Feature Channels: Genetics

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In a technique that could eventually shed light on how gene expression influences human disease, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have for the first time ever successfully visualized single molecules of naturally-occurring messenger RNA (mRNA) transcribed in living mammalian cells. The scientific achievement is detailed in the January 16 online edition of Nature Methods. Gene expression involves transcribing a gene’s DNA into molecules of mRNA. These molecules then migrate from a cell’s nucleus into the cytoplasm, where they serve as blueprints for protein construction.

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In research described as “a stark warning” to those tempted to start smoking, scientists are reporting that cigarette smoke begins to cause genetic damage within minutes — not years — after inhalation into the lungs. Their report, the first human study to detail the way certain substances in tobacco cause DNA damage linked to cancer, appears in ACS’ Chemical Research in Toxicology, a monthly journal.

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Scientists from Texas have made an important step toward understanding human mating behavior by showing that certain genes become activated in fruit flies when they interact with the opposite sex. This research shows that courtship behaviors may be more influenced by genetics than previously thought. Understanding why and how these genes become activated may also lead to insight into disorders such as autism.

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Scientists have identified the genes related to leaf angle in corn (maize) – a key trait for planting crops closer together, which has led to an eight-fold increase in yield since the early 1900s.

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A researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has helped to develop the first genetic blood test for predicting the chances that in vitro fertilization (IVF) will lead to a successful pregnancy. The test, reported in the online medical journal PLoS One, is based on the finding that different subtypes of the FMR1 gene (also known as the fragile X mental retardation gene) in potential mothers are associated with significantly different chances of conceiving with IVF.

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A SCUBA expedition in Australia and New Zealand to find the rare embryos of an unusual shark cousin enabled American and British researchers to confirm new developmental similarities between fish and mammals. The study confirms that organisms separated by hundreds of millions of years of evolution share similar genetic programs for body formation.

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An international team of researchers have completed the first DNA sequence of any strawberry plant, giving breeders much-needed tools to create tastier, healthier strawberries. UNH’s Tom Davis was a significant contributor to the genome sequence of the woodland strawberry, which was published in the journal Nature Genetics.

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Growing up poor can suppress a child’s genetic potential to excel cognitively even before the age of 2. Half of the gains that wealthier children show between 10 months and 2 years of age can be attributed to their genes. But children from poorer families show almost no improvements that are driven by their genetic makeup.

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Medical researchers who crave a means of exploring the genetic culprits behind a host of neuromuscular disorders may have just had their wish granted by a NIST team that has performed surgery on single cells to extract and examine their mitochondria.

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Women who have multiple sclerosis (MS) are more likely to have a gene associated with multiple sclerosis than men with the disease and it is this gene region where environment interacts with the genetics, according to a study published in the January 5, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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The Jackson Laboratory, Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts, and Tufts University School of Medicine announce a new track for PhD students in mammalian genetics. The joint track offers students in-depth research and training at both JAX and Tufts and is expected to help address the growing international need for expertise in mammalian genetics.

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University of Michigan researchers have found new evidence that our genes help determine our susceptibility to depression. Their findings, published online today in the Archives of General Psychiatry, challenge a 2009 study that called the genetic link into question and add new support to earlier research hailed as a medical breakthrough.

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Weizmann scientists and a global team have produced the full genome of the woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca). The wild strawberry has important nutritive properties, as well as qualities that make it an ideal model plant; e.g., it could provide insight into related agricultural crops from the rose family, including apple and almond trees.

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Georgia Tech Regents professor Mark Borodovsky led efforts in identifying protein-coding genes in the newly sequenced woodland strawberry genome. The development is expected to yield tastier, hardier varieties of the berry and other crops in its family.

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Protein required for early stages of melanoma development can also predict melanoma outcome.

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By tweaking a single gene, scientists have mimicked in sedentary mice the heart-strengthening effects of two weeks of endurance training, according to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center researchers.

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University of Adelaide researchers are a step closer to unraveling the mysteries of human sexual development, following genetic studies that show male mice can be created without a Y chromosome – through the activation of an ancient brain gene.

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Researchers at The Wistar Institute announce the release of an online tool that will help scientists find “gene promoters”—regions along a DNA strand that tell a cell’s transcription machinery where to start reading in order to create a particular protein. The Mammalian Promoter Database (MPromDb) integrates the genome sequencing data generated at Wistar with publicly available data on human and mouse genomics. MPromDb pinpoints known promoters and predicts where new ones are likely to be found, the researchers say.

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The vast majority of parents who tested positive for a genetic mutation that increases the risk of melanoma (the most serious form of skin cancer) support genetic testing of their children or grandchildren.

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Researchers at the University of California-Davis, Kansas State University, and the USDA Cereal Disease Laboratory in Minnesota have mapped and characterized a gene resistant to Ugandan stem rust.

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Nearly one in five whites could carry a genetic variant that substantially increases their odds of being susceptible to severe cocaine abuse, according to new research.

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This week RTI International released a new version of a free online "toolkit" to help genetics researchers consistently measure and report physical traits and environmental exposures.

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A genetic testing approach called exome sequencing—which provides a clinically practical alternative to whole-genome sequencing—led to correct diagnosis and life-saving treatment in a child with a previously unknown genetic disease, reports an upcoming paper in Genetics in Medicine, the official peer-reviewed journal of The American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG).

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A study among almost 50,000 people worldwide has identified DNA sequence variations linked with the heart’s electrical rhythm in several surprising regions among 22 locations across the human genome. The variants were found by an international consortium, including Johns Hopkins researchers, and reported Nov. 14 in the Nature Genetics advance online publication.

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Two Kansas State University researchers focusing on rice genetics are providing a better understanding of how pathogens take over a plant's nutrients. Their research provides insight into ways of reducing crop losses or developing new avenues for medicinal research.

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New genes that have evolved in species as little as one million years ago – a virtual blink in evolutionary history – can be just as essential for life as ancient genes, startling new research has discovered. The University of Chicago study challenges evolutionary biology assumptions about the importance of new genes in development.

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Pediatric cancer researchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia contributed important expertise to a new landmark study of medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumor typically found in children.

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A mathematically driven evolutionary snapshot of woody plants in four similar climates shows that genetic diversity is more sensitive to extinctions and loss of habitat them than long thought.

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An effort to increase biofuel production has led scientists to discover genes in yeast that improve their tolerance to ethanol, allowing the production of more ethanol from the same amount of nutrients. This study shows how genetically altered yeast cells survive higher ethanol concentrations, addressing a bottleneck in the production of ethanol from cellulosic material (nonfood plant sources) in quantities that could compete economically with fossil fuels.

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Investigators from New Jersey’s only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center have presented new research at the 33rd Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Their work highlights how a variation in a person’s DNA sequence is associated with an earlier age of onset for breast cancer that is stimulated by the hormone estrogen.

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Using a new gene sequencing method, a team of researchers led by scientists from Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health has discovered a gene that appears to cause some instances of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The finding could lead to novel ways to treat the more common form of this fatal neurodegenerative disease, which kills the vast majority of the nearly 6,000 Americans diagnosed with ALS every year.

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Cancer researchers have identified six gene markers present in early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that show promise in helping oncologists better identify which tumors will relapse after curative surgery, according to a study presented at the 2010 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. This symposium is sponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (ISLAC) and the University of Chicago.

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In women who test positive for BRCA 1/2 mutations associated with a high risk of breast or ovarian cancer, some key psychological factors influence the decision to undergo risk-reducing surgery, reports the December Genetics in Medicine, the official peer-reviewed journal of The American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG).

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Mandatory genetic screening of newborns for rare diseases is creating unexpected upheaval for families whose infants test positive for risk factors but show no immediate signs of the diseases, a new UCLA study warns.

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Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have made an unexpected finding about the method by which certain genes are activated. Contrary to what researchers have traditionally assumed, genes that work with other genes to build protein structures do not act in a coordinated way but instead are turned on randomly. The surprising discovery, described in the December 5 online edition of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, may fundamentally change the way scientists think about the way cellular processes are synchronized.

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Male mice born with a genetic mutation that’s believed to make humans more susceptible to schizophrenia develop behaviors that mimic other major psychiatric illnesses when their mothers are exposed to an assault to the immune system while pregnant, according to new Johns Hopkins research.

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Personalized medicine centers on being able to predict the risk of disease or response to a drug based on a person’s genetic makeup. But a study by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that, for most common diseases, genes alone only tell part of the story. Their research shows the environment interacts with DNA in ways that are difficult to predict, even in simple organisms like single-celled yeast.

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A new study offers hope for children born with a rare genetic disease, according to a paper published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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An international team has identified a gene that appears to be an important switch in determining whether the biological program for the development of gender will go according to plan, or if, when mutated, will cause a glitch in the program.

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A large genetic study of people with major depression has found that a duplicated region of DNA on chromosome 5 predisposes people to the disorder. The gene at that site influences nerve cell development.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a gene responsible for a rare disease that results in severe joint stiffness, muscle loss, anemia and panniculitis-induced lipodystrophy, or JMP syndrome.

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So, he or she has cheated on you for the umpteenth time and their only excuse is: “I just can’t help it.” According to researchers at Binghamton University, they may be right. The propensity for infidelity could very well be in their DNA.

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The fragile regions in mammalian genomes that are thought to play a key role in evolution go through a "birth and death" process, according to new bioinformatics research performed at the University of California, San Diego. The new work, published in the journal Genome Biology on November 30, could help researchers identify the current fragile regions in the human genome – information that may reveal how the human genome will evolve in the future.

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Whitehead Institute researchers have shown in mouse models that overexpression of the microRNA 125b (miR-125b) can independently cause leukemia and accelerate the disease’s progression in mice.

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Researchers have identified a novel geneon chromosome 15q that, when altered, causes nemaline myopathy with cores, a rare inherited muscle disorder.

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Playing online can mean more than killing time, thanks to a new game developed by a team of bioinformaticians at McGill University. Now, players can contribute in a fun way to genetic research.

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Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) published new standard for describing marker genes with "Minimum Information about an ENvironmental Sequence (MIENS).

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Vivian G. Cheung, M.D., a geneticist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, received the Curt Stern Award of the American Society of Human Genetics on Sat., Nov. 6, at the Society’s 60th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

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Researchers at Iowa State University, China Agricultural University and the Beijing Genomics Institute in China recently re-sequenced and compared six elite inbred corn (maize) lines, including the parents of the most productive commercial hybrids in China and found entire genes that were missing from one line to another.

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Binghamton University researchers recently revived ancient bacteria trapped for thousands of years in water droplets embedded in salt crystals. For decades, geologists have looked at these water droplets — called fluid inclusions — and wondered whether microbes could be extracted from them. Fluid inclusions have been found inside salt crystals ranging in age from thousands to hundreds of millions years old.