute to inflammation and joint damage.

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The identification of key proteins in a group of heat-loving bacteria by researchers at the Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center could help light a fire under next-generation biofuel production.

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High risk and better outcome for glioma wrapped up in rare gene variant.

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Researchers have identified genetic markers that may influence whether a person finishes high school and goes on to college, according to a national longitudinal study of thousands of young Americans. The study is in the July issue of Developmental Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association.

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People with lung cancer who are treated with the drug Tarceva face a daunting uncertainty: although their tumors may initially shrink, it's not a question of whether their cancer will return—it's a question of when. And for far too many, it happens far too soon.

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In a paper published in the July 1, 2012 issue of the journal Nature, researchers at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine open the book further, mapping for the first time a significant portion of the functional sequences of the mouse genome, the most widely used mammalian model organism in biomedical research.

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Researchers shed light on molecular cause of childhood’s worst conditions as first step toward developing more effective treatments

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“Paper of the week” shows that a master regulator protein brings plethora of coactivators to gene expression sites.

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An international team including scientists from the University of Saskatchewan-Saskatoon Health Region and University of British Columbia, with the help of Saskatchewan Mennonite families, has identified an abnormal gene which leads to Parkinson’s disease.

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A large study in people at risk of diabetes has found a direct association between the presence of a small genetic alteration in a hormone receptor and increased body fat and insulin resistance. The results, to be presented Tuesday at The Endocrine Society’s 94th Annual Meeting in Houston, suggest an adverse role for a previously described genetic variant, the BclI polymorphism.

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Prenatal exposure to bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical found in many common plastic household items, can cause numerous genes in the uterus to respond differently to estrogen in adulthood, according to a study using a mouse model. The results will be presented Tuesday at The Endocrine Society’s 94th Annual Meeting in Houston.

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In a paper published in the June 24, 2012 online issue of Nature Genetics, a team of doctors and scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, say de novo somatic mutations in a trio of genes that help regulate cell size and proliferation are likely culprits for causing hemimegalencephaly, though perhaps not the only ones.

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The gene p53 is the most commonly mutated gene in cancer. p53 is dubbed the “guardian of the genome” because it blocks cells with damaged DNA from propagating and eventually becoming cancerous. However, new research led by Ute M. Moll, M.D., Professor of Pathology at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, and colleagues, uncovers a novel role for p53 beyond cancer in the development of ischemic stroke. The research team identified an unexpected critical function of p53 in activating necrosis, an irreversible form of tissue death, triggered during oxidative stress and ischemia. The findings are detailed online in Cell.

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Amazingly, the small, black-and-white striped zebrafish has biological similarities to humans, and is increasingly a popular model organism for studying vertebrate development, genetics, physiology, and mechanisms of disease as featured at the ongoing 2012 International Zebrafish Development and Genetics Conference in Madison, Wisconsin

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UNC scientists have discovered that a commonly held assumption is wrong and that a separate role of the SMN gene – still not completely elucidated -- is likely responsible for the disease’s manifestations.

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UCLA researchers have combined two tools – gene expression and the use of peripheral blood -- to expand scientists’ arsenal of methods for pinpointing genes that play a role in autism. The findings could help scientists zero in on genes that offer future therapeutic targets for the disorder.