Cigarette smoke causes breaks in DNA and defects to a cell's chromosomes, Pitt study finds
PITTSBURGH, Sept. 30 The amount of smoke in just one or two puffs of a cigarette can cause breaks in DNA and defects to a cell's chromosomes, leading to irreversible changes in genetic information being passed to a newly divided cell, according to University of Pittsburgh researchers. Their findings, to be reported Tuesday, Oct. 5 at the 35th Annual Meeting of the Environmental Mutagen Society,...DNA lends scientists a hand, revealing new chemical reactions
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Scientists have developed a powerful way of mining the chemical universe for new reactions by piggybacking collections of different small organic molecules onto short strands of DNA, which then gives the reactants the opportunity to react by zipping together. Their work draws upon an innovative technique, known as "DNA-templated synthesis," that uses DNA to code not for RNA or...A test case for DNA barcodes to identify species
Faced with what Ed Wilson calls the "worst wave of extinction since the dinosaurs died," the need for a fast and easy way to identify species has never been greater. With too few specialists to do the job, biologists are looking for high-throughput tools that can rapidly and accurately identify individuals from known species and from an entirely new species. In the open access journal, PLoS Biolo...Hidden diversity: DNA 'barcoding' reveals a common butterfly is actually 10 different species
PHILADELPHIA A common butterfly, found in a variety of habitats from the southern United States to northern Argentina, is actually comprised of at least 10 separate species, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania. ... Astraptes fulgerator, a medium-large skipper butterfly, is a routine visitor to urban gardens and tropical rainforests. While the "species" has been known to...DNA barcode finds four new bird species
The task of identifying Earth's estimated 10 million species has daunted biologists for centuries - fewer than two million have been named. Using a technique called DNA barcoding, researchers at Rockefeller University and two Canadian institutions have uncovered four new species of North American birds. The findings are reported in the September 28 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biolog...New sequence involved in DNA replication timing may aid in cancer detection
Bethesda, MD - Scientists have discovered a DNA sequence that is involved in controlling the timing of DNA replication. Because alterations in DNA replication timing are associated with cancer, this discovery may lead to improved methods for cancer detection....... , an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology journal....... Before a cell can divide, it must duplicate its DNA. Dupl...Poplar DNA code cracked -- a step in combating global warming?
Ghent - Forests cover 30% of the world's land area, house two thirds of life on earth, and are responsible for 90% of the biomass on dry land. So, the impact of trees on our daily life is enormous. Now, an international consortium - which includes researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) at Ghent University - has succeeded in deciphering the first tree genom...First glimpse of DNA binding to viral enzyme
UPTON, NY -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have produced the first molecular-scale images of DNA binding to an adenovirus enzyme -- a step they believe is essential for the virus to cause infection. The images, which appear on the cover of the October 2004 issue of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, show ho...Study by Israeli scientists provides insight on DNA code
A team of scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science has revealed the structure of a cellular editor that "cuts and pastes" the first draft of RNA straight after it is formed from its DNA template. Many diseases appear to be tied to mistakes in this process, and understanding the workings of the machinery involved may lead to the ability to correct or...How an insidious mutation fools DNA replication
DURHAM, N.C. -- Biochemists have pinpointed how a flaw in DNA that is central to mutations in cancer and aging fools the cellular enzyme that copies DNA. Their finding explains how oxidative DNA damage -- a process long believed to underlie cancers and aging -- can create permanent genetic damage. ......The Duke University Medical Center researchers' findings were published online Aug. 22, 2004,...Why damaged DNA gets a case of the bends
PHILADELPHIA -- Our knees may become stiff when injured, but banged up DNA becomes flexible, suggests the most detailed computer model of damaged DNA to date. Further, this flexibility explains how the body's enzymes recognize and fix damaged DNA....... "There's a lot of discussion in the literature about how damaged DNA is recognized by the repair enzymes," said Maciej Haranczyk, a staff scienti...Scientists reinvent DNA as template to produce organic molecules
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- By piggybacking small organic molecules onto short strands of DNA, chemists at Harvard University have developed an innovative new method of using DNA as a blueprint not for proteins but for collections of complex synthetic molecules. The researchers will report on the prolific technique, dubbed "DNA-templated library synthesis," this week on the web site of the journal Scienc...DNA variations surprise researchers
TORONTO -- Scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids), Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) have made the unexpected discovery that significant differences can exist in the overall content of DNA and genes contained in individual genomes. These findings, which point to possible new explanations for individual uniqueness as well as why disease develops,...DNA tests point to extinction of 2 distinctive arctic bird populations
(Kingston, ON) A Queen's biologist is calling upon the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) to add a well-known arctic bird to Canada's list of species at risk.... ...Two populations of rock ptarmigan from opposite ends of North America are in danger of disappearing permanently if conservation and management practices aren't changed, says ...Biology Professor Bob Mo...Rutgers chemist uses NMR to elucidate protein-DNA interaction
NEWARK — Determining exactly how proteins connect with specific DNA sequences in human cells has eluded researchers and scientists for years. While it has been possible to record the speed at which a protein could bond with DNA, little was known about how proteins located and connected with a specific pattern of DNA to allow genes to express themselves in the form of traits such as facial ap...Scientists have developed a new method for DNA amplification that could replace the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technique that is invaluable for both medical diagnostics and basic research but which is confined to the laboratory. In the August issue of EMBO reports, Huimin Kong and colleagues at New England Biolabs (Beverly, MA, USA) describe a way to copy mass amounts of DNA that overcome...Findings suggest need for new view of p53 cancer protein's interaction with DNA
PHILADELPHIA Perhaps the most commonly mutated of all cancer-linked genes is the gene for a tumor suppressor called p53. Scientists estimate that at least half of human cancers involve mutant p53. In the course of performing its regular duties, the normal p53 protein binds to DNA, and a number of cancer-linked p53 mutations affect the DNA-binding region of the p53 protein....... But precisely ho...Study finds first evidence COX-2 enzymes can regulate DNA damage
Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cancer Pharmacology report the first evidence that cylcooxygenase-2 enzymes (known as COX-2) are not only responsible for pain and inflammation but that they are also involved in causing the DNA damage associated with cancer.... ...Dr. Ian Blair reports this study for the first time on June 15th at the Annual Meeting of the Amer...(New York, May 2003) Scientists from the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC), a member of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, have developed non-invasive collection, extraction, and amplification protocols providing high quality DNA from an animal's dung. The DNA is targeted from cells sloughed from the gut lining. Their research techniques, publishing in the Journ...St. Jude researchers use DNA chips to determine how leukemia cells respond to different drugs
(MEMPHIS, TENN.April 21,2003) Investigators at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital have discovered numerous genes that alter their level of activity in characteristic patterns in response to specific chemotherapy treatments. The genes were identified in the leukemia cells of children undergoing chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). ...The researchers say this finding is a signifi...Access to DNA secrets yields better understanding of genes, possible tool for disease diagnosis
DALLAS July 8, 2004 A new technique for examining DNA is giving scientists a more detailed picture of which genes have the propensity for activation, offering a new tool for understanding how genes function and possibly for diagnosing disease.... ...The technology, called a chromatin array, was developed by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and is described in the July iss...How DNA repair machinery is a 'Two-Way Street'
DURHAM, N.C. -- Biochemists at Duke University Medical Center have discovered key components that enable the cell's DNA repair machinery to adeptly launch its action in either direction along a DNA strand to strip out faulty DNA. Such flexibility exemplifies the power of the repair machinery, which guards cells against mutations by editing out errors that occur during the process of chromosome re...Proteins transform DNA into 'molecular velcro'
Proteins critical for compacting DNA in preparation for cell division actually interact with the double helix to fashion it into a kind of "molecular Velcro," researchers have discovered.... ...The proteins, called condensins, are important for a variety of housekeeping processes in chromosomes, but the mechanics behind their function have been largely unknown. When the researchers alter...Junk DNA yields new kind of gene
BOSTON-In a region of DNA long considered a genetic wasteland, Harvard Medical School researchers have discovered a new class of gene. Most genes carry out their tasks by making a product-a protein or enzyme. This is true of those that provide the body's raw materials, the structural genes, and those that control other genes' activities, the regulatory genes. The new one, found in yeast, does not...Life goes on without 'vital' DNA
IT'S not often that the audience at a scientific meeting gasps in amazement during a talk. But that's what happened recently when researchers revealed that they had deleted huge chunks of the genome of mice without it making any discernable difference to the animals. ...... The result is totally unexpected because the deleted sequences included so-called "conserved regions" thought to have import...Molecular image of genotoxin reveals how bacteria damage human DNA
The three-dimensional structure of a DNA-damaging, bacterial toxin has been visualized by scientists at Rockefeller University. The molecular image of the toxin, published in the May 27 issue of the journal Nature, shows exactly how the toxin is put together at the molecular level and damages human DNA. The structure also could help scientists to design new drugs to fight the wide variety of bact...Chromatin remodeling may open up DNA to RNA-mediated silencing
In a finding that deepens our understanding of epigenetic regulation, researchers at the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology in Vienna have identified a novel protein in Arabidopsis that may help so-called short guide RNAs and silencing effector proteins target specific DNA sequences for modification.... ...The 'nuclear side' of RNA interference (RNAi) is increasingly recognized...Discovery helps explain how cells package DNA
COLUMBUS, Ohio Researchers have discovered a protein that helps cells package long strands of DNA into a tight ball that fits into the nucleus during cell division....... The study, done in yeast, should help researchers better understand how human cells cram more than 7 feet of DNA--the total length of the genetic material in our 46 chromosomes--into the nucleus, the tiny capsule that holds the...Experimental smallpox DNA vaccine protects primates from lethal monkeypox
In the first successful study of its kind, scientists have shown that a DNA-based vaccine for smallpox can protect nonhuman primates from monkeypox, a disease that resembles smallpox in humans. The study, performed at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and published in the May issue of the Journal of Virology, suggests a promising alternative approach to c...Clemson launches S.C. DNA Learning Center
CLEMSON -- Clemson University has teamed up with the nation's leading genetics learning center to help S.C. students and teachers understand the far-reaching impact genetics will have on the future.... ......Clemson Provost Doris R. Helms and David A. Micklos, executive director of the Dolan DNA Learning Center in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., announced the creation of the South Carolina DNA Lea...Stretching DNA on a tiny scale, researchers probe the basis for its compaction
Using magnets and video microscopy to measure the length of individual DNA molecules under experimental conditions, researchers have demonstrated that Condensin, a complex of proteins widely conserved in evolution, physically compacts DNA in a manner dependent on energy from ATP. The finding is significant because the Condensin complex, which is essential for life, has been known to play a key ro...Rewriting textbooks on DNA crossover
Key decisions in the genetic shuffling that occurs before eggs or...sperm are formed are made earlier than thought, rewriting textbook...genetics, according to recent papers from researchers at UC Davis,...Harvard University and UC San Diego. ... ...For sexual reproduction to occur, organisms have to form gametes (in...animals, gametes are eggs or sperm) with half the usual number of...chromos...DNA research highlights prostate cancer mechanisms
Certain prostate cancer cell lines are unable to repair DNA damage caused by "free radicals," according to scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). This type of damage has been implicated before in the development of prostate cancer, but the new research, described in the March 25 online edition of Carcinogenesis, provides th...Can you tell the difference between Quarks and DNA?
A survey commissioned by the Institute of Physics (IoP) has found that a staggering 98 percent of UK adults don't know what the world around us is made of. Just under two percent of those asked gave the right answer, quarks, the basic building blocks of all matter in the universe. The survey asked over 500 people what makes up the nucleus of an atom, and reveals a surprising lack of knowledge of...USC awarded $3.5 million to study DNA enzyme
... ...The National Cancer Institute has awarded USC scientists $3.5...million for a study of the enzyme that faithfully copies our genetic...information, enabling it to pass from one generation to the next.... ...The grant will fund structural, biochemical and computer studies...designed to reveal how the enzyme, DNA polymerase, makes so...few mistakes.... ..."This is a unique opportunity to ma...A new way to see DNA (and other tiny molecules)
ANAHEIM, Calif.--Like many objects of curiosity in the nanoworld, the DNA molecule has defied visual scrutiny because it lies beyond the "diffraction limit"--a 200 nanometer cutoff where the too-tiny escapes resolution by an optical microscope. ......Dehong Hu and Peter Lu, scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., report today here at the...How DNA copying enzyme 'stops the presses' for repair synthesizing enzyme
DURHAM, N.C. -- Biochemists have performed detailed structural studies that reveal for the first time how an enzyme key to DNA replication stalls when an error occurs, to allow it to be corrected. Without such instantaneous braking, such mistakes in DNA replication would wreak havoc on DNA replication, killing the cell. ...... To their surprise, the scientists observed how the enzyme, DNA polymer...Student creating polymers to chaperon DNA across cell membrane
Ordinarily, the cell membrane prevents invasion by foreign genetic material, which is why genetic engineers often have to use a pipette and forced air to jab a new piece of a gene through the cell wall into the genome in order to carry out gene therapy or introduce particular attributes into a crop or organism. ... ...But an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech has figured out how to chaperone...Moffitt teams with DNAPrint(TM) to predict patient response to chemotherapy
Tampa, FL (March 29, 2004) - Timothy J. Yeatman, M.D., Moffitt's Associate Center Director for Clinical Investigations at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, and the Sarasota-based DNAPrint genomics, Inc., have formed a joint research program to develop and implement new clinical tests for predicting patient response to cancer chemotherapies.... ...In the new pharmacogenomics...A debate over the origins of what is sometimes called "junk" DNA has been settled by research involving scientists at the Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology (CARB) and a collaborator, who developed rigorous proof that these mysterious sections were added to DNA "late" in the evolution of life on earth--after the formation of modern-sized genes, which contain instructions for making pro...