gene expression tagged posts

Age vs. Genetics: Which is More Important for Determining How we Age?

The relative importance of genetics and age in controlling gene expression as a function of evolutionary constraints. Genes further to the right along the x-axis are more evolutionarily “constrained,” and thus more likely to be important in human disease. (Image credit: Peter Sudmant, UC Berkeley)

Amid much speculation and research about how our genetics affect the way we age, a University of California, Berkeley, study now shows that individual differences in our DNA matter less as we get older and become prone to diseases of aging, such as diabetes and cancer.

In a study of the relative effects of genetics, aging and the environment on how some 20,000 human genes are expressed, the researchers found that aging and environment are far more important than genetic variation in af...

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Researchers Identify Mechanisms that make Skin a Protective Barrier

Human skin structure. Credit: Wikipedia

A Mount Sinai research team has identified one of the mechanisms that establish the skin as a protective barrier, a breakthrough that is critical to understanding and treating common skin conditions including eczema and psoriasis, according to a study published Thursday, May 28, in the scientific journal Genes & Development.

One of the most important roles of the skin is to act as a barrier that prevents water loss and protects the skin from pathogens. Failure of this protective function contributes to dermatological diseases. The research team led by Sarah E...

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More than a Protein Factory: A Role for Ribosomes in regulating human Gene Expression

A new study using human cell lines provides insight on how instructions embedded within mRNA messages can affect mRNA levels, mRNA stability, and protein production in a translation-dependent manner.
Image: Courtesy of Bazzini Lab.

Researchers from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered a new function of ribosomes in human cells that may show the protein-making particle’s role in destroying healthy mRNAs, the messages that decode DNA into protein.

“For a long time, many people have viewed ribosomes as a passive player in the cell – a molecular machine that’s just producing proteins,” says Stowers Assistant Investigator Ariel Bazzini, PhD. “Now there’s growing evidence that ribosomes regulate gene expression, including in human cells.”

These findings, which were rece...

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How Fasting can Improve Overall Health

Figure thumbnail fx1

Highlights
•Transcriptional response to fasting is robustly rhythmic in liver and muscle
•Lack of food fails to sustain “free-running” conditions of peripheral circadian clocks
•Genes are temporally regulated by the clock and fasting-related transcription factors
•Rhythmic response to fasting is reversible by refeeding

Protects against aging-associated diseases. In a University of California, Irvine-led study, researchers found evidence that fasting affects circadian clocks in the liver and skeletal muscle, causing them to rewire their metabolism, which can ultimately lead to improved health and protection against aging-associated diseases. The study was published recently in Cell Reports.

The circadian clock operates within the body and its organs as intrinsic time-keepin...

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