Genetics & Molecular Biology

Tree Leaf Molecule Prevents Weight Gain In Female Mice

A new study finds that female mice treated with a small molecule that binds to a receptor found on muscle cells speeds up energy metabolism. Sorry males, this does nothing for you. The molecule is found in tree leaves and the female mice could indulge in h ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 5 2015 - 12:38pm

Oct4 Gene Copies Pair Up In Mammalian Cells

Imagine a pair of twins that everyone believed to be estranged who end up closer to each other than anyone knew. It may be just like that at the cellular level. We have two copies of each gene, one from each parent, and each copy, called an "allele,&q ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 9 2015 - 9:00am

Are You Related To Genghis Khan?

It was good to be a rampaging Mongol warlord circa 1200 A.D.- at least when it came to having a lot of sex and killing off your genetic rivals. But he was not the only one. A new study finds that millions of Asian men share a common ancestral heritage wit ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 9 2015 - 9:52am

High LDL Cholesterol Linked To Lower Diabetes- A Gene Mutation Reason Why

Statins are associated with increased risk for diabetes, though it is unclear why. One hypothesis is that statins increase expression of LDL receptors and increase cholesterol uptake into cells including the pancreas, which could cause pancreatic dysfuncti ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2015 - 10:53am

GWAS Pinpoints 2 Genetic Variants Associated With Rosacea

Rosacea is estimated to affect up to 16 million people in the United States alone, with symptoms typically including redness, visible blood vessels, and pimple-like sores on the skin of the central face. Because rosacea affects facial appearance, it can al ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2015 - 3:42pm

59 Percent Of Parents Want To Know Their Disease Risk- And 80 Percent Want Their Kids To Know Also

Would you want to know if you or your children had risk of hereditary cancer, a genetic risk for cardiovascular disease or carried the gene associated with developing Alzheimer's disease- even if they were risks that wouldn't be relevant for poss ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 11 2015 - 8:40pm

Pathogen-Sensing 'Antenna' Gene Transferred To Wheat

A team of scientists have successfully transferred a receptor that recognizes bacteria from the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a dicot, to wheat, a monocot. The receptor can trigger a defensive response and confers increased resistance to bacterial dise ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 12 2015 - 7:00am

SUMO Can Keep Gene Expression In Check

Living beings can keep gene expression in check, which might partly explain the uncontrolled gene expression found in many cancers, according to a new paper/ "Using yeast as a model organism, we studied the Tup1 protein, a negative regulator of gene e ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 13 2015 - 3:39pm

Chromothripsis: Birth Defects May Be Caused By Chromosome Shattering

In a complex system like the human body, it's no surprise things can sometimes go wrong in development but evolution has made the system rather forgiving. When children inherit chromosomes from their parents, some minor genetic changes frequently occu ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 23 2015 - 10:24am

Herpes: Cytomegalovirus Hijacks Human Enzyme For Replication

More than 60 percent of the world's population is infected with a type of herpes virus called human cytomegalovirus, which replicates by commandeering the host cell's metabolism, but the details of this maneuver have been unclear. Researchers ha ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 29 2015 - 2:17pm