UCSF team identifies gene crucial to blood pressure regulation
...ng sodium and water levels throughout the body. A disruption in thebalance of these factors can result in blood pressure problems. The researchers already knew that aldosterone was essential to maintainingnormal blood pressure, but its definitive link with the sgk gene had not beenmade. "Now that we know tha......he pattern in AD. "Remarkably, the amyloid-induced disruption of memory circuits was found in thetransgenic mice even before they developed AD-like amyloid plaques. Thisdemonstrates that plaque formation is not required for amyloid peptides toimpair the communications between nerve cells in the brain," said Nic...New targets for nerve diseases, nerve regrowth: It's all in the handshake
...e," says Schnaar. The reason stems, he says, from disruption of thelinkage between the gangliosides in the nerve cell membrane and a secondmolecule in its myelin sheath. That molecule, myelin-associated glycoprotein(MAG), is known to influence nerve cell stability. Mice with the gene for MAGknocked out also su...Young rats challenged as model for blood vessel response in older people
...blood vessels. Preliminary resultssuggest that the disruption in microcirculatory communication mimics that foundin older rats. The Penn State researcher notes, "Even though further studies need to beperformed to more completely describe how responses to I/R injury are alteredwith age, our studies sugg...Genetic variation in sensitivity to estrogen may mask endocrine disruption
...e genetic control over susceptibility to endocrine disruption byestrogen. "Many commercial outbred lines ...oses ofestrogenic chemicals resulting in endocrine disruption in fish and wildlifefailed to disrupt reproductive development in previous laboratory animalstudies,...Researchers discover genetic basis of heritable sleep disorder
...s case, however, one woman with a severe circadian disruption did seekhelp from Jones, a neurologist who specializes in treating sleep disorders. "Itturns out that her daughter and grandchild have a similar sleep pattern," saidPtácek. Jones approached Ptácek, who studies genetic disorders in hum...Genome tools pass big test in fruit flies
...its an evenlarger trial. Of course, the P element disruption technique is not the only tool thatresearchers are developing to analyze genomes. In a second research article thatwill appear in the same issue of Genetics , Rubin, Spradling and more thantwo dozen colleagues at several institutions in the United S...USGS studies wildfire ecology in the western United States
...uppression can now be clearly seen. In many areas, disruption of the natural fire regime has produced overcrowded forests with vast accumulations of dry fuel. Blazes that break out under these conditions may be far more destructive than the normal fires of centuries past and are often extremely difficult or imp...Mutation in PTEN gene can cause cancer and autoimmune disease
...eptibilityto develop tumors. In mice, the complete disruption of PTEN function leads to early embryonicdeath. Mice with a mutation in one PTEN copy (PTEN+/-) were found to have a highincidence of tumors. The most commonly occurring tumors were cancers of thecolon, prostate, and thyroid. The scientists also fou...Heart cells closely control their own oxygen supply
...rosis and other cardiovascular diseases may be the disruption of thisfinely tuned system of biochemical crosstalk between heart cells and the vesselssupplying them with their needs. "This is a system that controls the coronary blood vessels so that the amount ofblood flow to the heart is just right," says Saul ......lls regulate their growth and differentiation. Any disruption in these normal processes can eventually lead to cancer and other diseases. According to ONR Program Officer Eric Eisenstadt, understanding the architecture and logic of the cell's operating system could reveal new design principles for operating aut...How biological molecules move electrons: Simplicity trumps complexity
... finely tuned one that might be more vulnerable to disruption by mutations. Second, the results point to a greatly simplified approach to the design of entirely new biologically active molecules, likely to be of immediate use in drug development efforts, and construction of such molecules is already under way a...How alcohol gives, and then takes away
...ally lead to a decrease in dopamine release. This disruption of intercellular interactions or "chemical imbalance" can result in negative feelings such as anxiety, anger or in a craving for a substance, such as alcohol, that can alleviate the negative feelings. Yet because chronic drinking releases a continuo...Were the last dinosaurs roasted alive?
..., the researchers point to an earlier discovery of disruption in late Cretaceous sediments, possibly due to methane release, at Black Ridge off the coast of Florida. More recent activity on the sea floor suggests that trapped methane periodically escapes even in the absence of asteroid strikes. Oceanographers b...UC Berkeley biologist disputes current dogma that genetic mutation is the cause of cancer
...se of cancer. Rather, he says, cancer results from disruption of the normal number of chromosomes in a cell, pri...etic mutation, Duesberg says, is that the cellular disruption caused by having too many copies of an entire chromosome is much greater than that expected from a h...Gene tug-of-war leads to distinct species
...man and her colleagues sought to determine whether disruption of imprinting affects survival of the offspring. ...f abnormal overgrowth correlated directly with the disruption of normal imprinting of a number of genes in the animals. "In other words, the more overgrown the e...A new picture of the brain may reveal the key to Alzheimer's
... microcolumn organization is disrupted -- and this disruption may correlate with cognitive impairment," says Bul... there is a dramatic absence of microcolumns. This disruption of the microcolumnar organization is surprising and leads us to surmise that the loss of vertical or...Study links impulsive violence with brain's inability to regulate emotion
... subjects who have a genetic deficit that causes a disruption in the brain's serotonin levels. The serotonin sys... many of the brain regions described earlier and a disruption of the system has been linked to increased aggression. Davidson's analysis showed that these emotion...Zirconate material will improve plutonium storage safety
...ability to sustain high levels of damage without a disruption of the atomic structure accounts for the radiation stability of this material. "The currently considered titanate became completely disordered at relatively low exposures to radiation," said Shixin Wang, a U-M postdoctoral fellow and lead author on......he adolescent alcohol exposure showed the greatest disruption of working memory. These results suggest that binge-pattern exposure to alcohol during adolescence does something to the adolescent brain that leads it to respond differently -- more sensitively -- to alcohol in the future. "We believe that the adol...