There's no "silver bullet" gene or gene region that controls so-called complex traits in maize, commonly known as corn.
Instead, in two research papers published this week in the journal Science, North Carolina State University crop scientists and colleagues show that lots of small changes in a number of gene regions affect complex traits – like flowering time or reproductive ability – in corn.
Drinking beetroot juice boosts your stamina and could help you exercise for up to 16% longer. A University of Exeter led-study, published today (Thursday 6 August 2009), shows for the first time how the nitrate contained in beetroot juice leads to a reduction in oxygen uptake, making exercise less tiring.
The study reveals that drinking beetroot juice reduces oxygen uptake to an extent that cannot be achieved by any other known means, including training.
The findings, published in this week's issue of Science, conclude that food-web stability is enhanced when many diverse predator-prey links connect high and intermediate trophic levels. The computations also reveal that small ecosystems follow other rules than large ecosystems: differences in the strength of predator-prey links increase the stability of small webs, but destabilize larger webs.
LA JOLLA, CA – August 5, 2009 –As letters of the alphabet spell out words, when amino acids are linked to one another in a particular order they "spell out" proteins. But sometimes the cell machinery for building proteins in our bodies makes a mistake and the wrong amino acid is inserted. The consequences can be devastating, resulting in a garbled protein that no longer has the correct function, possibly leading to cancers and other diseases.
LA JOLLA, Calif., August 6, 2009 -- Investigators at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) and The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have made the first comparative, large-scale phosphoproteomic analysis of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and their differentiated derivatives. The data may help stem cell researchers understand the mechanisms that determine whether stem cells divide or differentiate, what types of cells they become and how to control those complex mechanisms to facilitate development of new therapies.
Johns Hopkins scientists have tracked down a powerful set of cells in bladder tumors that seem to be primarily responsible for the cancer's growth and spread using a technique that takes advantage of similarities between tumor and organ growth. The findings, reported in the July Stem Cells, could help scientists develop new ways of finding and attacking similar cells in other types of cancer.
Peering into the DNA of tiny yeast, researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego and the San Diego Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research have pinpointed a large number of genes that can prevent a type of genetic rearrangement that may lead to cancer and other diseases.
The presence of these genes and their accompanying pathways, many of which are involved in repairing mistakes in DNA replication, may help explain how the body fends off so many potentially damaging genetic alterations while maintaining its stability.
New research reveals that a simple laboratory assay detects a genetic variation in host response to bacterial infection that is associated with an increased susceptibility for inflammatory disease. The study, published by Cell Press online on August 6th in the American Journal of Human Genetics, also provides fascinating insight into the link between evolution and the ability to ward off pathogens.
Scientists have shown that they can identify and characterize an individual's response to a respiratory viral infection by examining the pattern of gene expression in their blood. The research, published by Cell Press online on August 6th in the journal Cell Host and Microbe, is the first step toward a blood test that may someday be used to decide who would benefit from an antiviral versus antibiotic treatment and possibly even determine prognosis after viral infection or therapeutic intervention.
The promise of stem cell therapy may lie in uncovering how adult cells revert back into a primordial, stem cell state, whose fate is yet to be determined. Now, cell scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have identified key molecular players responsible for this reversion in fruit fly sperm cells. Reporting online this week in Cell Stem Cell, researchers show that two proteins are responsible redirecting cells on the way to becoming sperm back to stem cells.
Researchers have found a way in mice to convert another type of pancreas cell into the critical insulin-producing beta cells that are lost in those with type I diabetes. The secret ingredient is a single transcription factor, according to the report in the August 7th issue of Cell, a Cell Press journal.
When the gene called Pax4 is forced on in pancreatic alpha cells, the cells change their identity to become beta cells, the researchers found. The body in turn senses a loss of alpha cells, replaces them with new alpha cells and then converts those too into beta cells.
PHILADELPHIA – (August 6, 2009) – A team of researchers from The Wistar Institute has identified a protein that could serve as a target for reprogramming immune system cells exhausted by exposure to chronic viral infection into more effective "soldiers" against certain viruses like HIV, hepatitis C, and hepatitis B, as well as some cancers, such as melanoma.
Sprouting. Branching. Pruning. Neuroscientists have borrowed heavily from botanists to describe the way that neurons grow, but analogies between the growth of neurons and plants may be more than superficial. A new study from the National Institutes of Health and Harvard Medical School suggests that neurons and plant root cells may grow using a similar mechanism.
STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered, for the first time, a common molecular pathway that is used by both normal stem cells and cancer stem cells when they reproduce themselves.
Yale University researchers have discovered how a protein within most cell membranes helps maintain normal cell size, a breakthrough in basic biology that has implications for a variety of diseases such as sickle cell anemia and disorders of the nervous system.