Scientists produce the scrip...( Imagine popping a movie into the VCR or...)

Imagine popping a movie into the VCR or DVD player and watching a list of credits for two hours--no movie, no plot, no dialogue--just the cast. That's the problem facing contemporary biology. The human genome project has provided researchers with a growing list of genes--basically a cast of thousands of characters, running life inside the cell. But the key to understanding life, both in health and sickness, is the script that outlines how these cellular players interact, communicate, and cue each other. In healthy cells, genes and the proteins they produce interact harmoniously to carry out vital life functions. When signals are botched and genes miss their cues, the result is disease.

Richard Young at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, David Gifford at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and colleagues, have developed the first comprehensive script describing how the yeast genome produces life. The results will be published in Science on October 25, 2002.

The researchers have identified how the cell's leading actors (called transcription factors) coordinate the action of all other genes in a living cell. "In the whole history of biology to date, we've come to understand gene regulation for only a few dozen genes. In the next few years, this new technology will allow us to unravel gene regulation across the entire genome of any organism, and thus the script underlying fundamental life processes," says Young.

"The implications for human health could be immense," adds Young. "The whole is so much more than the sum of the parts. Knowing how the key players work together in a healthy cell gives us an entirely new way of looking at all diseases and new targeted approaches to developing therapeutics and vaccines."

Until now unraveling the complex relationships between genes and proteins was a painstakingly long and tedious process, involving years of individual biochemical and molecular experiments. Advanced high-thro
'"/>

Contact: Nadia Halim
halim@wi.mit.edu
617-258-9183
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
24-Oct-2002

Page: 1 2 3 4
Related biology news :

1. Scientists to prototype cyberinfrastructure for research and education access to ocean observatories
2. Scientists sequence genome of kind of organism central to biospheres carbon cycle
3. Scientists find nanowires capable of detecting individual viruses
4. Scientists discover potential new way to control drug-resistant bacteria
5. Scientists explore genome of methane-breathing microbe
6. Scientists decipher genetic code of biothreat pathogen
7. Stuck on you: Scientists lay bare secrets of bacterial attachment proteins
8. Scientists discover proteins involved in spread of HIV-1 infection
9. Scientists fear new Ebola outbreak may explain sudden gorilla disappearance
10. Scientists reinvent DNA as template to produce organic molecules
11. Scientists visualise cellular handmaiden that restores shape to proteins