Recent Comments

    DNA tagged posts

    You’ve heard of String Theory. What about Knot Theory?

    February 10, 2016, Categories  Physics

    UB knot theorist Bill Menasco. The whiteboard in the background depicts drawings of mathematical knots and surfaces that Menasco created from memory. Credit: Douglas Levere - See more at: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2016/02/017.html#sthash.1rCiO0em.dpuf

    UB knot theorist Bill Menasco. The whiteboard in the background depicts drawings of mathematical knots and surfaces that Menasco created from memory. Credit: Douglas Levere – See more at: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2016/02/017.html#sthash.1rCiO0em.dpuf

    But take it from Bill Menasco, a knot theorist of 35 years: This field of mathematics, rich in aesthetic beauty and intellectual challenges, and has applications. It involves the study of mathematical knots, which differ from real-world knots in that they have no ends. Each one is a string that crosses over itself a number of times, then reconnects with itself to form a closed loop. Today, we know the study of knots could have applications in surprising areas...

    Read More

    Discovered: How to Unlock Inaccessible Genes

    January 29, 2016, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology

    This image shows the binding profile of chromatin remodelers on 12,000 distinct genes. The researchers used bioinformatics tools to visualize a great number of genes, here aligned by their promoters and arranged according to their nucleosome distribution. Remodelers attached to nucleosomes (dark blue verticals lines) are present on each side of the gene promoter. The researchers identified two distinct nucleosomal architectures (represented by drawings at top and bottom). Researchers demonstrated that remodeler activity depends on this nucleosome organization: some are more specifically required for expression of genes at nucleosome-dense promoters (upper part), whereas others act preferentially on promoters with a low nucleosomal density (bottom part). Credit: Matthieu Gérard, University of Paris-Sud

    This image shows the binding profile of chromatin remodelers on 12,000 distinct genes. The researchers used bioinformatics tools to visualize a great number of genes, here aligned by their promoters and arranged according to their nucleosome distribution. Remodelers attached to nucleosomes (dark blue verticals lines) are present on each side of the gene promoter. The researchers identified two distinct nucleosomal architectures (represented by drawings at top and bottom). Researchers demonstrated that remodeler activity depends on this nucleosome organization: some are more specifically required for expression of genes at nucleosome-dense promoters (upper part), whereas others act preferentially on promoters with a low nucleosomal density (bottom part)...

    Read More

    Researchers find out Cause of Mutations Not in Genetic Material

    December 16, 2015, Categories  Biology/Biotechnology

    Lung cancer cell, ADAR1 extra copies of the gene are shown in green. In red the two normal copies of a control gene. Credit: IDIBELL

    Lung cancer cell, ADAR1 extra copies of the gene are shown in green. In red the two normal copies of a control gene. Credit: IDIBELL

    In human diseases, eventually DNA alterations modify proteins and they don’t do their normal function, either by excess or defect. But recently we have started to find alterations of proteins without an obvious damage of the gene that produces them. Manel Esteller, director of Epigenetics and Cancer Biology Program of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), ICREA researcher and Professor of Genetics at the University of Barcelona provides an explanation for this phenomenon: existence of alterations in an intermediate molecule (RNA) which transfers the information contained in the DNA to protein.

    “We found that 5-10% of lung tumors, instead of h...

    Read More

    ‘Jumping genes’ ie L1 elements, may add to the Genetic Chaos driving greater than 3/4 of Esophageal Cancer Cases

    July 13, 2015, Categories  Health/Medical

    L1 elements can uproot themselves and move to new areas in the DNA, sometimes accidentally moving into genes that control the cell’s growth. This happened around 100X in each tumour sample, and in some tumours it happened 700X. Cambridge Uni scientists used cutting-edge technology that can read DNA to study the genes of 43 esophageal tumour and blood samples to discover how much these mobile genetic sequences travel.

    If a jumping gene lands in or near an important gene that controls cell growth, it can wreak havoc, changing how the gene works so that it inadvertently tells the cell to grow and divide out of control – which could lead to cancer. “Research has shown that this might also happen in lung and bowel cancers...

    Read More