Stressed cells spark DNA repair missteps and speed evolution
...his happens, special protein machinery in the cell copies the missing DNA from another chromosome and rejoins the broken ends around the newly synthesized genetic material. "It fixes the hole in the DNA by copying similar information," said Rosenberg. However, when the process goes wrong, the repair proces...Clearing jams in copy machinery
...t the same time to one beta sliding clamp. Pol III copies the original DNA, and acts as a proofreader to catch any misspellings and cuts any base that is wrong. But Pol III is a perfectionist, and can stall if it encounters a problem. Pol IV, on the other hand, lays down bases without checking for errors, k...Study points to molecular origin of neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington's disease
...tter within the cell's nucleus asking for multiple copies of the amino acid glutamine, a building block of protein structure. These disorders are collectively known as polyglutamine diseases.Along with Huntington's, these diseases include spinobulbar muscular atrophy; spinocerebellar ataxia types 1, 2, 3, 6...Secrets to antibody's success against West Nile Virus surprise scientists
...n, the virus tricks the host cell into making more copies of the genetic material that can then be assembled...ingle viral particle or virion is comprised of 180 copies of this protein. For the new study, scientists determined the detailed structure of a single antib...Jefferson scientists identify gene defect leading to abnormal skin development and cancer
...evelop skin cancer late in life. Mice carrying two copies have severe defects in skin development related to keratinocyte (skin cell) differentiation. At birth, they lack external openings the nose and mouth are covered by skin, for example and live only a brief time. Previous studies had pinned the gene...Heme controls antioxidants and iron in ferritin
... protected in the nucleus, and mRNA is the working copies used to manage day-to-day information and cell work. "Our research shows that ferritin mRNA is sensitive to iron, ferritin DNA is sensitive to antioxidants like sulforphane and heme coordinates both DNA and mRNA," said Korry Hintze, a postdoctoral f...The shape of things to come: Morphology database going global
...mages on several machines ensures there are backup copies and can reduce both the amount of disk space on each machine and the cost to any one institution. Although scientists will be the only ones to have access to the system to deposit, retrieve or comment on items, the system is free and may be viewed by...Restoring silenced suppressor gene kills lung-cancer cells
...hers then used a virus engineered to carry working copies of the WWOX gene into the three cell lines. After...he lung-cancer cells to which they'd added working copies of the WWOX gene, and they transplanted the cells into mice; a second group of control mice received...Genetic cause of speech defect discovered
...archers discovered that the boy carries additional copies (termed duplication) of around 27 genes on chromosome 7. This is only the second instance of the identification of a single chromosome region linked to specific language impairment. The boy can understand what is said to him at the level of a seven-...Delving deeper into the machinery of cocaine addiction
...vation because it induces the gene to begin making copies of itself into messenger RNA that trigger protein production. In their experiments, the researchers studied a process called "chromatin remodeling"--in which the histone proteins enfolding genes are chemically altered to render the genes active. They......robacterium tumefaciens enters the wound where it copies the genes required for infection, which can slip i...required for replication of the plasmid. The extra copies of this DNA enhance the ability of the bacterium to cause tumors, which grow when a fragment of the ...Teens with deletion syndrome confirm gene's role in psychosis
... the researchers. While most people inherit two copies of the gene for the enzyme that breaks down dopami...zyme activity. For example, people who inherit two copies of val have 40 percent higher prefrontal cortex enzyme activity, resulting in more rapid chemical br...DNA size a crucial factor in genetic mutations, study finds
...air with an A. The rate that the enzyme accurately copies DNA is known as its efficiency. These rare and ran...ism can evolve,'' Kool says. ''If the protein that copies DNA prefers a molecule that's slightly bigger than natural DNA, then it can accept mistakes more rea...California computer scientists double volume of data in NIH biotech repository
...g into account that haplotypes of the children are copies of the haplotypes of the parents. As a side effect of their research, the computer scientists are now depositing 15 gigabytes of data into dbSNP, and their article in Genome Research aims to encourage the research community to use the data deposito...Zebrafish and CHIP help untangle protein misfolding in brain disease
...ly and the mice died earlier than in mice with two copies of the CHIP gene and normal levels of CHIP. These findings indicate that protein quality control is disrupted in HD and also suggest that boosting CHIP 's action may be a route to potential therapies. Paulson noted that in addition to showing that CH...UW scientists report a new method to speed bird flu vaccine production
... which, like tiny factories, churn out millions of copies of the disarmed virus to be used to make vaccines. In nature, viruses commandeer a cell's reproductive machinery to make new virus particles, which go on to infect other cells and make yet more virus particles. Vaccine makers use a monkey kidney ce...Twin molecular scissors link creation of microRNAs with gene-silencing
...g the guide miRNA, RISC then scouts for additional copies of its target messenger RNA to cut. The cutting destroys the messenger RNA, effectively silencing the gene from which it was transcribed. "The two enzymes in the complex are like two scissors working together in a concerted fashion, connected and coo...Sleeping sickness parasite shows how cells divide their insides
...processes of more complex organisms that have many copies in each cell. When thinking about how cells divide, doubling and separating DNA in chromosomes is often the focus. Equally important is the way a cell prepares its internal organelles for distribution. Warren studies the Golgi complex, a membrane co...Grants to fund research on preparing for bioterrorist attack
...recognize a virus (activation), how fast they make copies of themselves after recognizing the virus (proliferation and differentiation), and how quickly they destroy the virus and cells infected with it (clearance). With the simulator up and running, researchers can feed into it data from the many ongoing ...New microscope allows scientists to track a functioning protein with atomic-level precision
...whereby RNAP pulls in ("scrunches") a loop of DNA, copies each base in the loop, then grabs another loop far...rgy from the chemical reaction that occurs when it copies A, T, G or C. It's as if a machine that lays down asphalt could somehow be powered by the asphalt it...