Recent Comments

    gene expression tagged posts

    How Fasting can Improve Overall Health

    January 16, 2019, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    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...

    Read More

    Bacteria Behave Differently on International Space Station, ISS

    November 5, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology

    Altered Extracellular Model. Biomolecular model based on the gene expression data analyses support the reduction of glucose molecules (blue gradient) and acid buildup (gold gradient) proposed to occur in the boundary layer around the cell. This altered extracellular environment has been hypothesized to result as an effect of reduced gravity-driven forces acting on the cell-fluid system and has been put forth as the biophysical mechanism governing bacterial behavior in space. Blue circles indicate overexpression of genes associated with metabolism, while gold circles represent the overexpression of acidic condition genes. Credit: Zea et al (2016)

    Altered Extracellular Model. Biomolecular model based on the gene expression data analyses support the reduction of glucose molecules (blue gradient) and acid buildup (gold gradient) proposed to occur in the boundary layer around the cell. This altered extracellular environment has been hypothesized to result as an effect of reduced gravity-driven forces acting on the cell-fluid system and has been put forth as the biophysical mechanism governing bacterial behavior in space. Blue circles indicate overexpression of genes associated with metabolism, while gold circles represent the overexpression of acidic condition genes. Credit: Zea et al (2016)

    Gene expression data suggest bacteria experience reduced glucose uptake and increased extracellular acidity in E. coli in space...

    Read More

    Powering up the Circadian Rhythm

    May 29, 2016, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Researchers led by the Salk Institute are the first to discover a protein that controls the strength of the body's circadian rhythms. A mouse liver with a "weak" circadian clock, caused by the targeted deletion of FBXW7 (right), has disrupted the lipid metabolism program and promoted lipid accumulation, compared to the normal liver (left). Credit: Salk Institute

    Researchers led by the Salk Institute are the first to discover a protein that controls the strength of the body’s circadian rhythms. A mouse liver with a “weak” circadian clock, caused by the targeted deletion of FBXW7 (right), has disrupted the lipid metabolism program and promoted lipid accumulation, compared to the normal liver (left). Credit: Salk Institute

    At noon, levels of genes and proteins throughout your body are drastically different than they are at midnight. Disruptions to this 24-hour cycle of physiological activity are why jet lag or a bad night’s sleep can alter your appetite and sleep patterns for days—and even contribute to conditions like heart disease, sleep disorders and cancers...

    Read More

    New RNA letter regulates Gene Expression

    February 17, 2016, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    m1A occurs in GC-rich sequence contexts and in genes with structured 5′ UTRs.

    m1A occurs in GC-rich sequence contexts and in genes with structured 5′ UTRs.

    Discovery brings RNA to the fore of epigenetics. A new study finds that RNA, DNA template for protein translation, often appears with an extra letter – and this letter is the regulatory key for control of gene expression. The discovery offers insight into different RNA functions in cellular processes and contributions to the development of disease.

    “Epigenetics, the regulation of gene expression beyond the primary information encoded by DNA, was thought until recently to be mediated by modifications of proteins and DNA,” said Prof. Gidi Rechavi. “The new findings bring RNA to a central position in epigenetics.”

    The number of modified nucleotides (letters) in RNA is 10X larger than that of the letters found in D...

    Read More