Researchers know that several proteins are involved in oyster shell formation, but how expression of these proteins is controlled is not well understood. Now investigators report that they have identified a protein called Pf-POU3F4 that promotes expression of two of these proteins, called Aspein and Prismalin-14.
The work is important for understanding the genetics of biomineralization, the process by which living organisms produce minerals to harden existing tissues.
Autism and cancer share more than 40 risk genes, suggesting that common mechanisms underlying the functions of some of these genes could conceivably be leveraged to develop therapies not just for cancer but for autism as well, an extensive assessment by researchers with the UC Davis MIND Institute and Comprehensive Cancer Center has found.
The authors identified 43 specific genes with autism susceptibility that also have an association with cancer.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Researchers have shown how controlling cholesterol metabolism in pancreatic cancer cells reduces metastasis, pointing to a potential new treatment using drugs previously developed for atherosclerosis.
Just as a person's skin indicates if s/he has a healthy diet, colored satellite images of forests in the Smithsonian's Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) indicate if a forest has a healthy diet. Information about the trees' access to nutrients based on its relationships with two different types of underground fungi is now detectable from space, making it possible for scientists to measure ecosystem productivity and responses to environmental change on vast scales.
NEWPORT, Ore. - Although sperm whales have not been driven to the brink of extinction as have some other whales, a new study has found a remarkable lack of diversity in the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA within the species.
In fact, the mitochondrial DNA from more than a thousand sperm whales examined during the past 15 years came from a single "Eve" sperm whale tens of thousands of years ago, the researchers say.
Results of the study are being published this week in the journal Molecular Ecology.
University of California San Diego bioengineers have created what they believe to be the first online search engine for functional genomics data. This work from the Sheng Zhong bioengineering lab at UC San Diego was just published online by the journal Nucleic Acids Research. This new search engine, called GeNemo, is free for public use at: http://www.genemo.org.
The largest risk assessment and management program for cardiovascular disease in the world, England's National Health Service Health Check, had only a modest impact on risk factors for heart disease and did not meet national and international targets, found new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
Many countries have created programs to assess and manage cardiovascular risk because cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death world-wide.
The largest-ever study to sequence the whole genomes of breast cancers has uncovered five new genes associated with the disease and 13 new mutational signatures that influence tumour development. The results of two papers published in Nature and Nature Communications also reveal what genetic variations exist in breast cancers and where they occur in the genome.
Billbugs, a type of weevil that is found from southern Canada to Mexico as well as parts of the Caribbean, are a major pest of turfgrass, a crop that brings in tens of billions of dollars in annual revenues. A new article in the open-access Journal of Integrated Pest Management sheds light on how to manage this damaging insect.
When does DNA behave like sand or toothpaste?
When the genetic material is so densely packed within a virus, it can behave like grains of sand or toothpaste in a tube.
That's essentially what biophysicists at UC San Diego discovered when they began closely examining the physical properties of DNA jammed inside viruses.
Chemists at UC San Diego have created an "adaptive protein crystal" with a counterintuitive and potentially useful property: When stretched in one direction, the material thickens in the perpendicular direction, rather than thinning as familiar materials do. And when squeezed in one dimension, it shrinks in the other rather than expanding, and gets denser in the process.
LA JOLLA, CA--Follicular helper T cells (Tfh cells), a rare type of T cells, are indispensable for the maturation of antibody-producing B cells. They promote the proliferation of B cells that produce highly selective antibodies against invading pathogens while weeding out those that generate potentially harmful ones.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A new study has identified two self-regulation strategies effective in preventing weight gain among young adults. At the end of the three-year study, researchers showed that young adults taught self-regulation strategies were more successful at preventing weight gain than those in the control group and 50 percent fewer had become obese.
Concussions in high school football had the highest average number of reported symptoms and high school football players had the highest proportion of concussions with a return-to-play time of at least 30 days compared with youth and college players, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.
About 3 million youth, 1 million high school and about 100,000 college athletes play American football each year. Concerns remain about sports-related concussions, which can present with emotional, cognitive, somatic and sleep-related symptoms and impairments.
A 25 percent calorie restriction over two years by adults who were not obese was linked to better health-related quality of life, according to the results of a randomized clinical trial published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
Calorie restriction can increase longevity in many species but concerns remain about potential negative effects of calorie restriction in humans.